From winner Daniela Elza:

In a world where profit margins overpower values, ethics, and wellbeing, volunteer work fuels writing organizations, reading series, literary journals and many community building activities. The good kind of fuel, one that doesn’t cause lasting damage to ecosystems. The kind of oil you want to spill. It grows ecosystems for people. Writers and writing organizations survive, even thrive, on the work of volunteers.

When I began my journey as a writer one thing became clear: I was better off connecting with other writers. But where were these writers? I’d just immigrated to a new country. I lived in Maple Ridge. I started a three-people writing group and organized a conversation salon to ward off isolation and stay sane in a bedroom “community” where coffee houses were mostly empty. Some young people even traveled from Mission for the salons.

When I moved to Vancouver in 2003, I was alone with my writing all over again. Serendipitously, I met some dedicated writers running organizations which offered readings, workshops, writing groups, festivals, and book clubs. I was embraced and encouraged. Many of these events or opportunities wouldn’t have been there if the people who hosted them waited to be paid, let alone paid adequately. Here lies the tension between doing work that is necessary and work we get paid for. We say that the arts are worth dying for, but that does not mean we should let artists perish. Being part of a community was integral to sustaining and pursuing writing. But a community sustains through reciprocity and giving back. And so I did.

 It often feels that the work we do daily is never done and never enough, but it is. Rebecca Solnit says: “To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” I volunteer because I want to keep building the world I want to live in. Hope is never misplaced when you are actively working on what is life giving, what creates spaces where one can belong. David Orr puts it nicely, “Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.”

Much gratitude goes to the people who make this writing train run. Those who are putting endless hours, yet again, this year to book us for festivals, who organize readings to launch or feature our books at, those who interview us, write book reviews, those who judge contests and book awards, who read our work for journals that publish us, or provide a bed for us to lay our heads after the launches and celebrations. I have benefited from this generosity, and in return I continue to devote time to each of these activities, including now working on preserving our affordable homes here in my community. If I got paid for all the volunteer hours I put in, I can comfortably retire.

We are still waiting for the lens to shift on what work is worth paying for. We are still waiting for the lens to shift on work we should stop paying for—work which  wreaks havoc on land and people. But while we “wait,” volunteers do not wait. Even the work to defend our right to get paid is done on volunteer time.

Much gratitude goes to you, who wrote in to recommend me. Thank you to each of you who has supported me with your generosity. You are on my gratitude map. Thank you to the League of Canadian Poets for this award.

Deep gratitude to my parents who taught me not to shy away from hard work. Do a good deed and throw it on the trash heap, they would say. Imagine the lovely trash heaps we would grow in a world like that.