Anne Giardini
Anne Giardini is an author, lawyer, and the eldest daughter of late Canadian novelist Carol Shields.
Giardini is licensed to practice law in both Ontario and British Columbia. As a journalist, Giardini has contributed to the National Post as a columnist. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband of more than 25 years and their three children. She has written two novels, The Sad Truth about Happiness (2005) and Advice for Italian Boys (2009), both published with HarperCollins. With Random House Canada, Giardini will be releasing (as editor) Startle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing in 2016.
She is currently serving as the 11th Chancellor of Simon Fraser University.
Since 2008, Giardini has been president of Weyerhaeuser Company Limited, a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company in the forestry industry. Prior to her role as president, she joined Weyerhaeuser in 1994 and became Canadian vice-president and general counsel in 2006.
She is an active volunteer and on the board for a number of local Vancouver organizations. She is a board member for the Vancouver Board of Trade; chair of the board of the Vancouver International Writers Festival; member of the board of directors for UniverCity at SFU; deputy chair of the board of governors at Simon Fraser University; supporter of Plan Canada, volunteer for Vancouver YWCA's Women of Distinction Awards, and Young Women in Business.
Giardini was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in January 2013 for her fundraising efforts for Plan Canada’s “Because I’m a Girl” campaign, which supports females in Tanzania.
“I used to float along in all of this, like a leaf on a coursing stream, but i am heavier now, less easily moved, more resolute and steadfast. I am no longer in pursuit of happiness. As I stand here at my front door, key in hand, I think it is just possible that happiness, at least for now, today, this hour, may be in pursuit of me.”
“Life is perphas after all simply this thing and then the next. We are all of us improvising. We find a careful balance only to discover that gravity or stasis or love or dismay or illness or some other force suddenly tows us in an unexpected direction. We wake up to find that we have changed abruptly in a way that is perculiar and inexplicable. We are constanly adjusting, making it up, feeling our way forward, figuring out how to be and where to go next. We work it out, how to be happy, but sooner or later comes a change-sometimes something small, sometimes everything at once- and we have to start over again, feeling our way back to a provisional state of contentment.”
“My tears brought no sense of release or relief. Their flight felt like the lightest, coldest touch of a departing lover.”