As a Canadian baby boomer, I've been a privileged person able to pursue my dreams and often achieve them, although being female I was never able to play NHL hockey, that Canadian dream. I've been richer and poorer at times, owned houses and been homeless, but always I've been having a fantastic life.
My biggest dream was to be a writer since my parents read me a zillion books when I was very young. Although my 3-year-old poundings on mother's typewriter didn't mean much to others. I've worked at writing all my life; written poetry, stage plays, short stories, and novels, and mountains of non-fiction over the years and had some of each published. That might suggest I'm an experienced writer, but because of my insatiable curiousity and desire to learn the new and different, I feel like a neophyte.
In the non-fiction area, my writing has generally been on 'social justice' topics, especially housing and public legal education, and I'm currently working on the history of the first women's shelter in Alberta started back in 1970.
While chatting with a friend recently, I realized once again that a central question of my novel writing is what happens when a person makes a decision they believe is a good one, takes consequent action, but it turns out to be a very bad decision. I suppose many people experience this is small or great ways, but it fascinates me. During the 1990s I had two mystery novels published that worked through versions of that story.
Another fascination has been the countries of Latin America: the histories, pre-Columbian architecture, the traditions, and world views of people in those countries. I have been lucky enough to spend time in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, plus Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize; trekking, vacationing, scuba diving, and often doing some English as a Second Language with Photography teaching.
Over the recent past, I've been combining those fascinations writing a novel about an Andean mestiza revolutionary.
