Stella Leventoyannis Harvey

The Count Down Begins

Time is like a handful of sand—the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.” Anonymous   

Five weeks to go before the festival from h… I mean the Whistler Writers Festival. Yikes! I’m dumbstruck. We begin planning in November of the prior year. And when we do I’m full of hope. I check off tasks one at a time, calmly, gleefully. But now, as in previous years, all those last minute tasks rear their monstrous heads and scare me half to death.

How is it possible to have so much left to do when we’ve been working so hard all year? I don’t know. All I know is that I see time disappearing and my desperate attempt to hang on and grasp for more is for naught.

Still what can I do? The festival will be upon us one way or the other. So I put one foot in front of the other and tell myself onward. It’s both my battle cry and my meditation. It keeps me focused along with my to-do lists, spreadsheets, emails, and meetings. I love all this organizing (really!) but at the same time, hate it (really, really!!), but that’s the subject of another blog. Later. Much later. And maybe with some perspective.

For now, I would like to share a video Shaw TV Sea to Sky filmed earlier this week. You can probably tell how stressed I am (creases between the eyes, edgy smile) watching this piece, but producers, Ian Dunsmore and Kristy Aleksich and the festival’s very own Rebecca Wood Barrett, all went above and beyond to make me look good and sound as though I was in complete control. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all three. Thanks guys. I don’t know how you put up with me, but I’m so grateful you do.

And in case you’d like some reading, check out the latest blogs from authors Claudia Casper and Shelly O'Callaghan on our festival’s theme this year, Risk.  I’ve loved reading each of the pieces that have come in from our guest authors and look forward to meeting them all in five very, very (I think I’ve made my point) short weeks.

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