Find out more about my memoir No Letter in Your Pocket
Few people realize how much the Mafia shaped the economy of Havana for more than 30 years. While visiting Cuba’s capital in October-November 2016, I relished the chance to learn more about the country’s illegal past. My December 9, 2016 travel feature Havana Travel article 2016 (Coast Reporter) reveals some tidbits of…
It wasn’t Sam McGee’s fiery demise in Lake Lebarge, but I knew that Stewart River in the Yukon was the right spot to honour her memory. Before writer friend Janet Collins died in the summer of 2013, she made an innovative request to those who later attended her memorial. To find out how I fulfilled her…
My newly completed memoir, No Letter in Your Pocket: Twenty Years Healing a Family Secret, provides adventurous tales of my seven months in India in 1990-1991. This revealing book interweaves denial about a primal family relationship with adventure, romance and spiritual exploration. From its highs—describing a successful climb of the 20,000-foot peak Stok Kangri—to its…
My travel essay “Bird Sanctuary,” which describes World Heritage Site Keoladeo National Park near Bharatpur, appears in the anthology Emails from India: Women Write Home. Published in the fall of 2013 by Seraphim Editions in Ontario, this book features the writing of 28 female contributors from across North America, along with several Europeans….
As a Camino de Santiago pilgrim in Spain in June 2013, I sought out some of Ernest Hemingway’s favourite haunts in Pamplona. As I wrote: “It was easy to imagine the expatriate writer arm-wrestling over one of the many patio tables or downing too many absinthes or whiskeys in fading Spanish light. . .” Click…
My feature “Workshop inspired by El Camino pilgrimage” appeared in the Sept. 27, 2013 issue of Coast Reporter on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. The piece promoted my workshop “Twelve Gifts of the Camino,” inspired by my 800-kilometre pilgrimage through France and Spain in May and June 2013. Click this 12 Gifts of the Camino link to read…
For centuries, the medieval labyrinth in France’s Chartres Cathedral has attracted millions of visitors and Camino de Santiago pilgrims like me. I described my mixed feelings in walking this historic pathway in my travel feature “The wonders of the labyrinth.” This piece appeared in the Sept. 13, 2013 issue of The Coast Reporter on…
For the next two to three months, I’ll be writing a series of weekly posts, with photographs, about my 800-kilometre walk along the El Camino in France and Spain. Each week, I’ll feature a new topic, from “creating sacred space” to “the Roman road.” I look forward to a lively discussion with readers. If…
With special permission to carry 60 pounds of medical supplies, I set off for Cuba with a group of friends in October 2011. We were delighted to distribute these much-needed materials to small clinics in Cuba’s Trinidad region and to provide clothes and school supplies to local communities. Click here to read my Cuba Travel Article “From the Coast…
I wrote short items to accompany a photo essay of the challenges pregnant women face in Haiti. The piece is meant to increase public awareness of the activities of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. These photo-and-caption combinations were part of the content used in my course Photography and Writing for the Digital Age. A photographer and…