A Poet’s Nanaimo
The Quiet in Me
Patrick Lane often greeted poets in the reception area of Honeymoon Bay Lodge on Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, when he led poetry retreats there. He’d also help carry our luggage to our rooms. I was remembering that about Patrick, who died in March 2019, when I...
The Happy Writing Book
“I feel unmoored when I’m not writing. Incomplete. Not quite myself.” Those are the words of Elise Valmorbida, author of The Happy Writing Book: Discovering the Positive Power of Creative Writing (Laurence King, 2021). I definitely relate to what Valmorbida says...
Middles
I asked the women in the Writing Life circle, what’s in the middle? It was the first writing circle of a six-week series with the theme of “Piecing Our Stories from Life.” I had quilts in mind when I came up with the theme of “piecing” and quilts always start in the...
Our Stories and How They Connect Us
It’s spring here on Vancouver Island with crocus, daffodils, primulas, hellebores and other colourful flowers in bloom. Winter was a challenge as we had more snow than usual (and we’re not prepared for that out here) and Sarah and I learned in December that the house...
Seventeen Years
Sarah and I have never lived anywhere for seventeen years, in the same house that is, together or apart, before the house in which we’ve lived in Nanaimo. Now we’re on the move to another home in Nanaimo, about fifteen minutes south of downtown, and I’m thinking of...
Remembering Lee Maracle
So many people passed on in 2021 including many poets and writers we’ve come to love through their work. I so appreciated Lee Maracle’s work in the world and had the honour and delight of working with her during the summer of 1993. Since hearing of Lee’s death on...