Friday, August 29, 2025
New short story on the runway, just in time for Halloween
Having written nonfiction and essays exclusively since the COVID lockdown and my bout with cancer, I was beyond thrilled to return to my fiction roots to write "The Green" for Tom Deady's forthcoming short story anthology The Rack II which will be released on October 14th, just in time for Halloween. Writers always say how honoured they are to appear in the company of other writers in a given volume, but in the case of The Rack II, I mean it quite literally, both professionally and personally. This is a stellar lineup. And working with Tom, an editor who is both visionary and pragmatic, in no small part because of his own prolific career as a topflight horror writer, was an unequivocal privilege.
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Jonathan Joss (1965-2025)
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Chasing the rain
I had my ear buds in, and my phone was playing Rachel Portman's exquisite piano-rich score for The Cider House Rules when the rain started to fall, first lightly, then more heavily.
It occurred to me that children love the rain—they're taught to scream and run for cover, something they've perfected by middle age, but it doesn't come naturally to them. What's natural to them is being in the moment, and finding magic in it, if there's any magic to be found.
When you're a little older, and you have nowhere you particularly need to be, the rain, particularly in spring, matters less and less. Beckett loved it. It just sluiced off his coat like it was an oilskin. Maybe that's something older people and dogs share. By the time my walk was over, I was drenched. I had an ache in my right hand, my leash hand, and in my chest. I crossed my arms as I walked, something I almost never do.
I've written about ghosts and haunted houses, even haunted graveyards, but the sweetest ghost haunts the one down the street. I don't know how many more visits to the boneyard I have left in me. If the rain sluicing down your face and soaking your hair makes you feel younger, as you walk slower and slower, savouring the heresy of utterly not caring if you get wet, or how wet you get, the weight of the memories of the people, and the dogs, you've loved and lost has the opposite effect.
On the way home, far up ahead in the park, an athletic young man walked an athletic young black Labrador. He was wearing a hoodie, so I didn't see his face, but I could imagine his expression as he tugged at his Labrador's leash to bring him closer and get him to focus a bit as the torrent fell straight down from the grey sky.
I remembered the words of Ecclesiastes: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes."
Good luck getting your Labrador to pay attention in the rain, buddy. Do yourself a favour, though? Pay attention yourself. Hold these memories. Cherish them. Every single moment of them is what life is made of, whether you know it yet or not.
Monday, March 31, 2025
New book news
I'm delighted to share that my third essay collection is forthcoming. I'm thrilled to be back with the good people at Cormorant Books, one of Canada's premier literary publishers, and the team that shaped my second collection, OTHER MEN'S SONS, into a prize-winner in 2004. Apologies in advance to anyone who thought I might have been felled by illness, or other misfortune, or that I might be keeping quiet for the next four years. There has never been a more pressing time for writers, especially Canadian ones, to do what we were designed to do. Many thanks, as always, to my agent, Sam Hiyate, who quarterbacked the deal, and who has always been in my court, and to Cormorant Books for consistently providing a venue for the best Canadian writing—and a belief in its importance.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
'Twas heaven here with you
Last night, the Hero MD™ and I said goodnight to our beloved Beckett for the very last time. In the past month, Beckett’s health and mobility had taken a striking downturn, and the quality of his life no longer honoured the life he’d lived. While the decision to release him from pain and fear was the most responsible, compassionate, and loving decision for Beckett, my brain and my broken heart are temporarily misaligned. The gift of having had this gentle, perfect, precious little soul placed into my care and keeping for his lifetime was one of the greatest blessings of my own life. This photo of Beckett drying off on the dock at Gyles Point, chewing one of Chuck’s fire sticks, is from August 2015. The only thing Beckett loved more than snow was water, especially up in Apsley, on Chandos Lake, in the company of my godchildren, Kate and Michael, who adored him, and whom he adored. I hope that, somehow, by some miracle, time itself curves and bends in the afterlife, and Beckett is back there with all of us, in an eternal summer at the lake, feeling nothing but the warmth of the sun on his soft black fur, and our love enveloping him. This grief is vast and fathomless and terrible. The house is missing its soft, warm nexus, and my empty arms ache. Rest well, my sweet baby. You gave us everything.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
