Lately I have been experimenting with pictures, sound, and video as storytelling tools. Part of my process has resulted in completely new works; some of it has involved enriching stories already posted on this blog. I will share new works with you in future posts. For now, I invite you to revisit past posts with … Continue reading
These past few weeks, I have been counting my blessings. In a writerly sense, this year has already brought me a shortlisting and publication of four short fictions. Later this year, I will be a Writer-in-Residence at the Peter Cowan Writers Centre, thanks largely to my 2017 FAWWA residency and my refusal to be genre-bound. I … Continue reading
It’s a bit like Rumpelstiltskin, isn’t it? While everyone else is sleeping, you channel ideas into golden threads, weaving them into stories and settings. Because writing fiction is a mysterious act. Being able to conjure entire worlds, let alone characters and plots, from beyond one’s own mind is a kind of magick. “Writer” seems an … Continue reading
In 1984, a six-year-old girl who fancied herself a writer attended a school she didn’t like with a crotchety teacher she liked even less. The adults in her life convinced her that she should learn to fit into this school-shaped hole and find something other than writing stories to earn real money, because money was … Continue reading
She watched her mum preen and pick out a dress, putting her hair up, looking her best. “Why can’t I come with you? I don’t want my bed. I want to be an adult right now!” she said. Her mum replied softly, “My dear heart, don’t fret. You have plenty of life ahead of you … Continue reading
I don’t get writer’s block: I get sharer’s block. I missed last week’s blog post because of it, the first one I have missed all year. Sometimes I write a piece and I think, ‘That’s pretty good!’ But, by the time I have given it a day or a week to ferment, it morphs into … Continue reading
I am regularly asked, “Where do you get your ideas from?”* and I get eye-rolls when I provide my dull-but-true answer [usually: “I don’t know”, “life”, or “my head”]. Because I want to be able to regurgitate a wholly modern yet fabricated response next time I am so accosted and my response is disbelieved, I … Continue reading
