I began writing at the age of 12 and published my first article — about my experience of teaching outdoor education — in 1994. The following year, I published my first article in The United Church Observer, which began a working relationship with the publication that continues to this day, with the magazine now rebranded as Broadview.
Born in Toronto and raised in Cobourg and Trenton, Ontario, I graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, with English and Education degrees. Since then, I’ve worked as a radio newscaster and morning show co-host in Ontario and Vancouver (where I lived for five years), and a graphic designer and columnist for a community newspaper. I now work as a substitute teacher, and a licensed lay worship leader with the United Church of Canada.
After marrying Dwayne, my “Nova Scotia country boy”, in 2007, I continued to publish articles and essays in newspapers and magazines in Ontario and Nova Scotia, including the award-winning East Coast magazine, Saltscapes. From 2011 to 2019, I wrote my “Field Notes” column for the local community newspaper then for At Home On the North Shore magazine.
My first book came from that column, a collection of essays entitled Field Notes: A City Girl’s Search for Heart and Home in Rural Nova Scotia (Nimbus Publishing, 2016).
My next book, Alphabet of Faith, published in the fall of 2021 by Wood Lake Books, and won a Silver medal in the category of Christian Living with the 2023 Illumination Book Awards.
My first children’s book, I Built A Cabin, published May 2023 with Running the Goat Press.
My first published work of fiction, Moon Tide, won the Writing For Children category in the 2015 Atlantic Writing Competition, and was published in the anthology, Winter (Nimbus, 2017).
My writing has been recognized by the Canadian Church Press, the Associate Church Press, the Atlantic Journalism Awards, the International Regional Magazines Association and the Atlantic Community Newspaper Awards. In 2018, my essay, “The Trees Have Ears”, was a finalist in the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest.
My father died in 2009, and my mother, Lynda, lives with Dwayne and me, along with a flock of chicken, various pets, and a bunch of bears (in the field, of course) in rural Nova Scotia.