If there was a prize for the best author laugh in Can-Lit, Eden Robinson’s would be at the top of the list. Her unrestrained guffaw is so spontaneous and unselfconscious that, even as a stranger, you can’t help but be drawn in.
Robinson’s laugh filled CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto during the Writers’ Trust Awards ceremony last November. Robinson was greeting well-wishers on stage after being presented with the Engel/Findley Award, a prize that recognizes a remarkable body of work by an author in mid-career. Robinson found out about the $25,000 honour by phone at her home in Kitamaat Village – the Haisla Nation community on the north coast of British Columbia, about 10 kilometres away from the municipality of Kitimat – while waiting to hear back from a furnace-repair technician. It’s easy to imagine the eruption of delight that surprise call must have triggered.