One year ago today, a phone call at six am from the hospital jarred me out of a fitful sleep. My father had died, two weeks shy of his 83rd birthday.

Because of the way politics works in this region nobody wants to make a hard decision on things.

The first thing I remember about my dad was his huge, powerful hands. I watched him crush walnuts inside his strong fist at Christmastime when the nutcracker was nowhere to be found—and I figured a man with strength like that could do just about anything.

Late one night, the acute care section of the emergency room was filled with people (mostly seniors) who were all admitted and waiting for available rooms in the hospital. My father was among them, and I waited with him to hear the results of a few tests. In the next bed was an old woman […]

This year’s prestigious Maillet-Frye lecture, the flagship event of Moncton, New Brunswick’s international Frye Festival, was lent a little more prestige on April 29 when it welcomed Diana Gabaldon as featured speaker. The author of the eight-book Outlander series, as well as a host of other related novellas, has sold more than 28 million books […]

I was yanked out of a deep sleep in the wee hours of this morning by an overwhelming, high-pitched tinnitus in my right ear—but this time it was so loud I could hear nothing else in the room. And I cried out in fear and frustration, because there is no cure.

After so many years of boastful posts on social media about my exploits with grape jelly, people have begun to drop grapes off at my door. I have both friends and family who grow their own, but can’t be bothered with the labour-intensive process of turning them into wine or jelly.I didn’t set out to […]