My Small Press Writing Day: Fear and Faith in Writing Again

Publisher, editor and highly prolific Ottawa poet and author rob mclennan has kindly posted my contribution to his My (Small Press) Writing Day series on his blog of the same name.

I'm hopeful that my editorial may help some writers and other artists who, like me, find themselves, despite their best intentions, taking unanticipated breaks from making art. That time is still valuable, and the future is rarely written in stone.

Good luck out there, everyone, and, when you can, as Neil Gaiman said, "Make good art."

My office during an unintended writing hiatus.

New Year, New Poems for Redheads and Canadians

Although the holidays, and my family, gave me time to catch up on some reading, I feel I haven't written anything substantial in many (many) months. I must have managed to do a fair bit, though, up to at least a certain point last year, and everything seems to be coming out now at once.

If you are a redhead, or just a connoisseur, check out this at times funny, at times touching, at times surprisingly thought-provoking collection of poetry, drama and short fiction, Canadian Ginger (Oolichan Books, 2017):

Editors Kim Clark and Dawn Kresan, both gingers themselves, kindly included my poem "Calico," even though it's about my angst at being a blonde in a family of blazing redheads.

Hamilton Arts & Letters, meanwhile, published my way more political poem "Canada" in their latest issue, 10.2. I'll also be reading from Lost Enough in Hamilton in May, at LitLive!