“It’s something special when you find people who are genuinely interested in supporting your success” - Michelle Mungall, SCS learner
After fifteen years as an elected official, Michelle Mungall was ready to try something new. She discovered the Creative Writing program at SCS, and after honing her skills with us, will now be featured as a regular opinion contributor for the Vancouver Sun.
Mungall developed a passion for politics early in life.
“I fell in love with politics as a six year-old girl in pigtails listening to the grown-ups in my family talk about Brian Mulroney and the 1984 election. Something about the whole conversation and idea of voting hooked me instantly,” she explains.
“About the same time, I discovered I was an ardent feminist when a neighbourhood boy pushed me off the snowbank to declare he was the king of the castle and I was to clean up after the dirty rascals.”
That passion followed her into adulthood, where Mungall was determined to blaze many trails for women in politics, which included being the first Member of the Legislative Assembly to bring her baby into British Columbia’s Legislative House.
While she had always enjoyed writing, Mungall says she never thought of herself as a writer.
“It was just something I did, and wanted to do well, as part of my other responsibilities,” she says.
“When I retired from public life, though, I wanted to do something more creative, and found myself buying a new laptop and signing up for the creative writing certificate program.”
Mungall says she will certainly be able to apply what she learned through the program in her pieces for The Sun, as well as a memoir she has in the works.
“My writing has leveled-up more than I could have imagined. I’m a way better storyteller now,” she says.
“I really started to think about the voice and tone I use when telling a story. As a politician, there’s always an element of distance when communicating with your audience, even when being as open as you possibly can. That was deeply ingrained in me, and my instructors and classmates really forced me to look at this over and over again, challenging me to let readers into the story more deeply. I can still hear them and am rewriting sentences all the time with this in mind.”
As a working parent to young children, Mungall says one of the challenges of writing is simply finding the time to do it, and that getting her memoirs down on paper is its own particular hurdle.
“Accessing memories for a memoir is tricky, especially when you’re a tired mom of toddlers. I mean, it’s a win to remember to turn on the dishwasher,” she says.
“My instructors had excellent ways to dig into my own mental files for great stories.”
Mungall has kept in touch with those SCS instructors who have helped her along in her learning and writing journey. “It’s something special when you find people who are genuinely interested in supporting your success,” she says.
Getting feedback from her fellow students in class was also incredibly valuable, says Mungall.
“It was like a testing ground for ideas on how to tell a story and make a piece even better.”
Her advice to anyone considering taking an SCS creative writing course or certificates is simple:
“Dive in and soak up as much as you can.”
Mungall’s opinion contributions on everything from workplace issues for politicians or minimum wage workers, to energy transition, to human rights, housing, childcare, healthcare and parking will be featured in the Vancouver Sun beginning this spring. She hopes to tackle hot topics in a thought-provoking way that gets conversations going.