Back when I was at Western’s Graduate School of Journalism, the famous movie director Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Rollerball, ...And Justice for All, Agnes of God) put up the funds for a Norman Jewison Award in Creative Writing.
It might seem odd, or even ironic, to have a creative writing award in a journalism program. The rationale was that many writers fell into journalism so they could, you know, afford food. Many a working journalist had a manuscript of the great Canadian novel in their desk or a shoebox in the closet.
This would at least give those writers an opportunity to work that muscle. To be eligible, you had to be enrolled in an elective course taught by Peter Desbarats with a title something like “Journalism and the Written Word” (to get it past the University Senate. Creative writing was the exclusive purview of the English department in the Faculty of Arts).
Peter didn’t so much teach as moderate the course. And it wasn’t so much a course as what today they’d call a writers’ workshop. In the spring 1987 journalism graduation, I was honored to receive the Norman Jewison Award in Creative Writing. Actually, two of us won the award that year. Me and a fine poet. They said comparing merits of poetry and science fiction was too apples to oranges, so gave us both the award.
Jewison was not at the awards ceremony, so I was never able to thank him. I think he was off finishing Moonstruck. Hmm, us or Cher? Pretty easy decision. Norman Jewison died this week. He was 97. Thank you for the award, Norman. I’m still writing.