Frank Macdonald signed many copies of the new edition of his novel, A Forest for Calum, and was grateful to the warm reception he received from everyone.
October 22, 2025
-by Beverley Phillips
Frank Macdonald and his novel A Forest for Calum were celebrated on October 16th with a reading and a conversation with Tom Ryan, Jr. to mark the novel’s 20th anniversary.
With his foot in a cast, Ryan joked about putting his best foot forward with his role as host of the evening. And with his first question, Macdonald moved into storyteller mode. He began with a big thank you to Shelly Dwyer, for she was the driver behind this 20th anniversary celebration of the coming-of-age tale. “I didn’t know if anyone would care,” Macdonald said, “but I said ‘yes.’”
Dwyer arranged the evening and the artistic exhibit that accompanied it. In the Inverness County Centre for the Arts, there were paintings, fabric art, and sculptures all drawn from the vivid images Macdonald created in his book.
She came up with the idea while working at the Oran and reading his A Possible Madness. She thought it would be great to celebrate A Forest for Calum’s 20th anniversary because there’s now a whole new generation who haven’t read the book. “And there were so many vivid scenes in the novel that I thought it would make for a great exhibit at ICCA,” she said.
“And from there,” she said, “it just kind of snowballed. It was an easy ask. People who knew Frank and the book were on board right away, and those who were not familiar with the book immediately said yes, once they read it.”
With the anniversary comes a new edition, complete with a forward by Ryan and new artwork on the cover. Nimbus is the new publisher of the work, and they agreed that a painting from Virginia McCoy, Macdonald’s late wife, should be on the cover. The publishing company, Ryan explained, has also designated the book a Canadian classic.
As Macdonald read a passage from his book, the crowded room hung on his every word.
Following the reading, Ryan got Macdonald to talk about his writing.
Macdonald said he has always been a storyteller, and when he was young, he told stories to himself to help him go to sleep. “I also always loved to read,” he said, “but I never thought I could do this.”
He was well into university before he started putting down ideas that he thought could be a story.
But life happened, and he came home from school to take care of his father and started writing for the Oran. He also started working on a story. “50 years later, and I’m still working on that story,” laughed Macdonald.
It was the 1980s, when he was busy writing news stories, columns, and plays that he finally had his “I wish I could write a novel” moment. “But I still didn’t think I could, he said, “and I didn’t have much encouragement to do so.”
And then he met McCoy, and a friendship evolved. She wanted to be a painter, and because they both had similar dreams, they drew closer.
It was McCoy who instigated his novel-writing career. Alistair MacLeod, a local celebrated author, was in the Oran office one day when Virginia also happened to be in. She asked him if he thought Macdonald should go to the prestigious summer program at the Banff School of Fine Arts. MacLeod agreed Macdonald should talk to him about it. Macdonald was not amused that she did this, but he went to see MacLeod anyway. He was told to apply and to send in his best work.
And, sure enough, Macdonald got in. “I had the best summer of my life,” said Macdonald. “Our only responsibility was to write every day. But we weren’t writing stories. W.O. Mitchell once said that stories already existed within us, so we were writing about ourselves.”
That summer in Banff gave Macdonald confidence that he could write a novel, and he wrote the opening for A Forest for Calum that summer.
That was 1985. The book wouldn’t be published for another 20 years.
MacDonald received many rejection letters, some of them scathing, and he thought he was not a novelist after all.
But that changed when he met Mike Hunter. Macdonald was covering a book release for the Oran where he met Hunter, a publisher with Cape Breton University. The publishing company was going to expand from printing just textbooks to including novels, and he asked Macdonald to submit his book. Three months later, Macdonald got the call in the office that CBU Press wanted to publish it.
“I didn’t tell anyone in the office,” said Frank, “but I got up, and I went home. I found Virginia in her studio, and I said to her, ‘Virginia, how do you feel about living with Frank Macdonald, the novelist?’” “She was so thrilled,” Macdonald continued, “and the hug she gave me made it worth writing.”
“It was only three days past my 60th birthday that Mike called,” said MacDonald. “I’m so glad I didn’t quit.”
Judging from the warm reception in the room and the incredible art on the walls, it’s safe to say that everyone is glad that Frank didn’t quit.
