Mark your calendars! Please join me in welcoming author Sonja Larsen, winner of this year’s Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, to Brantford on Friday, Nov. 10. I’ll be hosting a live question-and-answer session with Larsen from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm in the Reid Lounge in the Carnegie Building…
Category: Recommended reading

Sonja Larsen wins Edna Staebler Award
Sonja Larsen is the winner of the 2017 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction for her memoir, Red Star Tattoo: My Life as a Girl Revolutionary. As I’m quoted as saying in the news release, “As is the case with lives themselves, all memoirs are unique, but this seems especially…
Seasonal reading
I’m more humbug than not when it comes to Christmas, and most of the usual seasonal fare does nothing for me. But I do have two (slightly unconventional) pieces I re-read every year. The first is “Donner is Dead,” an essay by Cynthia Kaplan. I discovered this piece in an…
Ryerson Review of Journalism celebrates 30th anniversary
Working on the Ryerson Review of Journalism was the defining moment of my journalism education. It was hard work and involved long hours, but having the chance to produce a real magazine that would be mailed to people who had paid for it, as well as being available on newsstands…
What my magazine writing students will read this semester
It’s been a couple of years since I last taught my magazine and feature writing course at Laurier Brantford, so I took some time over the holidays to update my reading list to incorporate some of the great new pieces I’ve discovered since then. Many of them are available for…