I just got the news that my book Back to the Garden will be out by the end of January or early February next year. I can’t wait to hold...

I have been absent from these pages for a while. Trying to write close to 2000 words a day during the month of November in order to meet...

I just got back from the Surrey International Writers’ Conference and my head is spinning. What a great time we had! There were inspiring...

Because the main character in my novels is a gardener, the theme of “the garden of Eden” is a natural fit. I use it in all my titles,...

Who was the first known woman writer in English? I’ll give you a clue: she wrote in the late 14th century. Still stumped? Don’t feel bad....

Every so often my church calls on me to do the “Prayers of the People,” so I respond and read my prayer. If I have a modicum of writing...

When I was in England last month I did some research on the fascinating life of my United Empire Loyalist ancestor Michael Eisan, the...

I’m off to England for three weeks for a much needed vacation. We’re doing a house/car swap with a good friend in Aldeburgh, Suffolk....

Borealis Press is going to publish my book Back to the Garden! I am so excited I have been sitting on this news waiting until I actually...

The NDP “won” the position of Opposition party in yesterday’s election, but it is a very pyrrhic victory indeed. Consider well where most...

The other day, I got together with my grade two, grade three and grade four teachers, their husbands and mine. My grade four teacher...

My early morning thoughts ramble higgledy-piggledy like an old woman in a nursing home. Oh, let me not grow old like that! On Saturday I...

Whatever I understand, however falteringly, of the theory of relativity comes from long car rides across the prairies where you can see...

I believe there is no such thing as a stupid question; what seems very simple is often profound as well. I used to teach a bridging...

The more important your work is, the less you get paid. Ask any mother. For that matter, ask a writer! Did you know that if you pay $20...

In 1795, my Dean ancestors decided to emigrate from Northern Ireland to New York. Not surprisingly, it was the political situation that...

It has been a long time since I blogged!  I have been busy finishing my final novel in The Pleasure Gardener’s Companion series. It is...

George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen, was an eccentric. He had three mistresses that he set up in three great houses all over Britain– the...

On April 12, 1792 , armed with five pistols, eight boys declared war on the Principal and Patrons of  their school in Belfast, Ireland....

There once was a brother and sister who lived in Belfast at the end of the eighteenth centry– Henry Joy and Mary Anne McCracken. They...