Five Years a Writer

The Woman who Swallowed West Hawk Lake by Deborah Schnitzer London, ON: Ardith Publishing 2026 available through Amazon Review by Amanda Le Rougetel This highly original and creative novel, presented in multiple layers of memory and textual artifacts, challenged me to think beyond what I expect to see on the pages of a book, and to hand myself and my reading experience over to the unfolding storylines within its cover. Two young children, a girl and a boy, suffer a sense of isolation from their extended family members when their mother is taken ill and taken away from them. When they visit her, they sense she is no longer the mother they thought she was to them. Meanwhile, the man they call ‘nazi’ — spelled lower case when referenced by the children but upper case when the adults discuss him — is hanging around, apparently taking photographs. Why? Who is he? And what has really happened to their mother? The children’s deepening sense of unease is coupled with a growing understanding o...

  January 1985: Hecate's Players performing in Fort McMurray,  Alberta, at the invitation of  Women of the North.  From left, Amanda Le Rougetel, Kathryn Ivany, Lisa Walter.  Look at at those serious faces (and bad hair) from more than four decades ago. Oh my goodness. I want to believe we didn't take ourselves as seriously as these pics suggest, but in 1985 we had so many things to say about the plight of women in this world, and say them we did. To each other, the general public and to politicians, at meetings, around tables and from stages. I have always enjoyed performing on a stage (ever since I played the shoemaker’s wife in Grade 2), so establishing a feminist theatre collective in the early 1980s with a bunch of university friends was not a stretch for me. Indeed, it was a natural outlet for my burgeoning politics. We named ourselves Hecate’s Players, after the goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology “variously associated with crossroads, night,...

The apartment block was one of those red-brick walk-ups, with the wooden fire escape steps and landings up the back outside wall. Units facing front looked out over the street, those facing back had the view of the alley. Neither position was particularly favourable — noise was ever-present, though the front view did include patches of scrappy grass and a couple of flowerbeds that persisted even in the face of neglect, the hostas and bleeding hearts unimaginative but reliable. In unit 4-A lived Hope. She had been there a long time, ever present like the noise but quieter, more elusive than the traffic and the stray cats. Nonetheless, she was the anchor of the block, older than most other residents, “seasoned” is how she described herself, and easily identifiable by her perennial purple boots and red sweater. “Make a statement — or make me a better offer,” she liked to joke with a wink to anyone who commented on her style. Knocking people off their rock-solid assumptions was, maybe, Hop...

In our house, the day is done once we have watched the news, Val has prepared the cat’s overnight food, and I have closed up the big windows, always finishing with the kitchen window. In the height of the summer months, the screen on this window, which has an overhead light, used to be a manic bug circus: moths, mosquitoes and other winged and buzzing insects dancing at the screen, trying to get to the light on the other side. To avoid trapping these creatures between the screen and the glass, I would shut off the light to encourage the insects to fly away. Then I would close and lock the window. But a few weeks ago, I noticed there were no bugs — no bugs at all dancing at the screen when I went to close the kitchen window. The silence and the empty screen shocked me. Where have all the bugs gone? Wait. No need to tell me. I know; we have brought this on ourselves. Enough said. Well, maybe fifty words more: I wrote a micro piece about that bug-less window-closing experience; it was pub...

Hearing my words spoken by a stranger was an unexpected delight. When she burst into song — well, that took the experience to the next level for me. It all began about a year ago when I read a piece of my writing on a local early-morning CBC radio show. Morris Bay, self-declared Poet Laureate for Seniors and founder of Company of Poets, heard me, contacted me, and subsequently invited me to read that piece at a local event he puts on monthly at various seniors residences. I went, enjoyed reading to a new and appreciative audience, and have stayed in touch with Morris. About a month ago, he emailed me. He and his poet-friend James were putting together an anthology of poems by those who had read at one of his events in the past year or so. Was I interested in submitting something? My knee jerk response was, Ha, too bad I don’t write poetry. But my more considered response was, Hang on a minute. Of course, I do. Some of my writings include poetic compositions and, sometimes, I quite del...

Back in the spring, when my friend Jane asked me if I wanted to share stories about our mutual friend Kathy who is facing health issues, I said YES! immediately. I didn’t first wonder if I had any stories from our time together four decades ago or if they might be worth sharing, I simply committed to remembering and to sending along what I came up with. I sat down that same day and spent some time thinking about my years in Nova Scotia, and my friendship and community activism with Kathy in that province. The memories came trickling, then flooding in  — meetings, rallies, gin & tonics, boat rides, meals.. . I wrote them up, simply, unadorned, and sent them to Jane, as others did, too, and now a booklet of memories is in the final stages of production for sharing with Kathy’s family. I come from a family of memoirists, so writing about one’s life seems normal to me, and I certainly know the value of doing so — I have plain photocopies of writings that go back to my grandparents ...