Alumna lives her creative dream

The cover for Anne's first book

Anne Sorbie, BA’99, MA'03, has been published before, but her first novel marks her biggest literary accomplishment.

By Erin Mason

Anne Sorbie has just released her first book, Memoir of a Good Death, published by Thistledown Press.

As a mother of five and former production and revenue accountant in Calgary’s oil and gas industry, Anne started working on her BA part-time when her children were still young. Upon finishing her master’s degree, she taught English at Red Deer College from 2003 to 2005. Corporate freelancing, sessional positions and raising a family left precious little time for her creative work, but since 2007 Anne has been fully immersed in her own writing.

Since then Anne has published her thesis, Altar Ego: Gender, Property, and The Cult of Marriage as a monograph, her short stories have appeared in Geist and Other Voices, and her poetry in the anthology, Home and Away. Today her “kids” range in age from 23 to 30 and her biggest literary accomplishment is her novel.

Memoir of a Good Death is set in Alberta and tells the story of the last six months of Rhegan Flett’s life. Rhegan narrates her story from beyond the grave and her voice fuses with her mother, Sarah’s to form a shared memoir. “It’s a story that involves myth and it focuses on family and geography, especially on how the western Canadian landscape ‘infects’ the characters and influences their choices,” Anne says.

Although Anne submitted her book to Thistledown for consideration in 2008, it has been a work in progress since 2001. “The basic story began with my master’s thesis and has grown to become the novel, Memoir of a Good Death.” A significant number of University of Calgary’s creative writing master’s students have published their work soon after defending it, but Anne continued to expand and develop hers before trying to submit it to publishers.

Anne credits her supervisor, Aritha Van Herk, and the demands of U of C’s Creative Writing Program for establishing a solid foundation for her writing and publishing career. “Working with Aritha was a wonderful opportunity. She is known for her ability to help her students do their best work, and for many of us, that has meant the creation of a book length manuscript that’s been published. Aritha’s mentorship of students and her commitment to the growth of the Creative Writing Program is remarkable.”

Anne will be reading excerpts from Memoir of a Good Death at WordFest on Oct. 15 and 16. The festival will run from October 12 to 17 in Calgary and Banff. She recognizes that “it will be an honour to read with such accomplished Canadian writers.”

Anne will officially launch her book and kick-off her book tour at Pages in Kensington on Oct. 21. The first stop few stops on her tour include Red Deer, Edmonton and Vancouver. She’s already at work on her next novel.

To read more about Anne and Memoir of a Good Death, you can visit  www.annesorbie.com and the WordFest and Thistledown Press websites.