About

The Short Story

I am a writer, editor, and mentor, with a side interest in photography, originally from the Maritimes who has lived in Poland, the UK, the US, and now lives in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada.

the long story

I come from New Brunswick, Canada, where I return to twice a year. I lived in Poland for three years, initially as a teacher of English language in the seaside town of Sopot, followed by two years in the public relations department at the Foreign Investment Agency in Warsaw. This was in the early nineties so I was witness to Poland’s transformation away from communism towards capitalism. After that I went England where I completed my MA in Studies in Fiction at the University of East Anglia. There I met my husband and stayed, working at Community Music East for seven years, while he finished his doctorate. The next stop was Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, for my husband’s post-doc. This is where our daughter was born. After a year we moved to Kitchener-Waterloo, where I joined The New Quarterly as a fiction editor for two years, before becoming editor in 2011, and creative director of the newly established Wild Writers Literary Festival later that year. I have worked as part of the Wild Writers Literary Festival mentorship program, the French River Creative Writing Retreat and the Writers Union of Canada Mentorship Microgrant Program. 

My writing has often occurred around the edges—of jobs, of moves, of helping to raise our daughter—and in 2018 my novel The Deserters, about the aftermath of war, was published by Vehicule Press. It was shortlisted for the ReLit Award. As Little As Nothing (ECW Press, 2022) takes place in the UK in the year before World War II, and explores early feminism, through women who take up flying and reproductive rights. My creative nonfiction book Off the Tracks: A Meditation on Train Journeys in the Year of No Travel will be published by ECW Press in 2024.