About
People are so many things, all at once, haphazardly heaped and occasionally shifting. So it is that sometimes even the most considered labels lie. But then ... so do storytellers.
Sylvia Stopforth is a librarian by training, an archivist and editor by happy accident, and a writer by choice and for sheer love of the thing.
She is also the child and grandchild of Mennonite refugees and immigrants, grateful to be living and working in the southwest corner of Canada, on the traditional lands of the Semiahmoo First Nation and the broader territory of the Coast Salish Peoples.
She has a degree in English Literature from SFU, which her mother suspected was merely an excuse to read. (A wise woman, her mother.) She also holds a Master’s in Library and Information Studies from UBC.
Sylvia loves books, trees, and snacks.
A Proust-ish Questionnaire ...
Interviewer*: What is your perfect idea of happiness?
Sylvia: Reading a very good, very thick book. In the shade. Under a tree. There would be snacks …
I: What is a trait you deplore in yourself?
S: A self-indulgent weakness for commas … and ellipses …
I: What is the quality you most like in others?
S: A tendency to call ahead. Also a generous approach to sharing (their) snacks.
I: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
S: Seriously?
I: Yes.
S: No, that’s my answer: “seriously?” Apparently I am easily astonished.
I: Who was your first crush?
S: Kermit The Frog.
I: What do you consider your greatest achievement?
S: True and lasting friendship. Which is, of course, always a shared accomplishment.
I: Where would you most like to live?
S: Inside a well-stocked library. There would be snacks …
I: What is your most treasured possession?
S: Memory containers. Books; music; photographs; a postcard my father sent me when I was four years old and he was away.
I: Who are your favourite writers?
S: Seriously?
I: Seriously.
S: Impossible to choose.
I: Try.
S: Randall Jarrell, for The Animal Family. Ursula Le Guin, for too many to list. T.H. White, for The Once and Future King. Markus Zusak, for The Book Thief. The Brothers Grimm, for their collected Marchen. The writers of the Bible. J.R.R. Tolkien, for hobbits. Charlotte Bronte, for Jane Eyre. Daniel Nayeri, for Everything Sad Is Untrue. Lewis, for most of Narnia. Tove Jansson for everything! Shaun Tan – likewise.
I: Who is your hero of fiction?
S: Horton. (Seuss). And Anne. (Montgomery)
I: Who are your heroes in real life?
S: People who care for the needs of others.
I: What is your favourite journey?
S: Following a gifted storyteller into another world and thereby finding my knowledge of this one greatly enriched.
*Note: this interview was conducted by the voice inside Sylvia’s head. The voice takes no responsibility for errors of fact or fiction.
" There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away."
- Emily Dickinson, "A Book," from Emily Dickinson: Poems, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd (1896)
