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Wonderful discussion
A lively discussion followed my presentation on Saturday at the Museum of Lennox and Addington. Several participants have ancestors who were Home Children. One woman has ten in her family. Another found the name of a relative in my book about The Newburgh Academy....
Finding Home creates a mystery
Why did Finding Home mysteriously appear at an OPP station? When writing my previous book, The Medal, a police officer at that detachment was very helpful. To show my appreciation, I arranged a surprise get-together where I presented him with a copy of the novel and...
Novel finds a home at Upper Canada Village
Since some of the research for Finding Home took place at Upper Canada Village, it seems fitting that the novel has now found a home in The Village Store there. I visited this historic site yesterday and dropped off twenty-four copies of the book. I also had my...
Books on Main reading
An enthusiastic crowd gathered on April 13th to hear readings from Finding Home and learn about the local connections to the story. Both Ruth and I talked about the fun of writing the novel together and shared some amusing anecdotes that happened along the way. Thank...
Review of Finding Home
A dialogue between the Past and Present
Historical fiction magnifies particular moments in time, provoking deeper thoughts about issues and opening a dialogue about how past circumstances may apply to our contemporary context. Finding Home is a novel set in the 1870s. How do its themes of: class...
Philanthropist Annie Macpherson
Annie Macpherson, a Scottish evangelical Quaker, was educated in Glasgow and London. Appalled by the poverty in London's East End, she set up several missions to provide meals and classes for children, and eventually opened the Home of Industry in Spitalfields, where...
Home Children
The Canadian government proclaimed 2010 The Year of the British Home Child, and issued a commemorative stamp to honour the thousands of waifs and orphans transplanted from the urban slums of England to Canada to work as cheap farm laborers or domestic servants. In...