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...

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....

My newest literacy endeavour

Guess who’s learning Arabic? Since our Syrian refugee family arrived in Canada at the end of February, it’s been frustrating to have to communicate through an interpreter, so a few weeks ago, three of us hired an Arabic speaker to teach us. Although...

David Bouchard

I had the pleasure of hearing David Bouchard speak last night at the Limestone Education Centre in Kingston. David is a highly sought-after Metis raconteur, author and literacy advocate, whom I had met several times in my role as an educator. I came across this event...

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. If you want to sign up, there’s a whole organization to help writers achieve this goal, including tips, word-count tracking, pep talks, forums etc. It’s...