New Year's Eve roundup, 2024 edition
Saturday, December 7, 2024
Time moves in one direction only
I intensely dislike "vaguebooking," and I very, very rarely do it, but occasionally it's what's required. If I were to do it now, for instance, what I might say is this—I have another two and a half years to go before I'm declared "cured" of my cancer; until then, my life revolves around biannual scans and tests, and daily monitoring of my body, including a reflexive, sinking dread at the appearance of any unexplained pain, swelling, or fever. It's tiresome, believe me. I lost two creative years of my writing life while I was undergoing six operations and months of chemotherapy, but I was still able to get a book out this past summer. I'm low-key fighting to stay alive and to leave a few more books behind in case I fail. I don't have time for Internet drama, or ugly, spiteful chatterbox personal gossip on social media. Literally all I have time for is my husband of almost forty years, the final months of my Labrador Beckett's life, my family of the heart, my godchildren, my mentees, my wonderful real friends, my work, and my gratitude for all of it. You know, real-life shit. Also, I am sixty-two years old, and time moves in one direction only. Attempts by silly, self-important members of self-appointed cliques to drag me into their low-rent, sub-par social media backstabbing campaigns, or lies, or gutter-trash character assassinations, will be met with a polite, but firm, "no thank you," and a sincerely meant query regarding why my engager doesn't seem to have a life of his/her/their own—a life worth curating in an intelligent, creative, positive, loving way. C'est tout.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
It's such a perfect day
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Ron Oliver profile by Maddy Mahoney in Toronto Life
This superb profile of my friend Ron Oliver in the November issue of Toronto Life is now online. Enjoy!
https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/quality-trash-director-ron-oliver-hallmarks-king-of-schmaltz/
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
My American grandmother
My American grandmother, Alvina Becker Hardt, born in Alsace-Lorraine, Germany in 1902, at the very dawn of the 20th century, has been on my mind all day, almost as though her ghost has decided to pay me a visit. I half expect a drift of her perfume in empty rooms. I named the town on Alvina, Ontario in Wild Fell after her. Some of my most cherished early childhood memories are of her, her soft arms and hands, her thick German accent, the scent of her (very German) cooking, her occasionally florid emotionality, and mostly her utter delight in, and kindness towards me as a small gender-variant child. All my life I have not been able to shake the sense that my grandmother would not only have been OK with my queerness, but also that she saw it clearly before most people did, and wrapped it in a soft pink cloud of understanding, even protectiveness. I am gently and lovingly envious of my cousin Kimberley, who was able to spend more time with Grandma Hardt, and was the beneficiary of many of the things she had to teach, and her stories. Alvina died on May 23rd, 1976, while were living in Geneva. My mother must have gone back for the funeral, but I have no actual memory of her making that voyage back across the Atlantic. Childhood memories are odd things; but I will remember Alvina's tender touch until the day I die. This photograph of her was taken in our back yard in Ottawa, probably in the summer of 1972, with our Norwegian Elkhound, Prince. I cherish it for so many reasons.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Nova Scotia Thanksgiving, 2024
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Happy publication day to Nick Pullen's THE BLACK HUNGER!

Sunday, September 29, 2024
Kingston Writers Festival 2024, wrapped
With award-winning veteran broadcaster and author Carol Off, before we took the stage on Saturday night. [Photo: Bernard Clark Photography]
Signing after our panel, with political scientist Rob Goodman, author of Not Here: Why American Democracy Is Eroding and How Canada Can Protect Itself at the Kingston Writer's Festival on the evening of September 28th. [Photo: Bernard Clark Photography]
Watching the countryside scroll past the train window as I reflect on this wonderful, whirlwind weekend. After years of not by any necessity traveling to the city of Kingston, Ontario, this has been my third trip, all related to my work. The first was in February when I spoke to jack.org at Queen's University. The second trip was my first encounter with the Kingston Writer's Festival when they invited me out upon the publication of PRIDE in June. The third trip, this one felt a bit like coming home.
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Clouds
These exquisite Ontario early-autumn clouds through the windshield of Stephen's car, on the drive home from Orillia this afternoon struck me as particularly poignant after Jordan and Clémence's lovely wedding yesterday.