Five Years a Writer

Way back in 1997, when I was mid-career toiling in the trenches of corporate writing, I was desperate for some professional development. I wanted a shot in my career arm by learning from someone with deeper skills and broader experience in the writing field than I then possessed. It was a tall order, because I didn’t want a full-length program; I didn’t want a PR, marketing or advertising focus. I wanted the teaching to be laser focused on the craft of writing. Where to find that in a market of certificate- and diploma-length programs, all of which danced around the edges of capital-W writing? What is the perfect course for a writer? When I eventually landed on two options, offered through a local university’s continuing education division, I was afraid my no-nonsense boss would turn down my funding request. Would she see the transferable value — for both me and the organization — in a creative writing class and a creative non-fiction class? As it turns out, she did, signed off on both...

The film She Said , which depicts the work of journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey to break the story of Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct allegations, will be released in Canada later this week, on November 18. It is not necessarily easy to put words to emotion, to describe a horror experienced, but it can be made possible if someone is willing to listen. My post today is a tribute of sorts to the women who have spoken out, indeed, to all women everywhere who speak their truth into this world, who have the courage to say what happened. #mfgp Why not say what happened? Well. A thousand reasons. You don’t want to hear. You don’t want to know. You cannot listen. You will not listen. But it happened. To me. Blood and wounds and rape and fear and loss and theft and hurt and pain. It all happened. If not to me, then to someone. To some woman.  It happened. Listen or not, I say it happened. But words bring shame. Words build walls. Words can wound and maim and kil l —  the sp...

I’d like to be an ostrich. All around the world, people are casting their vote for political leaders promising easy answers to complex problems. Democracies everywhere are at risk from populist politicians and far-right-wing ideologues. What a troubling thought for those of us who want to believe in the goodness of our neighbours and the wisdom of our political leaders. However, with each autocrat or hard-right-wing leader elected, I lose another glimmer of hope. I am not an ostrich. I cannot bury my head in the sand. I must pay attention to the world around me. Turning inward and ignoring what is happening out there does not make it go away or diminish the harm being done to our democracies. At the very least, I tell myself, I must know the days' headlines, which, last week, included news of right-wing conservative Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu being returned to power in Israel and Jordan Bardella being elected as new leader of France’s far-right Rassemblement National (R...

In my Sunday afternoon writing group, this image was the prompt for our weekly writing task. Interestingly, some of us saw a squirrel where others (me included) saw a bunny. The picture inspired me to write this fable. “But who are you if you cannot burrow?” asked the bunny. “And who are you if you cannot fly?”, asked the bird. Both creatures were resting on the cold white snow, so recently fallen it was unmarked by humans’ grit or grime. They had come face to face, quite unexpectedly, these two quite different beings, though both quite beautiful. They had been surprised to see each other on that hillock of snow, but not shocked. While not yet old, they were wise enough to know that any day can bring surprise and joy or grief and sorrow or all those feelings in any combination. While the one hopped and the other flew, they both were part of their surroundings in a way that human animals rarely are. The bunny asked, “What is flying?” And the bird replied, “It is soar...

“Lady, get a hobby!”  “My dear, you should volunteer. Giving back is very rewarding.” “Good grief, what a problem to have: Too much time on your hands.” “Love your work not your job.”  These comments and variations on them came my way recently after my personal essay about my first year in retirement was published in The Globe and Mail. While I had titled it “Beyond 9 to 5”, the paper’s title is “I was struggling with the new-found freedom that retirement brings” — less oblique, better search-engine optimization. Fine, the editors know what they’re doing. And, as evidenced by some of the 80+ comments posted in response online, many readers of my essay know what they’re doing in retirement and are free with their advice to me about it. See above comments.  Of course, in any group of people, there will be those who know it all and have the answer for you — cannot imagine why you even have to ask the question. But there are also those who share your question and considerat...

Dear Hey you! Covid: Please GO AWAY! I’ve had enough of you and your insidious presence. Lurking in the background everywhere. Masked or not, we are vulnerable to your incursion. I am tired of tiptoeing through life. I want to feel the joy of going out and about without worry about who will cross my path and breathe you out into my presence. I want to meet and congregate and share time and space with others without concern for the danger you present. Alas. You are dangerous, Covid. And you continue to lurk in the corners and spread in the open. So I will continue to live with caution, to avoid the crowds, and to mask (in the age of Covid, a noun that has become a verb). It is a fine line between friendly and foolhardy, between cautious and captive, and I walk that line. Every day. Once the real cold comes, with snow and wind and ice, then I will be truly tested. For now, I go out and about, but I am trepidatious and I wonder, constantly, about how sensible I am being: Should I take ...

“Are you Katy’s little sister?” “Are you related to Katy?” “You look just like Katy!” I heard these comments for much of my early life. It wasn’t until I spent a year in France after high school, on my own, no family with me or gone before me where I was staying, that I realized it was possible for me to be me without my older sister as reference point. That year, I stepped out of the shadow of comparison and came into my own. An associate of mine told me of a horrible experience she had had with a professional writer whose feedback to her on a short story was, “This is terrible writing. You may as well give up right now.” My associate put down her pen for several years before having the courage to once more pick it up, and it took more time still before she dared share her writing with anyone for feedback. When I was about 11, my French teacher was Monsieur Caillé . I loved him more for his red hair and beautifully groomed beard than I did for his classes, but when my best friend’s m...