Evely:: Jacob
SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

ANCiS ANDREWS

would be the first to

admit there are more
rewards to being published
than profit from sales and
the ego-boost of seeing
one’s name in print.

But for someone whe has had
her name consistently spelled
wrong for 56 years, it must bring a
tremendous sense of vindication.

“When ! was a teenager |
would never acknowledge the
name Janice,” says Andrews, who
is making tea in the kitchen of her
daughter’s North Vancouver
home. “I’m not 2 typing error, |
always tell people,” she adds,
returning with hot tea and a warm
wry smile.

Vancouver readers are going to
see a lot more of Andrews’ name if
the West Vancouver author has
her way.

In January she had her first col-
lection of short stories published,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down
Your Hair (Cacanadadada,
$12.95), and Andrews has just
recently put the finishing touches
on the first draft of her first (as yet
untitled} novel.

Sh is waiting for her husband to
tun her manuscript off the
computer because, she confesses
with a hint of embarrassment,
“I'm afraid of my word pro-
cessor.”

Andrews is one of many writers
who doesn’t fee! her work is
complete until she’s able to see
the words printed on paper (as
opposed to a computer screen).

he’s also a writer who doesn’t
believe in divulging anything
about her story before it’s finished.

It's not because she fears her
ideas will be pilfered.

“can't tell you what my novel
is about,” she explains with a
gleam in her eye, ‘because if |
do, the story goes away. It’s as if
it’s a secret tryst with my charac-
ters: they will tell me their story as
long as | keep my mouth shut.
That’s the way it is.”

Just who is writing this book,
anyway?

“The characters in my story
have made it quite clear that they
don’t want to be interrupted by
any interlopers,’’ she adds, mat-
ter-of-factly. “‘So, | promised
them that I'd only write about
them.” Which means the short
leash her characters hold her on
only allows her to work on one
project at a time.

Talking to Andrews about get-
ting published would do wonders
for all aspiring novelists, especially
those who think they're too old to
try their luck. How she even put
pen to paper in the first place was,
in her own words, nothing short of
miraculous,

Born into a Welsh-Celtic home
in a Northumbrian pit village, An-
drews dropped out of schooi at
the age of 14 and ran away froma
violent home life.

“My father was half-mad, but
he +vas very clever with his
tongue,” she says, ‘‘He stripped
me of all self-respect and sexually

JANCIS ANDREWS he hey first book of short stories published
at the ages of 56. With he. career successfully launched, the West
Vancouver author should be able to write happily-ever-after.

abused my sister and !. | hated him
until | was 36, which was when
my mother told me about his hor-
rendous childhood. He was abus-
ed terribly. My grandfather should
have been jailed.”

In Bloodlines, her most
autobiographical work, Andrews
keenly conveys her father’s cruel-

“In those days there was
nothing to choose between
Maureen and me, for the two of us
were equally his victims.... But
mother was his main target. He
was superb at reducing her to
weepy incoherence, even though
his 5 gies were drearily repetitive
and came by rote. Gibe number
one: Your nose!... Your eyes! he’d
say next.... Little, squinty, just like
currants!” “Shuttup!”’ she’d
screech, “shuttup!’ ”’

Years later, when Andrews was
married and living in Canada with
children of her own, her sister ap-
proached her asking for help on a
letter of complaint to a local
department store.

‘| wrote the letter,”’ says An-
drews, “‘and all of a stidden I
thought, hey, she’s the one who
stayed in school. Maybe I’m not so
stupid after all.”

So at the age of 36, Andrews did
the unthinkable: she went back to
school, That’s when a fellow by
the name of Pierre Coupey came
along.

The Capilano College English in-
structor started noticing the good
stuff Andrews was turning out and
encouraged her to strive for a
larger audience.

“He didn’t say, ‘Jancis, bea
writer,’ he said, ‘You're a poet.’
That was the beginning.”

By that point she already had
one peem published in the
Capilano Review. Aiter that, her
short stories began appearing in A
Room of One’s Own, Yellow Silk
and This Magazine.

Most of her work is based on
real-life events, glimpses from the
past or split-second encounters.

Even though it had been 25
years since she set eyes on her,
Andrews vividly remembers the

obese young woman with flowing
locks of goiden hair who inspired
the title story for Rapunzel,
Rapunzel.

ndrews watched as the cor-
pulent figure tried to squeeze
through the bus doorway, bui
couldn't get by even with the
assistance of the driver who got
out to push her up the stairs.

A scene she witnessed in Hawaii
sparked The Keeper of the Keys, a
story about one man’s attempt to
save another from drowning. -

“1 saw a man swimming in this
big expanse of water from my
hotel window — he was in the
water for 20 minutes. Al} of a sud-
den | thought, am | witnessing a
suicide? (She wasn’t.)

“didn’t know what to do. So,
| picked up the phone to call the
police. | sat down and wrote the
story right then and there. My
stories are like that — something
triggers them. | never sit down and
say, ‘Now, what shall | write
about?’ ’’

Andrews says she was “‘scared
to death’’ of being published and
“terrified” of having her book
reviewed. Fad the critics been
unanimously negative, she admits
it would have shaken her con-
fidence.

But the reviewers turned out to
be kinder than one group of
feminists, who objected to
Rapunzel’s first story, A Sunset
Touch. In it, Andrews paints a pic-
ture of a frustrated, middle-aged
school teacher who becomes
obssessed with one of his teenage
female students.

“He rapes her emotionally
because he can’t have her. The
feminists objected to that, but 1
told them that | didn’t design it
that way. I didn’t tell him to do
those things — he did it, and 1
merely reported on what he did.

“if did it on purpase, ail I'd
be is a propagandist, not a writer.
I'm not writing to be politically
correct, but because these charac-
ters live in my head, and they
won't leave me alane until i've
written about them.”

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