NON-FICTION
Several years ago I was sitting in my friend Shelley’s kitchen, reading the Globe & Mail. I came across a ‘Call for Submissions’ requesting stories about experiences with mental illness, and more specifically, stories from family members. Stories? I had a few…When I was fourteen my mother was diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. (This coincided with writing a stupendous amount of bad poetry that I have yet to recover from.)

I have no doubt that what drives me to write is this consistent source of difficulty from my past. Communicating with my mother calls for resources I don’t always have, for guidance by the better angels of my nature (they aren’t always available).

I contacted the editors and lo and behold, they knew a thing or two about a thing or two. Scott Simmie and Julia Nunes provided an opportunity to write about a devastating time with such masterful and encouraging guidance. It was more rewarding than I could have imagined.

Next thing I knew, I was combining my love of plays with nonfiction and writing the play My Own Private Etobicoke. The rest, as they say, is much-examined personal history. Currently I’m working on a non-fiction collection titled The Tattletale Heart & Other True Tales of Neurotic Tendencies and Malingering Doubts.

There is no better time than now.