Prison gardens foster rehabilitation and healing for incarcerated men, according to a study funded by The Canadian Institute of Health Research, reported on in 2019. Many agriculture programs in the correctional system focus on the financial benefit of offsetting institutional costs, but in Canada, a prison garden program engages incarcerated […]
Wendi Stewart – Wendi with an ‘eye’
Wendi lives in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, but the farm on Rainy River in Crozier will always be her home. MEADOWLARK, her debut novel released September 15, is published by NeWest Press of Edmonton. She is the mother of four daughters who did the unforgivable: they grew up. http://wendistewart.writersresidence.com
If you’re feeling down about the state of the world, and there certainly is good reason to these days, I have another antidote for you—join a community group of gardeners. It’s a failproof remedy for all the troubles in the world. That may seem to border on hyperbole, but I […]
Summer is coming, though it seems doubtful, judging by the temperatures here in Nova Scotia. My heat has been on all but one or two days for the entire month of May, and with those chilly temperatures, rain has tagged along. I will not complain about the rain since most […]
A friend of mine was recently trapped by a Telus impersonation scam. I don’t know all the details, but suffice to say, the scammers violated her security and sense of safety, having accessed her bank accounts and credit cards. I am amazed at the number of scams I receive via […]
I’m still trying to convince myself that I am a watercolour artist, with tongue in cheek. The qualification in my case is laughable, but what a lot of fun I am having. Something that interests and confuses me is the colour names of watercolour paint. I found one source that […]
Someone I love has started down the path with dementia. No one wants to take that road; we would put up our hand and say no thank you, but we’re not always driving the bus. I hear friends and neighbours express the shock of how many of us fall victim […]
Do you believe poetry can change the world? Your immediate response may not support that premise. I’m certainly not a poet, but after stumbling upon the poetry of Daragh Fleming late last year, as I wrote in a column, I changed my position. Recently, I collided with Harry Baker’s poetry, […]
Yesterday was Red Dress Day, observed every year on May 5 as a National Day of Awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit people, a response of mourning and a demand for action. The Red Dress is a powerful visual symbol. The first colour used in […]
Lately, I seem to spend too much time pondering the concept of being elderly, and if I qualify. We like to label each other, that’s for sure, and no less when it comes to age – toddler, teen, millennials (who seem to me to get a bad rap), middle-aged, and […]
Sometimes I like to imagine how I would have spent my time if I had a second run at living my life, given the chance. The exercise may sound laced with regret, but on the contrary, the imagining is just for fun. There would be a few things I would […]
I regularly tune in to CBC Radio’s “Bookends” whose tagline is “when the book ends, the conversation begins.” Clever. This program replaced “Writers & Company,” of which I was a longtime fan, when Eleanor Wachtel retired in 2023 following thirty-three years on the air. The host of this new version […]
I have long been a fan of Rebecca Solnit, and her books are prominent on my shelf. Men Explain Things to Me, published in 2014, is dog-eared and read repeatedly. Solnit has a wisdom that comes from having been a witness to and victim of domestic violence as a child. […]
