Five Years a Writer

BACKGROUND : Danielle Smith is the premier of Alberta, a province in western Canada. Her government recently introduced legislation requiring local school boards to remove certain books from their shelves. Backlash ensued and the Smith government has  revised the legislation . We can imagine where this might end... My thoughts are below.  I don't have a photo of my parents' bookshelves. So here is my own shelf of "To Be Read" books: eclectic, including children's pony books that I now read for comfort; my e-reader (on the top) holds everything from mysteries to memoirs, from books on the craft of writing to cookbooks, and more. I can remember moving my finger along the spines of the books that sat on the shelves that lined the living room walls in every house we lived in during my childhood — the same teak shelves, holding the ever-growing collection of eclectic books my parents brought into the house. I was never looking for anything specific. I was exploring. ...

This is my fifth September as a person retired from full-time work. Sheesh. Time flies when you're having fun!  Looking back at how this trip began is wild: with the idea that one day I would retire, followed closely by a public commitment in the form of this blog. I created it in April 2018 but did not post anything until September 30 that year. What fun it is to remember way back then and to review where I find myself today in the fresh breeze of a new September... Paradoxically (or maybe not), while time has flown by these past 84 (!) months, maybe the biggest lesson I have learned is that matters of imagination and creativity can take a long time to gestate, to produce and to share. What, then, fuels me to call myself Writer/Artist, today? Over the years, I have thought about this, wrestled with it, and, finally, come to embrace it; i n November 2023, t he quote below sparked a piece of writing for me on this topic: ARTISTS : Stop belittling your work. Stop using “little”, “j...

“For it to last a lifetime, love has to be immense at the start.” Margaret Gore,  character in  Four Letters of Love  by Niall Williams  The hydrangeas planted two seasons ago are running amuck in the raised bed; they droop in the rain, get bashed by the wind, and their beautiful flower-heads hang from the stems as if tired in their home. They are not what I expected or what I want in that spot anymore. I am going to dig them up and move them. They have no choice in this matter.  Val and I mark 32 years together this August 31st, an anniversary we count on the day we got legally married 12 years ago. At that time, we had been together 20 years. But numbers don’t tell the story of a relationship. The roots that nurture it tell the tale. Our roots go deep, keeping us tethered in the here and now of being together, still, after all these years. We have had an ordinary life — ups and downs, health scares and health recoveries, job losses and career changes, parental...

We don't need to be a giant wave crashing onto the beach to have an impact. A small pebble tossed out into the water can create a meaningful ripple. My mother believed in telling someone what their work meant to her. She would often send me in to school with a note she had written to my drama, gym or music teacher about how much she had enjoyed X, Y or Z production in which I had participated. As a grade school kid, I was a bit embarrassed about what I perceived as odd behaviour on Mum’s part — why would my teachers care about her opinion? But as an adult, I, of course, recognize what a vote of confidence it was in those teachers, paying them not only respect for their work but offering the kindness of genuine appreciation for it.  Now, I do it, too, often taking it one step further. I communicate with the person to tell them that I appreciate their work, and sometimes I also offer up my own story as it relates to that work. Occasionally my message leads to nothing — literally; no ...

Last week's post contained many words and only a couple of pictures. This week's post has fewer words and more pictures -- words and pictures that tell the story of how I am feeding my creative spirit this summer.  Mostly, I am a writer, but I also love doing collage art, which I describe as my ' cross training ' that rounds out my art muscles and writer's brain. Regardless of the form it takes, my creative drive keeps me interested in, and focused on, making  things. In this world of ours, too often the objective is to simply  consume something produced elsewhere, so I find it soothing to the spirit to hold something in my hands that I have created myself, right here. One of a kind in every way.  Quite without intending to , one day  I discovered   that I had made a series of 'colour' collages -- all the same size, each one a celebration of a particular colour. Then, a promotion came across my email for 'print your own notecards' and I leapt on it...

Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood* by Hilary Peach Anvil Press (2022) *winner of Wilfrid Laurier University's 2023 Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction   Review  by Amanda Le Rougetel In short:  Five stars; h ighly recommended.  Buy the physical book; its weight (451 grams/15.9 ounces) belies the deftness of the prose contained within A FINELY OBSERVED , beautifully written account of a woman’s experience as the oft lone female welder on the job site. Crusty characters, foul language, sexist treatment, and good pay just about tell the tale. Without ever overtly teaching about welding or laying blame for her often less-than-honourable treatment, Hilary Peach brings the reader in to her trade and describes through story and characters what she saw on the worksites, how she experienced it, dealt with it — and survived it. Whether the worksite is in Peach’s home province of BC, across the US border, or down East in the Maritimes, her work t...

Four scenarios, three books and a few thoughts about how bloody slow some progress is...  SCENARIO ONE: It’s four a.m. and I am up for the day, having been woken by 17-year-old Holly, the cat who feels she needs fresh food *now*. I am too far gone by the time the tin is opened and the food served, so I just stay up, put the kettle on and tune in to CBC Radio to see if the episode of IDEAS catches my interest. This particular morning it does. Hilary Peach is giving a talk on her award-winning memoir Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood , about her career in welding. I am drawn in by her stories from the front line of her trade. SCENARIO TWO:  While I have never held a welding torch or cut, ground, and shaped metal pieces using immense heat, I have been in a classroom of pre-employment welding students who tested my mettle and almost caused me to run screaming from teaching as a job. That particular class was unruly and uninterested in learning anything I mi...