Welcome to My Blog
An Evening with Jean Chrétien
A consummate story teller, Jean Chrétien shares personal and professional anecdotes about his decade as Canada’s Prime Minister from his book, My Stories, My Times.
The Boy on the Beach
The world remembers the photo of two-year-old Alan Kurdi, who died on a beach while his family was escaping the war in Syria. His aunt Tima Kurdi,a Vancouver-based journalist, was among the over 70 local, national and international authors invited to present at...
Home Children
The newly-written subplot of my novel, Finding Home, underscores the mistreatment of the Home Children and the suspicion with which they were viewed. The earliest child immigrants were brought to Canada in 1869 by Annie Macpherson, who predated the better-known Dr....
Recruit
The origin of this personal memoir was an exercise at my Writers’ Group. We had all contributed one word to ‘the hat’. At each meeting we read a short piece of writing based on the word drawn the previous week. This was my response to ‘Recruit’. I was happy with the...
The National War Memorial
Barricaded and fenced. Accessibility denied. The National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa has been cordoned off from the public since April for 'major restoration'. The work will be completed in time for the Remembrance Day ceremony on November 11th. I was sad not to...
Throwing rocks at Sarah
Our novel, Finding Home follows: 1) Sarah, an English orphan as she makes her way to Canada in 1870 to find her family, and 2) Richard, the privileged son of a sawmill owner who is trying to find his place in the world and regain his father's respect. When the...
Who’d a thunk it?
I retired from my career as an educator in 2003. At the time I kept all my literacy resources, thinking that I would like to volunteer to help people improve their reading skills. That didn't happen. But guess what? More than a dozen years later, I'm still writing...
Coincidence?
There was no room in the first session I attended at Drum Camp last Thursday afternoon, so I sat on a bench on the deck and played along, watching the leader through the open window. Two other women joined me. "Hi, I'm Laurie." I held up my name tag. Jan and Irene...