A pause in the storm – I’m not sure if I want to venture out. Maureen

I spent the morning with grade 4 kids, getting them totally wound up as we created stories together. We discovered one teacher, Mrs. L,...

My neighbour has a skunk living under her back entry. My neighbour’s house is going to be torn down. Ergo… Sigh. Time for some...

Imagine finding  an excerpt from your story on a marker at the location it takes place, or finding a favorite author’s story. “Project...

The garden is in that snow-rapidly-melting garden-emerging disheveled stage, when I’m desperate to get out and work, just to be in it,...

I’ve been the writer-in-residence for a Calgary elementary school, visiting once a week for six weeks. First I met with all the kids,...

There’s been a debate here in the deeply frozen north about when winter snowstorms become spring snowstorms. First, I think it’s...

I’ll be teaching an 8 week course on Writing for Children, Tuesday nights starting April 16, at the Alexandra Writers Centre in Calgary....

It must be spring – Calgary is awash. We have deep piles of snow, getting heavy and thick in the top layers, roads covered in running...

I’m finally emerging from a lovely shared family experience of what’s probably noro virus. I’ve done no writing for days, but a few ideas...

There’s a common belief that girls will read books with boy protagonists, but boys will not read books with girl protagonists. When I was...

I just spent three days in the mountains – skating on Lake Louise, snowshoeing around Baker Creek and at Pipestone, some delicious meals...

I’m living in silence, after a meditation retreat in early winter. I find myself returning to silence in my head, over and over. It’s...

Finally, finally, when we’d conquered our endless to-do list and had a little break after Christmas, and my husband got a cold that...

I’ve been immersing myself in Kaffe Fassett’s Autobiography Dreaming in Color. He’s an artist and textile designer who plays with colour...

I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels for the last few months, working between innumerable distractions and interruptions and slow...

In The Artful Edit, Susan Bell recommends a variety of ways to see a story with fresh eyes, by editing pages stuck to a wall, spread...

I love when we get a really deep snowfall (well, I love it after we’ve dug out), and then a Chinook wind blows in and the snow begins to...

Lois Peterson wrote about writer’s block on her blog,  http://loispeterson.blog.com/2013/01/13/writers-block-dont-wont-cant/, and HR...

It’s snowing, again. After Christmas, we stuffed the Christmas tree in a snowbank in the front yard. Now it looks like we live in a...