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Years ago, I crept away from my first ever writing conference like Eeyore on a bad day. Other people had wheelbarrows full of books and knapsacks full of trophies, or so it seemed. I had nothing. It all felt impossible. Instead of ...

The other day one of my boys said something so earnest, so honest, so…insulting really, that I wanted to rush straight to Facebook to post it so all the world could see a bit of my world  more clearly. It was  funny, ...

No more cheery waves to the cars zooming past our house in the morning when I collect the papers. My high of peace and good will from the Festival of Faith and Writing has long since ended. However, there are a few ...

This morning, not quite done with reunion cuddling, I slipped back into bed after wiping counters, washing the frying pan that produced the eggplant parmesan waiting for me when I arrived home last night, fetching the papers from the curb (and smiling, ...

Another turkey. Another abandoned attempt at making turkey soup. I always start the soup. I almost always forsake it half way through. I think that is because making turkey soup, by definition, follows thawing, wrestling, tying, roasting, resting, carving a turkey. And ...

The recent scandal of the Eastside Vancouver charity PHS Society and its massive mishandling and inappropriate spending of money -- funds that would presumably have gone to some of the most desperate neighbourhoods in Canada, sickened me. Such abuse of money. Such entitlement. ...

Great stories often start with great questions. And great questions are usually simple ones: What if? How about? or I wonder? Last Saturday, Wil Haygood, author of The Butler, sat at a table outside the gift shop at the Smithsonian National Museum of ...

This week I have encountered two dramatically different reactions from writers being edited. One response, from a young woman writing a difficult magazine piece, oozed professionalism. Whatever she felt inside, it didn't leak out. She completed the required revisions in 24 hours ...

I'm working on a project now that is sprawling and global. I will be working on it when I am 90. This is a project requiring different editors at different stages. And this is when editors remind me of hairdressers. I have ...

Years ago, on our honeymoon, we shared a  cab with a couple of hairdressers from Boston. The cabbie didn't understand their instructions to Trelawny Beach Resort. The tourists, meeting and surpassing every stereotype, raised their voices louder and louder so that the ...

My daughter was a little bit outraged the first time she discovered that I am sometimes hired to write things for people and my name may never appear in the published work. Their name does! I explained that they hire me to do ...

He makes me nervous. I was due to interview Dr. J.I. Packer, renowned theologian, best-selling author, wordsmith extraordinare in two hours when he called me to pleasantly request a brief postponement. Another hour for me to sweat bullets, sip more tea and ...