Writing Bio
I've been writing most of my life. I was probably one of the few kids in high school English class, who actually enjoyed the subject. After I graduated high school, I took Journalism Administration at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and worked within the graphic arts and printing industry for many years.
Tired of the printing industry, I decided to take a computer programming diploma course through DeVry Institute of Technology, and went to work in the Oil & Gas industry in Calgary, where I worked my way up to Senior Systems Analyst with BP Oil and Gas (was Dome, then Amoco).
In the early 1990's, I felt an inner nudge to get back to writing and joined the Calgary Writers Association. I began my author's journey, writing fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Through this organization (now defunct) I was the 1997 recipient of the Calgary Writers Association Brendon Donnelly Award for Children's Literature, and also won third place for the 1998 Calgary Writers Association Sunshine Sketches Award for Fiction Writing.
Read more...Why I write; The Writer's Mould
The Creator's hands meant for me to be a writer from the outset of my birth. Many people ask me how long I have been writing. I'd have to reply, "It feels like all my life!" I don't remember a time when I wasn't thinking up stories.
When I look back at my life, there is a thread of common interests that have moulded my life into a writer's life. I remember the mimeographed foolscap sheets we were given in grade school. If the teacher had just printed them with the lines appropriate for writing letters on, then they were ice cold and moist, the smell of the blue ink was a pleasure to my senses as I inhaled deeply the scent of the mimeographed ink. I made sure I didn't use all the sheets, nor waste any, so that I could save the leftovers to take home and play school with. It's too bad that the smell didn't last much past the first few moments of the sheets being handed out.
One part of my life (the basis for loving all things living) is my joy for nature. Bears I believe are my Totem. My first love for bears stemmed from a paper researched in grade five about the great Kodiak bear of North America (note my Kodiak bear picture). When requested to put together the essay, right away I knew I wanted to write about bears. It was at that time too, I first fell in love with doing the research to find the information for my paper; my writer's mould started, the initial beginnings of story, of writing.
Read more...
