Anna Fung, legal counsel at Intrawest, concurs. “I first met Anne when we were both admitted to UBC law school in 1981 and even back then she aspired to greater things,” says Fung. “She is always on a quest for the next achievement.” Some would say Giardini is a super-achiever, but she still takes time to smell the roses. Fung points out that Giardini has balanced her life to take that time.

“I remember Anne lamenting to me when she first started dating her husband Tony that she couldn’t see herself in a long-term relationship with someone who loved hockey and who didn’t care all that much for the arts,” says Fung. “Now, she attends her children’s hockey games and cheers them on from the stands while she is busily working away on her laptop on her latest novel or closing a deal. When she realized that Tony was going to be ‘the one,’ she took up Italian so that she could converse with his family.”

Giardini doesn’t see herself as a super-achiever. “I can’t carry a note, I’m a mediocre cook at best, and I can’t do anything that involves manual dexterity except type,” she says, “and my husband would be quick to point out that I can’t do anything around the house needing a screwdriver.”

Giardini’s Italian helped her write her second non-fiction novel, Advice for Italian Boys. “I used old proverbs from my mother-in-law that were in danger of getting lost,” she says. Her first book, The Sad Truth About Happiness, was naturally about happiness and unhappiness; the new book is about advice, and her next book will be about death. Giardini finished the second book about a year ago and started the third right away. “Why wait?” she asks.

How on earth does she find the time to write?

“The children are all teens so they don’t need me around as much anymore and I don’t watch much TV,” she explains. “As well, we still have our nanny who does everything, from housework to provisioning, I am thoroughly spoiled.”

Writing comes easily to Giardini, partially thanks to her mother, the late author Carol Shields, who taught her the “business of writing,” i.e. actually doing it and treating writing as a job. As well, both her parents were academics and instilled in her at an early age an interest in discovery.

At the ripe age of 17 she was at the University of Ottawa and didn’t know what courses to sign up for. “I was taking economics but someone suggested poli-sci,” she says, “and I thought that meant ‘many sciences.’ Instead of walking into a lab, the entire course focused on a book called Anatomy of a Coup, which was about how to overthrow a government. It was about power and that was all I wanted to know.”

So how does she make the leap from writing legal opinions to writing novels? “It’s like another language and I’m compartmentalized,” she explains, adding that the two genres complement each other. “The legal profession makes you less vague and more precise, you can’t make sloppy errors. And it helps to understand the dynamics of humans; it helps to be observant.”

As for novel writing, Giardini says she takes a lot from personal experiences, but it is still fiction, unlike her day job. At Weyerhaeuser, she says, “You can’t just be a dream weaver, you still have to get the work done.”

In terms of scholarly writings, Giardini has presented numerous papers and seminars on various legal topics to groups for many years. She is one of the co-authors of a chapter on aboriginal rights and industry that will be published in June 2009.

She is exploring working on a project to build affordable quality housing for Aboriginal Peoples, potentially through the formation of public-private partnerships involving both levels of government and private enterprise.

Amazingly, Giardini has always managed to find time for volunteer work, although she emphasizes that none of it is really “work,” she helps fundraise and “plan nifty events.” This year she is the chairwoman of the YWCA's Women of Distinction Awards; is the incoming chairwoman of the Vancouver International Writers Festival; and sits on the board of The Writers’ Trust of Canada, and she has been on her church board for seven years.

Deanna Stad frequently plays devil’s advocate with Giardini, asking her boss if she can realistically join another committee or take on another speaking engagement. “Often Anne will volunteer before she figures out how to get it done, so I will go point out other things on her agenda that will compete with her ability to do that.”

As for her long-term agenda, Giardini says she will continue to work and get involved in issues that interest her.

After all, she’s not that busy, over the course of an entire hour, her BlackBerry didn’t ring once.