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Store manager pens book

Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Arviat (Feb 17/03) - There were times while writing her new book, The World's Answer: Suicide or the Cross, that Arviat's Norma Budden-Aningat wondered if she could continue on.

The Quick Stop manager turned author launched her book at the Donald Suluk Library late last month.

Aningat says the book deals with people who fell victim to suicide and the pain of those they left behind.

She says even those who have never known the pain of suicide should feel a lot of compassion for those who have after reading her book.

"There could also be people who read it and realize they know someone thinking the same way," says Aningat.

The daughter of a Hudson's Bay store manager, Aningat, 30, has lived in 15 different communities in her young life and now looks at Arviat as home.

The researching and gathering of information for the book took Aningat about two years to complete. The actual writing took another year.

"I took breaks from it at times due to professional reasons, and other times it hurt so much I just had to put it aside for awhile.

"Emotionally, it was an extremely difficult book to write because it's based on fact."

Most who shared their stories with Aningat did so on the agreement she wouldn't use their names or exact situations.

"Reading their names or the exact situation would be like living it over again and I understood that."

Aningat has just started a contest on her Web site (www.livingadream.biz) for people aged 14 to 18 and those 19 to 30 to write -- in 250 to 500 words -- why they think so many people commit suicide in Northern communities.

The contest closes March 31 and, by April 15, a winner will be announced from each age group. Winners will receive an autographed copy of her book and have their essay posted on her Web site.

Aningat says the sheer numbers of Northern suicides is staggering.

"My whole time living in Newfoundland and Labrador, there was one suicide I heard about.

"When you compare that to how many there's been in Arviat during the past eight years -- right across the North -- it really disturbs you."