'The land God sat on.' That's what the wonderful poet and playwright, James Reaney, said about the place I grew up. There was no denying...

I was a theatre director in a former life and I've also been an editor. Directing has a lot of similarities with editing written works,...

I first remember my grandmother when she was around 55 years old. She looked the same to me until the day she died, aged 80. Grandma...

We all do it: we stop ourselves from asking questions, fearing we might create an awkward situation. This is especially true if we...

They were street decorations, put up by the town to make the holiday season more festive. They were supposed to make people cheerful....

When I decided that the characters in the story would span a number of books, I thought about where to start them and how to handle their...

Despite a long fascination with these incredible inventions, until recently I had used the terms interchangeably. Apparently, staircases...

When you're working on a murder mystery, you have to deal with the victim and the perpetrator -- what do friends, family, or...

Yesterday morning, I wrote a blog about a story that has shaped who I have become. It was a story about ignoring the improbability of a...

One of my favourite writers is Gregory Clark. Greg Clark was a Canadian original, a journalist and soldier, as brave in one as in the...

I bought it because I need to store old tax returns and receipts for the requisite six years. Since I do returns for a number of family...

When I'm writing a character into a story, it could probably be sorted into any number of groups. One of the most obvious to me while I'm...

The Christmas tree has been taken down and the decorations put away. We were a little late this year, probably because it was really hard...

I guess I'm a packrat. My desk is clean; my bookshelves are neat; every two weeks I fill the bin with the remnants of urgent necessity...

Just before I began to write Death of the Limping Man, I heard of the sad and untimely loss of Erin Wall, the wonderful American-Canadian...

Point of view is important to me. I see pictures in my mind; sometimes they're important enough to describe. Most often not. But some...

You never know what is going to get an idea rolling. I was working on an idea for a play and in my research came upon a newspaper article...