The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Flin Flon author Glenda Walker-Hobbs recently expanded her literary audience at one of the province's largest book stores. She was at Winnipeg's Grant Park McNally Robinson last week to treat a crowd of poetry enthusiasts to readings from her book In and Out of the Shadows. "I was just on such a high, it's so hard to believe it actually happened," said Walker-Hobbs. "If there was one store I could have chosen for a debut, it would have been McNally Robinson. I feel like I'm getting somewhere professionally." For half an hour, the author captivated an audience of about 25 people with heartfelt poems detailing her lifelong struggle with weight. "I wrote the book on the theory that if you have a weight problem, you hide in the shadows, and when you lose weight, you come out," she said. Walker-Hobbs doesn't shy away from the somber details of her weight problem. The poems deal with issues such as prejudice, rude comments, and obscene phone calls. "In and Out of the Shadows relates in poetry a woman's struggles through the shadows of self doubt and pain caused by obesity and her efforts to stay within the light of self confidence that successful weight loss brings," reads a summary on the back of the book. The McNally Robinson store began carrying the book, Walker-Hobbs' third, in September. "Somebody predicted about five years ago that I would have a book sold in stores," said the retired McIsaac School Ecole McIsaac librarian. "You kind of like to believe, but until it actually happens, it's hard to believe." Walker-Hobbs is also the author of The Waldron Wild Cats, a collection of poems about the many cats in her life, and The City on the Rocks, featuring poems about Flin Flon with titles such as Smoke Stack Images, Autumn at Bakers Narrows, Mandy Mine, and Marijuana Capital.
