A beginner’s guide — I began a newsletter on Substack in April 2021, and then went “paid” with it June 1. My publication, the Unschool for Writers, has now averaged about $500/month income for me, and this is just the first — and growing — five months. Let’s start Q&A, and please ask any…

But could we do it? — More often than not, when one brings up the topic of equality and equity between women and men, the wage gap is cited. Then the talk is of the need for more women leaders. People who grasp that numbers and statistics don’t always tell actual stories — rarely, in fact…

Let’s resurrect the idea of tithe, and keep art in our lives — This past summer, this was the one way I heard live music: in the park, and on the beach, with a jazz standards group. Bring a blanket and bottle, enjoy the setting sun, the warmth on my back. Listening to tunes that have sustained for decades. The idea of tithing…

The Pen Might be Mightier… but Peace is the Mightiest — I walk by the sign outside the co-operative community centre in my neighbourhood, a place of truly diverse people who live in or close to some of the most challenging urban blocks in this country of Canada. While firearms are not quite the issue here as they are in the…

Oh go on — buy the card! — I was married for almost thirty years. And when I was fifty-one, my husband died of ALS after being ill for not even a year. I was left with a big empty house, three grown and half-grown sons… and a handful of Valentine’s cards. No, not even a handful. Because…

When you feel like a dying dog — We inherited our foster dog from the crisis when her family split, and she needed a home. Her kids all went with their father, our friend K., and he wanted to keep them in their school so that some one thing in their life was unchanged. But he could not…

poem —

And me with my boys on a beach — Some years ago, I took my young sons to the nearby beach. It was Christmas Eve, my favourite day of the year, sunny, clear, and cold. There was a thin layer of frost still, even in mid-afternoon. After weeks of planning, all the school concerts, parties, and general upheaval, there…

So many possible ways to respond! — The cyclist He must have been cruising about 60 kilometers an hour on the downward slope of the concrete — faster than a car surely. I’d started out on foot from the sidewalk and was halfway across the buses-only street. No bus in sight, and I couldn’t see a car. And there…