Writing a Book

I’ve always wanted to write a book (or two, or three). But it always seemed as though there was some alchemy involved, some incantation that you had to recite three times backwards before sitting down to write, or you’d never turn leaden words into gold. Lately, however, I’ve had the opportunity to see book writing…

Being a Book Addict (aka Bibliophile)

I am a book addict. There, I said it. Luckily being a book addict doesn’t have too many negative connotations. Except when it comes to moving house, and suddenly your book collection expands into a sea of packing boxes and you wonder if they’ve been procreating when you weren’t looking. It doesn’t help that I’m…

Wishing for Snow

I’ve just returned from another soggy dog walk. My rain pants and jacket are dripping on the floor, and the baseball cap I wear to keep the rain off my glasses is sopping. Not to mention the dog who – despite shaking herself off regularly along our 45 minute route – is soaked to the…

Becoming a Western writer

When I first read Wallace Stegner’s Wolf Willow, it stuck. Not just for days, but even years later I can recall the story in the middle of the great blizzard of 1906. Stegner layered history, memory, and landscape into a compelling narrative, and the deft shifts in writing style from nonfiction to creative nonfiction to…