grandfather’s garden

Crash landing – into a children’s picture book!

Two years ago, I attended a workshop with two of the literary greats of children’s literature in Canada – Humber School of Writing’s Cynthia Good and Rick Wilkes of Annick Press. This cute little book was partly the result!

Unpacked Book Trailer

“Just pretend the camera’s not even there,” Andrew said, “Just talk to ME.” Like we were at the campfire. Like we were on ski hill. Places we usually go with our four-year old boys.

excitement rising for release of Unpacked

Things I’m feeling are: terror, excitement, cautious enthusiasm, and more terror. In today’s marketplace, being a writer means being an entrepreneur. There’s the blogs, there are interview to organize, photos to paw through, and web pages to update. This is the total opposite of sitting in my office, in candlelight, finishing the intimacies of my memoir.

to new beginnings

In the afternoons we heard vivid and poignant lectures by Puerto Rican writers,activists, self-published, well travelled teachers and candles in their small but important circles there, fighting for justice, for identity, for freedom.

Surf Baby

According to the Stanford School of Medicine, every single cell in our skeleton is replaced every seven years. Does that mean that that I was a different person this time, on that beach in Tofino? A unique person with hopes and dreams, looking back on the shadow self of years behind me?

a chance to refine the craft, chapter one

As Prince Edward Island welcomed its first rays of warm summer, ripe red strawberries, and car loads of families and travelers waiting for a glimpse of our famous Anne of Green Gables, I trotted off expectantly to Montpelier Vermont, and to my first Master’s writing residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

in pursuit of magic

Two months, when my folks invited us down to Florida for Christmas, Mitchy and I thought – LET’S DO IT. Let’s do DISNEY.

Taxi!

I see one coming! hold on tight!
we’ll reach it Leila, be alright!

Noodles swish I drop my lunch
there go the chopsticks off my bunch

here! we’re here, please stop for us!
he’s pulling over, Lei, enough!

City of Ghosts

Ghosts. They really catches up with us up by times. Our ghosts, they haunt us, they  involve us, and they embrace us. Usually we go to them.

journey through middle earth

Where to begin? Let’s see, Beijing. Where Leila and I left off. When I told people I was headed to Xuchang, in Henan province where my husband Mitch was teaching, I was mostly met with puzzled shakes of the head  -not a first for me in China – and wandering upward glances. First they would repeat it, then I would repeat it.  Had I said it right? Had they heard me right? Welcome to China: so many opportunities to go wrong – before the one that may go just right.

 Where the f@&! is Xuchang?