The pen's the thing

For years I have have put pen to paper in a variety of projects.  Here are a few

I entered this short story in the Island Writer's Magazine annual writing contest and was delighted to be awarded first place in the creative non-fiction category in 2019.

Beginning in 1899, Grandmother Sinclair's Diary is a blog exploration of my Grandmother's life and our eventual location from England to Canada.

" Born in Scotland of proud highland parents, I immigrated to Canada as an indentured servant early in the last century.  I ran a rooming house in Montreal and raised four children. 

My story reflects many of the historical and social changes I lived through. "

https://grandmothersinclair.blogspot.com/2010/08/

 This humorous account of the life of a teacher is Mary Brackenbury's first venture into the world of creative non-fiction. The author has cleverly compressed her teaching career into a single school year.
The world of Shady Acres School is the central focus of a community shared by farms and acreages. it is peopled with such characters as John Profumo, the principal, whose basso profundo voice would come across the loud speaker as the Voice of Doom, a morose and sad-faced janitor named Lew, a megalomaniac music teacher and a dyslexic shop teacher. Our heroine observes and interacts with her colleagues and students with hilarious results.
"Missus B," as her students call her, counts a number of small animals, a tank of fish and a canary among her classroom inhabitants. The mix of children and animals results in some entertaining, touching, and unique situations!
Each chapter in Old Teachers Never Die . . . deals with one month of the school year. The stories will have readers laughing as they are reminded of those "good old school days." 

https://www.amazon.ca/Old-Teachers-Never-Die-ebook/dp/B008B7X1BY

I wrote a series of articles for the Alberta Teachers Association Magazine in 2010.  Some are linked below:

Feb 19, 2010:  Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? Making science magical is not always something to crow about

June 1, 2010: Moot Points - The Principal of the Thing

Dec 7 2010:  Rinse the blood of the adjucator

My Master's of Education resulted in a workbook designed for non-art specialists to be able to effectively teach self contained art lessons.