Michael Winter

Before Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, there was the same sort of talk of young men sacrificing their lives so that a country might grow - that somehow it had been a great nation-building success for Newfoundland.

You can't go wrong with major life and death stories when it comes to a competition, so I thought I'd have a go at writing one.

If you are having trouble with a story, it may not be an issue with the quality of the writing - there may just be too much of it.

Beaumont-Hamel sits within a thousand acres of French agriculture. The trenches are under this blanket of grass. In the 1920s, a park was established here and trees from Newfoundland imported to encircle the battlefield so you get the feeling of being within a copse of woods.

If you look at footage of the Newfoundland Regiment, you see they are at rest and giddy and being silly with one another. Silliness is the antidote to trench warfare.

The greatness of being an artist is the kind of ridiculous guffaw you can have at one's own misery. 'That was miserable! Now how can I write about it?'

I've grown up, luckily, with only a distant relationship to war and soldiering.

When you join the army, you are asked to lay down your life for your country. That is a tremendous oath to take. In return, a good country should offer that soldier every possible means it can to allow that soldier to stay alive and, upon return, healthy - both mentally and physically.

I've never in my life categorized a year of my life as good or bad. I just think I'm living a good life, warts and all.

The fantastic thing about the memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel is that it's one of the rare examples where they've preserved a battlefield more or less as it was. You can see all the trenches, where the British were, where the Germans lined up.

I approached writing a story for the CBC Literary Awards as a mercenary venture - $5,000 for one story, not bad. Now, how do you win it? Jurors are wading through skyscrapers of paper, looking for one story that stands out.

Linda Svendsen's 'Marine Life' was important. I was nearly 22. Larry Mathews discussed the book in a creative writing class. We examined her stories, figured out how they worked.