I was never meant to be an author. I can’t spell. Sometime even Spellcheck gives up on me. But I do love language. I love that scribbled letters on a page can make readers laugh, cry, gasp, or levitate with joy.
I grew up in a meat-and-potatoes world, with a side salad of mostly iceberg lettuce and a whisper of ranch dressing. I worked hard for good grades and had my sights set on law school. Then the law library burned down. (True story. I didn’t do it.) Suddenly, I had a year to kill. So, I enrolled in a fine arts program “just for fun.” You know, like most people do while waiting for fire damage to be repaired.
Reader, I never went back. I finished the fine arts degree. Then I got a master’s. Now I write full time, and my sole legal battles are held in check by the grammar police.
These days, I talk to a lot of parents. Many of them secretly long for a little more creativity in their lives. There’s the dentist who paints on weekends, the teacher who escapes to a poetry retreat every summer, and the engineer who sculpts masterpieces out of Scotch tape. I see you, Office Supplies Sculptor. You are not alone.
So, I write for their kids—kids who deal with ordinary struggles but tackle them in delightfully imaginative ways. My characters are resilient. They take the scenic route through life, sometimes ignoring the Wrong Way sign. They’re stubbornly hopeful. They cope by building skyscraper tree forts; designing T-shirts with slogans like There are three kinds of people: those who are good at math and those who aren’t; and charting the night sky in case Earth doesn’t work out.
They live with something I call “cheerful despair.” That’s when you know life is hard, full of setbacks and heartbreaks—but you still manage to find joy, crack a joke, or dance in your pajamas while the dog makes off with your slipper. Cheerful despair knows life is ridiculous and painful, but it refuses to let that stop the fun.
That’s what I write about. Kids, creativity, and making the best of things—even when the salad is mostly iceberg and the law library is on fire.
Notables
Literary critics from Horn Book, Kirkus Starred Reviews, School Library Journal, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail claim that I add much-needed male protagonists to early chapter-book and junior fiction readers.
My books have been a finalist for the Book of the Year for Children Award by the Canadian Library Association, the John Spray Mystery Award (Canadian Children’s Book Centre), British Columbia’s Red Cedar Award, Alberta’s Rocky Mountain Book Award, Saskatchewan’s Diamond Willow Award, Manitoba’s Young Readers’ Choice Award, and numerous Atlantic Canada Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Awards. My work is also included in the New York Public Library’s Top 100 Children’s Books, the Association of Canadian Publishers’ Top Grade Canlit for Classrooms, Best Books of Exceptional Calibre by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, Best of Books by Horn Book, the Junior Library Guild Premier Selection, the Notable Books List by the American Library Association and Best Science Books by the Air & Space Magazine (Smithsonian).
Footnotes
Author highlights include having an astronaut autograph my first book about rockets, as well as seeing my stories translated into other languages (French, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Slovenian to date). I would love to have my work performed on stage or on screen, and meet a published young writer whom I helped inspire during one of my book tours or presentations. That would be awesome!
And today …
After years of juggling manuscript deadlines alongside a career in arts administration (museums, galleries, performing arts), I now write full-time. I live in downtown Halifax surrounded by shipyards, fog and historic cemeteries where I draw inspiration for my stories. I am represented by
- Groundwood Books (publisher, Toronto)
- Kids Can Press (publisher, Toronto)
- The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (to book a school visit within Nova Scotia)
- The Writers’ Union of Canada (to book a school visit in Canada)
- Dalhousie University Archives