Local author Barbara Leimsner won the 2024 Whistler Independent Book Award (WIBA) for non-fiction with her debut book, Quitting the Master Race: A Daughter’s Journey to Break the Bonds of Hate, and she took the time to talk with me about it.
“[The] book awards are sponsored by the Writer’s Union of Canada,” says Leimsner, “that is a jury competition designed to pick the best of each year’s independently published books… It’s tremendously important for books like mine.”
The WIBAs are a stiff Canadian competition with only three categories: fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books. Leimsner knows they’re something special.
“I was very thrilled to be nominated, let alone be a finalist, let alone actually get the award. It was really gratifying.”
Barbara Leimsner. Photo provided.
Leimsner has called Ottawa home since attending Carleton University’s school of journalism in the seventies. Despite a decades-long career in corporate communications, however, she questioned whether her writing was good enough to be published.
“Ottawa has a really great writing community and vibrant cultural scene as well,” she says. “I still have to kind of tap myself on the shoulder and say, ‘yes, you are really a writer. You really do fit in that community.’”
Self-criticism is common for writers, but Leimsner has advice to share.
“Do it. Tell your story,” she says. “Write into what makes you feel the most uncomfortable and probe about that. It’s horrible. It’s awful. It’s hard work. But I think that’s where the story probably lies in a lot of cases.”
“It’s really important to find your unique voice and also to find your unique story to tell.”
“It has to be well told,” Leimsner advises, “so I would also say pay attention, really pay attention to the craft and learning the craft… I will take any and all courses about craft that I can find. I love learning about writing. I always learn something. You know that’s a big part of the fun for me.”
Leimsner gave herself a year to find a traditional publisher before deciding to self-publish with Friesen Press, a decision she doesn’t regret. “The benefits are that you… have a lot more control over a lot of aspects… a lot of people are independently publishing to great success.”
But, Leimsner points out that there are downsides to self-publishing, specifically that “traditional bookstores outside of my own region are unlikely to pick up an independently published book unless it’s already selling incredibly well and has broken through some algorithm somewhere and become a bestseller.”
This made me wonder what success looks like to Leimsner. “It’s really about connection with individual readers,” she says. “It’s really about having conversation… it is a tremendous feeling of accomplishment to be able to share a story like mine and reach real readers one-on-one in a meaningful way.”
Leimsner and her parents emigrated to Canada from Germany after the Second World War. She describes Quitting the Master Race as “an immigrant story with a twist.”
“The core question in the book,” she explains, “is how ordinary people come to buy in on and be mesmerized by hate-filled ideologies.”
“My book says, ‘hey, what ordinary people like my parents did or did not do during the rise of fascism in the 1930s is what swayed the outcome of history,’ so what we do in the here and now by standing up and being counted―if we don’t like what’s going on―also really matters.”
“The compassion and the solidarity that we show for others in times like these, I think, is really critical, and it is also an alternative to the vision that’s being foisted on us by others who would like to resort to authoritarian solutions in times like this.”
Quitting the Master Race is available at most independent bookstores in Ottawa as well as at The Ottawa Public Library and local Indigo stores, through Amazon and at Barnes and Noble in the U.S. To learn more about Barbara Leimsner, visit her website.
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