As many of you know I am the Secretary of the Writers Foundation of Strathcona County. We hold a writing conference every year. Our 14th will be held on 2nd May 2026 and the title is - Claiming Your Future Creativity Our presenters are experts in their field, so take...
As we celebrate National Tell a Story Day on 27th and Great Poetry Reading Day on 28th, this question arises. Why Read Books? For the consummate reader this is an easy question to answer - the love of story, the chance to 'escape' into a narrative, to indulge in a...
Is your character Suzanne Rickson a combination of real people, or not? Suzanne Rickson is inspired by my mother. While planning my first mystery novel and searching for ideas, I visited my parents at their retirement community on the West Coast of British Columbia....
Teen Literacy Day encourages younger people to read books and raises awareness for teenagers to be interested in reading more. Unfortuantely, teenagers are reading less and less and this is evident statistically: STATICS Back in 1980, 60% of high school seniors read...
As authors we all face rejection of our manuscripts at one time or another. Yes, we can be disappointed and disheartened, but the truth is a rejection doesn’t always mean the quality of our work is below par. There are numerous reasons it could be rejected by a...
As writers and authors, we not only write stories, but also enjoy reading them. It is part of the writing life to immerse ourselves in our own characters and their journeys, but also those of other authors - whether in the same genre or not. Reading books is a vital...
I am sharing a eerie story today. Let me know what you think in the comments. My Reign Ends I survey my domain with pride and strike a beetle scurrying across the floor. The spark of light is brief and tiny, wholly unsatisfactory. I am in wait of bigger prey. Night...
Did your writing process change between writing both novels? I had to do a lot more research for my second novel, At Least I’m Trying whereas Chasing Through Time was based primarily on real experiences I’ve witnessed. This made my second book much more challenging....
Photo by KoolShooters on Pexels.com In this month of love, we should remember why we became a writer, an author. It is the love of words that has engaged us to create characters and the worlds they inhabit. It is also partly a love of self too, we have found a...