The write stuff
Meet Mona Anderson, friend, neighbor and author Mona Knight
The first time I met Mona Anderson and her husband Jim I knew we were going to be friends as well as neighbors.
They are the kind of people who feed your pets when you are away and hold onto your spare key for that one time in nine years when you lock yourself out of the house.
They retired here in 2008, relocating from Toronto. Jim is originally from Baddeck, while Mona, who grew up on a farm near Orillia, Ontario, took to life in Cape Breton like any CFA.
“I love it here,” she says.” I never want to leave.”
She laughs good-naturedly at the acronym.
“They call me a CFA because I am.”
An avid sailor, painter, gardener and writer of short stories, she is now adding author to that list with her new book, “Banjo Flats.”
The book actually started as a short story, “Reversal of Fortune,” one of four she has had published to date. The main character is a girl named Fortune. Orphaned at 13, and disguised as a boy, she drifts into the Dakota Territory where her talent with a gun gets her into trouble. Since it is written in the first person I have to wonder how much of Mona is contained in Fortune. “Probably a lot,” she says. When I ask where on earth this wild-west story came from she has no answer.
“Something just comes into you from somewhere out of the ether. I didn’t plan anything. ”
She picked the year 1873, because “I needed really fast guns” and by then the Colt 45 was commonplace. As for the characters, a lot of them “didn’t make it,” she says. “The body count is quite high.”
Mona’s creativity was apparent at an early age. When she was seven years old her grandparents gave her a typewriter for Christmas along with a little plastic printing press. Her talent came naturally.
“Mom and dad could both draw and paint,” she says.
Mona moved to Toronto as a young woman and held a wide variety of administrative positions, many of them involving correspondence in the days before e-mail.
Twenty eight years ago she met Jim. They both loved sailing and even lived on a boat for a time. She started focusing on writing short stories when they moved onto the boat for the very practical reason that she had no room for paints and easels.
In 2008 they retired and rented a home high on a hill overlooking Nyanza Bay. Mona began writing regular articles and features for The Victoria Standard. She also joined a writer’s group. When that group faltered she joined a second one which flourishes to this day.
“I really need them. We have a huge degree of confidence and trust in each other,” she says.
When I press, she admits to being more than a little nervous about how the book will be received. However, when I ask what this experience has taught her she answers quietly but proudly, “I did something I didn’t think I could do.”
Mona credits Jimmy with being a big part of creative process.
“Jimmy read it as I wrote,” she says. “He was just the best guy. In the end he suggested I use my own name, Knight, which was very emotional for me.”
When I point out it is also a very cool name, she simply nods and smiles.
With the interview over I head home carrying my autographed copy of “Banjo Flats,” a gift I will treasure. As I walk down the long, steep driveway I have walked many times before, it suddenly occurs to me that even though I have known Mona Anderson for almost a decade, I am really just beginning to get to know Mona Knight.