If We Caught Fire
People sometimes see Newfoundland as the sunny and happy stuff of the tourism ads, but there’s a darkness and hopelessness here that can really seep into our psyches and our ways of being. I see it in my counselling office every day and it plays out differently for people depending on their experiences.
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Adventures in the Radio Trade: A Memoir
I did not want to write hagiography, a memoir that idealized the CBC, because I didn’t think there was any value in that. I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, so this is warts and all. But I also wanted to be able to look my fellow employees in the eyes after publishing…
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You Break It You Buy It
I’m trying to cut back on writing about toxic people and unhealthy relationships. I was in therapy a couple of years before Covid and during. I’m better prepared for manipulative antics. I keep certain people at arm’s length and I’m trying to be more self-aware. I’ve let go of some of the anger. I can’t…
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Mudflowers
The idea of “living up” to love, I think, is key here, especially as the characters undergo difficulties. Sometimes living up to love, for these characters, means accepting the flaws of those they love and learning to work with them rather than giving up or becoming overly judgmental.
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After the Harvest
My grandmother’s life was constrained by the formal realities of being a farm wife in the middle of the 20th century, as much as she would rather have gone to university and travelled more widely than she was able to. This is a constraint that was repeated from her mother, and her mother’s mother. My mother…
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