Writer

lorna's journey
my-search-for-holy-sep-2020
making-stranger-visible

I first started writing a journal in a girly-pink, plastic-covered book and found I could process experiences of my life more satisfyingly by writing about them than by percolating them in my mind, particularly the troubling and unhappy times of my life. But most of my journal writing has been during my travels because of the intensity of experiences and my attempt to retain as well as process them. Travel provided the stimulus for my writing letters home to my family, and my parents' response, that I wrote well, naturally stimulated my urge to write. Why did I not become a journalist? In my meandering course through life, I did not know how to create contacts with the world of journalism. The poet Theodore Roetke's line "I learn by going where I have to go," resonates deeply with me. At the University of Alberta, in my late teens, I did take a creative writing course but felt very untalented and not encouraged, my stories probably reflecting the the angst of coming of age.