Life and writing in lockdown

When this is all over… I hear that phrase often these days as everyone, me included, wants life in 2020 to go back to ‘normal’ as soon as possible, whatever that ‘new normal’ will be. For the moment, though, life (and for me, writing), have to go on in lockdown. As...

A time of losses and gains

One of my favourite series of books, loved in childhood and which I still return to as ‘comfort reads’ as an adult, is the Little House stories by American author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Those books taught me about resilience, cheerfulness in the face of difficulties,...

Saying goodbye to my childhood home

I’m writing this post from my hometown in the Canadian province of Manitoba, a place I left when I was in my early twenties and, apart from brief visits, I built my adult life elsewhere. Now, though, I’m doing the final clear-out of my late parents’ home in...