Today is an exciting day for me.

I am thrilled and honoured to be one of this year’s inductees into the Peterborough Pathway of Fame.

I am grateful that Peterborough has chosen me—just as I chose Peterborough.

My husband Neil and I made a conscious decision to move to the city back in 1988, when we were expecting our first child. We were attracted to Peterborough because of its high quality of life and because it was reasonably affordable for a young family. That way, our mortgage would be a little less crushing—although, to be fair, it still felt pretty crushing at the time!

Having a bit of financial wiggle room proved to be the game changer for me as a writer. I didn’t have to work full-time at a day job and then try to write books in the evening, after the four kids had gone to bed. I could afford to make writing my day job—to see if I actually had what it takes to establish a career as an author.

As it turns out, that gamble paid off. My books have sold over three-quarters of a million copies to date; and I just started work on a brand new book—Book 26, if anyone is keeping track.

But here’s the thing: I worry about the up-and-coming generation of writers. Will they have the same opportunity to pursue their writing dreams here in Peterborough, just as I did?

The math doesn’t seem to add up.

According to The Writers’ Union of Canada—Canadian’s national association for published authors—a typical Canadian author makes just less than $10,000 a year. That’s roughly 75 percent less than it was two decades ago, back when my very first book was being published. It’s never been easy to make a living as a writer in Canada, but in recent years it has become a whole lot harder.

And given that houses in Peterborough are getting more expensive, not less (an average home in the city now sells for well over a half-million dollars), I’m worried that the up-and-coming generation of Canadian writers simply won’t be able to afford to make Peterborough their home, like I did. It’s pretty clear that those sky-high housing prices pose an existential threat to the local arts community.

And so today I want to urge everyone in Peterborough who cares about the arts to understand the need to invest in arts funding and to ensure an adequate supply of artist-friendly housing (in other words, housing that artists can actually afford to live in). The City of Peterborough’s 2012 Municipal Cultural Plan noted that investment in arts, culture, and heritage yields an 18-to-one return on investment. That means that every dollar that a municipality invests in arts, culture, or heritage attracts roughly $18 dollars in added investment. And that’s just considering the impact of the arts in terms of dollars and cents. It’s impossible to calculate what the arts actually contribute to our collective quality of life.

So that, in a nutshell, is my hope for Peterborough—the community where I chose to raise my family and where I had the privilege of being able to establish my career as a writer.

I hope that Peterborough will acknowledge and celebrate its arts community in the very same way that I am being celebrated today.

I may be the writer whose name is being added to the Pathway of Fame, but it truly takes a village to raise a writer.

Thank you for being my village and for continuing to be the village for other writers.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio. She wrote this speech for week’s Peterborough Pathway of Fame ceremony—an event that ended up having to be postponed due to rising COVID-19 numbers. The organizers hope to hold an in-person celebration when that becomes possible again.