2003 Fredericton Encaenia - Ceremony B
Graduation Address
Delivered by: Johnston, Wayne
Content
"Author Stumbles Upon Great School" Telegraph-Journal (30 May 2003). (UA Case 67, Box 3)
To inspire these graduates of 2003, the university chose Mr. Johnston, an award-winning author, UNB graduate and Newfoundland native, to give the encaenia address. The audience was not disappointed.
Mr. Johnston had nothing but praise for the university where he created his first successful novel. He said that coming to UNB from Ottawa (to complete his Masters in creative writing) felt like coming home.
"It feels that way again today," he added.
Mr. Johnston originally decided on UNB because his wife Rose had been accepted into a doctoral program in Atlantic studies. He told the crowd that he also came because the university, for reasons that continue to mystify him today, paid him a fellowship of approximately $9,000, twice the amount of money he had made working for a small newspaper in his home province of Newfoundland.
"I had by way of motivations purely mercenary and pragmatic stumbled on one of the best schools for creative writing in North America, and therefore in the world," Mr. Johnston said.
(Reporter’s remarks omitted)
Rather than dispense long lines of wisdom and pour advice upon the waiting students, Mr. Johnston delighted the crowd with stories about his own life experience.
"I used to walk to the university," he said, "from an apartment building on Wetmore Road and I would sometimes stop, in the heat of that first September, and smell the spruce trees, a smell that always brought back to me my childhood in Newfoundland. While doing so one day, I was attacked by a Rottweiler, who owner, I am fairly certain, taught at UNB. It was as if the dog had been sent to say, 'Yes, yes, spruce trees are all very well, but you’ve got to get on with it.'"
Mr. Johnston said he started his first book, The Story of Bobby O’Malley, in his second week at UNB and finished it in April, eight months later.
After amusing the crowd with stories of his somewhat crooked path to his current occupation, Mr. Johnston candidly told graduates that "good writing, like good fortune, does not come easily to anyone, nor should it.
"Most of you will have many jobs in your life and many will end up in occupations seemingly unrelated to their university degrees. That is the way of things in the year 2003. I am often asked why I took up writing, and my answer is always and truthfully this: because I am blessed with an inability to do anything else with even a trace of competence.
"In my worst moments, I think that the pulse of these times is very rapid and very faint. I sometimes think that if I had to label this era in history I would call it pre-apocalyptic. That’s what 14 years living in Toronto can do to you. What a sanctuary, what a place of respite, a university can be. There isn’t one among those of you graduating today who will not have occasion to think so sometime in your life.
"Let life happen to you. Don’t try too much to control it. Keep in mind the importance of chance and coincidence. Accept unlooked for, unhoped for opportunities and friendships."
To inspire these graduates of 2003, the university chose Mr. Johnston, an award-winning author, UNB graduate and Newfoundland native, to give the encaenia address. The audience was not disappointed.
Mr. Johnston had nothing but praise for the university where he created his first successful novel. He said that coming to UNB from Ottawa (to complete his Masters in creative writing) felt like coming home.
"It feels that way again today," he added.
Mr. Johnston originally decided on UNB because his wife Rose had been accepted into a doctoral program in Atlantic studies. He told the crowd that he also came because the university, for reasons that continue to mystify him today, paid him a fellowship of approximately $9,000, twice the amount of money he had made working for a small newspaper in his home province of Newfoundland.
"I had by way of motivations purely mercenary and pragmatic stumbled on one of the best schools for creative writing in North America, and therefore in the world," Mr. Johnston said.
(Reporter’s remarks omitted)
Rather than dispense long lines of wisdom and pour advice upon the waiting students, Mr. Johnston delighted the crowd with stories about his own life experience.
"I used to walk to the university," he said, "from an apartment building on Wetmore Road and I would sometimes stop, in the heat of that first September, and smell the spruce trees, a smell that always brought back to me my childhood in Newfoundland. While doing so one day, I was attacked by a Rottweiler, who owner, I am fairly certain, taught at UNB. It was as if the dog had been sent to say, 'Yes, yes, spruce trees are all very well, but you’ve got to get on with it.'"
Mr. Johnston said he started his first book, The Story of Bobby O’Malley, in his second week at UNB and finished it in April, eight months later.
After amusing the crowd with stories of his somewhat crooked path to his current occupation, Mr. Johnston candidly told graduates that "good writing, like good fortune, does not come easily to anyone, nor should it.
"Most of you will have many jobs in your life and many will end up in occupations seemingly unrelated to their university degrees. That is the way of things in the year 2003. I am often asked why I took up writing, and my answer is always and truthfully this: because I am blessed with an inability to do anything else with even a trace of competence.
"In my worst moments, I think that the pulse of these times is very rapid and very faint. I sometimes think that if I had to label this era in history I would call it pre-apocalyptic. That’s what 14 years living in Toronto can do to you. What a sanctuary, what a place of respite, a university can be. There isn’t one among those of you graduating today who will not have occasion to think so sometime in your life.
"Let life happen to you. Don’t try too much to control it. Keep in mind the importance of chance and coincidence. Accept unlooked for, unhoped for opportunities and friendships."
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