bio

Right from the start, I started writing. Ink must have flowed through my veins, although my first tool was a yellow HB soft leaded pencil.

Chapter 1

My Grade 2 scrapbook holds my first piece of fiction, a ghost story called Spook Bones, set in a graveyard. I didn’t know how to relay a conversation with a ghost so I simply lightened the pressure on my lead pencil to convey the essence of a spirit. Rainy days at the lake as a kid would find me in the upper bunk bed writing mystery stories or walking along the wet sand working on my plot. I set up my first study in the privacy of my bedroom closet with a children’s table and chair and my night lamp.

Chapter 2

English was my favourite subject in high school, my university major, and led me straight into a reporting job at the daily newspaper. Back to university again for more lessons in Can Lit and 19th century women’s literature.

Chapter 3

The book and magazine publishing workshops in Banff kindled my love of words and I was soon off to the high-energy world of magazine publishing in Toronto.

Chapter 4

I turned to corporate communications when I moved back to Alberta, writing and editing a health magazine for the province’s health authority.

Chapter 5

When semi-retired, I freelanced for magazines and newspapers. Favourite feature-length subjects are health, lifestyle and travel. (Did I mention travel?) What Sag doesn’t have a bag already packed? Although now it seems my date of birth makes me an Ophiuchus. These days, my suitcase is a lot lighter, full, instead, of words and pictures from international destinations and little-known outposts. In my next chapter of life, I think I will become a word traveller.

Chapter 6

I’m now retired and living out Chapter 6, although I suppose, more correctly, I’m in the Third Stage or Third Chapter of my life. My desire to write and travel is unabated,  and the opportunity to travel further, and for longer, now presents itself. We are beginning with the furthest destinations from Canada, and have travelled to Hong Kong and Shanghai, Scandinavia and Iceland, Australia and New Zealand, Mauritius and South Africa, Chili, Portugal,  Thailand and Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan. I hope you will join me along the way.

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