About

Born and raised in Montreal, with a strong sense of blue-collar values, I have also lived in Tokyo and Victoria.  I earned a Humanities Diploma and BFA in nonfiction writing (both from UVic night classes) while working for 25 years as a systems analyst. As a celebration of turning 65, I completed an MFA from UKings School of Journalism (Dalhousie). For fun along the way, I also studied Peace Research and Norwegian Literature at the U of Oslo; and Japanese language at Takushoku U in Tokyo. I am a twelve-year member of the Writer’s Union of Canada (TWUC) and the author of Ted Grant: Sixty Years of Legendary Photojournalism (Heritage House 2013) – a book I wrote to honour a hard-working Canadian artist.

As a freelance writer, I have been widely published in newspapers and magazines; among them The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, Reader’s Digest, CBC.ca, THIS magazine, the Blind Canadian and the Tyee. I won two public service awards for innovative leadership in helping to create a piece of Boal theatre for a deaf audience, and for developing and moderating a cultural competency panel of social workers; and a national award for volunteer work with hospice.  

My partner Daryl and I enjoy reading and writing and living on Vancouver Island in Canada. We have enjoyed a decade of volunteering with The Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB). Listening to Blind Canadians, a short video we produced as part of our volunteer work, is an interview I conducted with CFB friends. We made the seven-minute clip as a sizzle reel (promotional tool) to help find funding and a producer interested in making a larger documentary of the same name. No luck yet!

Some of my 2023 Stats

Twitter/ Facebook / Instagram:
Followers: 0 / Following: 0

Unlike 83.72%* of the world population who own smartphones as of April 2022, I do not. Everyone keeps saying you can’t be a writer without participating in popular social media platforms. Friends, who sleep with their phones, shake their heads as if I were the old lady living in an Instagram-less shoe. Maybe they are right. But the more I read about social media addictions, the more I wonder: Why get a smartphone, when landline & email work for me – and allow time for my reading and writing addictions? I may be part of the dwindling 16% of humans on the planet who do not have a smartphone, but I have a website. Thank you for your time in visiting!

Thelma

*According to Statista, a German company specializing in market and consumer data.