Recent Interviews
http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/conferences/vetlit/
and
http://vetmedandlit.blogspot.com
http://animalsincanada.wordpress.com
http://www.centraljersey.com
In my experience, the best thing about being a creative person
is exactly that: experience. For a writer, there’s no such
thing as a bad outcome, a wasted day, a pointless excursion. Everything,
absolutely everything, is interesting—and usable. And in many
cases, the worse the experience, the more useful it is, artistically.
Spurred by that philosophy, I have, in my time, ventured up on stage
at a professional comedy club in Toronto, taught English in Czechoslovakia
shortly after the “Velvet Revolution”, celebrated my
fortieth birthday on a remote South Pacific island, in a desolate
Chinese restaurant with an unhappy Australian remittance man , endured
innumerable disastrous blind-dates in a number of countries, and
undergone some spectacularly catastrophic opening nights in the
theatre—all under the heading of “research.”
In both my creative and personal life, I have always
been fascinated with “what if?” What if a woman could
seize the privileges normally reserved for men, simply by commandeering
a packet of men’s-only hair colouring? What if animals, sitting
on the sidelines of humanity, were able to size us up the same way
we evaluate them? What if, empirical evidence to the contrary, it
was possible to reverse one’s fortunes, turn over a new leaf,
or relive the past? In short, what if tomorrow unfolded in a way
not necessarily like today, or yesterday?
These days, I live mostly in Toronto but remain hopelessly in love with
rural life. I am fascinated by upcoming trends in our society, but
continue to embrace Canada’s historical past. I treasure the
company of dogs, horses and even reptiles, but currently content myself
with one intense, demanding, personal and idiosyncratic cat. I like
nothing better than philosophizing about a wide range of male-female
relationships, but feel myself fortunate to have found one singular,
even heroic, man willing to put up with me.