For my book club: if, like me, you can never quite find that e-mail.

If you were at the June book club meeting at Earl's, you'll know how this challenge came about. If you weren’t, or were there but didn't hear it, here's how it happened:

while discussing The Flying Troutmans, Christine said, "I felt like anyone could write down a slice of their life and win the Giller prize". I thought that was a cool idea- we're all intelligent, interesting, articulate women - let's all try doing just that!

So, that's the challenge: Write a little slice of your life. It can just be a few sentences, a paragraph, or an entire chapter. It could be something that happened yesterday, or decades ago; or even something about to happen.

It could be fact or fiction (keep us guessing), prose or poetry - whatever floats your boat. Illustrate it with photographs or sketches (a la the Book Thief!) if you want. Let's have fun with this. Draw on inspiration from your favourite book, if it helps. Toss ideas back and forth with your friends. Tear pages out of your journal! But let's all try it. We can either share our writing at the September meeting, or if that's too intimidating, just share what the process of writing was like. Was it difficult? Did anything unexpected arise? Did it suck so much you never, ever want anyone to suggest it again? Do you see books and authors in a different way after that? Most of all, have a sense of adventure about it – nobody’s marking this or expecting perfection. You’re not handing it in to your English prof. Think of it as a journey into the mind of a writer, and this time, the writer is you.