Bio

If you only want the facts, skip my childhood. If you want a story, read on.

My Complicated Childhood

Like most children’s writers, I have a lot to say about childhood. I was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1953. My parents were children of the 1930s Depression who came of age during World War II ,and neither finished high school. Small for my age and physically awkward, I remember very clearly the moment in grade two when I realized I could disappear into a book. From that point on, I lived to read fiction. When I was about eight or nine, I began to narrate my life inside my head, as if it were a novel. My parents once took away my library card to get me to focus on school. This didn’t work. My indifference landed me in the non-academic stream in elementary school, with boys who would go into vocational training and a few girls who seemed much older than their years. Much later, it was a relief to discover that many writers grow up feeling as if they’ve landed in the wrong life. As a child, I felt like the only person this had ever happened to. Ignoring school work was not a sustainable strategy and, when I failed grade nine, I was given a choice — continue to grade ten in the commercial stream, or repeat in the academic stream. I chose to repeat and that was the end of my childhood.

Education

I completed an honours BA at York University in 1978, an MA in Folklore in 1982 and a doctorate in folklore in 1990. Shortly after I began the doctorate, I realized I would never be happy as an academic, but I was too stubborn to quit.

Happier Topics

In 1979, I moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland to begin graduate studies at Memorial University. St. John’s was so small and quiet, I felt like I was on vacation. A few years later, I met my husband, Michael Wallack, who taught in the department of Political Science and we were married in 1984. Our daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1985. She is interested in aging and dementia and is working on a doctorate in clinical psychology. Our granddaughter, Madeline, was born in 2018.

After I graduated, I wondered what to do with the rest of my life. My husband said, “Just do whatever makes you happy,” so I began to write. Magazine writing was not a good fit for me until I started reviewing children’s books, first for a local weekly newspaper and then for Quill and Quire, Canada’s book trade magazine. Eventually, I thought I knew enough about writing to try a novel.

I didn’t, of course, but St. John’s had a supportive community of writers then and I learned as I went along. The Newfoundland Writers’ Guild was especially helpful. My second attempt, Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice, was published in 1994 by Tuckamore Books, a local publisher that had never published a YA novel before, and its reception was very quiet. I took a creative writing course from Carmelita McGrath one winter so I could revise my first attempt and To Dance at the Palais Royale appeared in 1996. It won three major awards and I began to feel I’d finally figured out what to do with my life.

In summer, I spend as much time as I can in my garden which has raised beds, pear trees and a hillside of raspberries. I learn more about organic techniques each year and try to expand biodiversity by planting new fruit, nut and berry trees and bushes. Newfoundland has lots of Crown Land and foraging is very popular. In the fall, I gather berries and mushrooms, and do as much hiking as I can. For over twenty years, I’ve practiced Iyengar yoga in two weekly classes. Yoga gives me the balance, flexibility and stamina of a much younger body, which I need for the garden.

Though I don’t think of myself as a photographer, I do take a lot of pictures, to document my garden each summer, or when I see something I’d like to remember. The landscape photos on this site are all pictures of Newfoundland or coastal Labrador (another extraordinary part of the province where I live) and they were taken by me. The photo at the top of this page is Red Bay, Labrador, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I took that photo when I was visiting Labrador in 2016.