I was sorting through old photos the other day and came upon four-year-old me with my cat in my arms. Muff was my first pet. She had the softest of soft furs, pussy willow grey, trimmed with a white face and four white paws. She had a serious demeanour at […]
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
A coincidence is a remarkable occurrence of events without an obvious causal connection. We rarely take note of these occurrences, but yesterday one such event stopped me and …. got me thinking. On my desk was a blank piece of paper on which I had written COLUMN followed by the […]
Today is Nassau’s birthday. He would have been thirty-nine years old on June 28th. He was my precious friend for twenty-five years. Only a lucky few understand the deep connection one can have with a horse. Myrna gets it; she knows what I am talking about. I met Nassau when […]
I have a growing library of works by and about Indigenous people. These books have become precious to me, valuable tools for inspiration, for education, for empowerment. Some are old and some are new, but each one has something important to tell me. I will read from them today, on […]
Quite by chance, I stumbled upon a story about a pop-up restaurant in Tokyo, that confesses right in its name that meals sometimes go awry. It is the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, with one very special quality — all the servers are living with dementia. 37 per cent of the […]
I recently read of Stan Grant, a journalist and writer, in a career spanning more than thirty years. But he is first a Wiradjuri man, of the Aboriginal people of central New South Wales, Australia. I tuned in to watch the video of Grant’s explanation for stepping down from the […]
I come with a surgeon general’s warning, not for my safety but for yours. Let me explain. I was out hunting for blueberries yesterday; not the berry itself, but the plant upon which the berries will grow. This involved a trip to four garden centres for the varieties I wanted […]
I recently saw a portion of an interview with Taylor Swift where she explained that differences between women and men in the music industry still exist. The language used creates barriers, where a male musician’s behaviour is described as “strategic”, while the same behaviour in a woman is referred to […]
On May 8, 2023, Connie Walker won a Pulitzer Prize and a day later won a Peabody Award. The Pulitzer was in the category of Audio News and the Peabody for Podcast and Radio. I’m sure Walker has yet to settle back down to Earth, but she has worked hard, […]
Gordon Lightfoot’s name has been everywhere this past week, in media around the world, in that he left us on May 1, 2023. He was 84, and lived a full life with music from childhood until not long before his passing. I heard Gordon Lightfoot in concert in Thunder Bay […]
My youngest just had a birthday. Sometimes I forget how old I am, like when I am deciding to climb a ladder to get on the roof to clean my skylights or when I decide to move furniture that weighs more than I do. The age of my youngest reminds […]
Paul Barton was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1961, studied at the London Royal Academy of Arts, was an extraordinary portrait painter, and became a concert pianist. You wouldn’t think so, but something was missing from his chosen career, and he didn’t know what. He travelled to Thailand in 1996 […]
