Me

photoI’m a thirty-something writer and editor living in Thunder Bay, Ontario (pop. 110,000), where the supermarket cashiers talk too much. I moved here (for love and money and shared child-rearing duties) from Toronto in 2004, and I am slowly getting used to the idea of being approximately one of 30-odd Jews in the entire city.

2004 was also the year I: got pregnant the first time, got married, had a baby, and — and this is the kicker — lost my mother to a 20-year, on-and-off battle with breast and ovarian cancer. I believe this is known as one’s Saturn return.

I started this blog as a way to kick myself in the ass in terms of writing my own stuff in the wake of 2004. It seems to be working. Despite the title, it’s not so much about the kids as it is about me, dealing with life, love, grief, joy and sleep deprivation in the post-’04 world.

The cast

Rachel is my spouse. We got married in 2004, even though neither of us considered — and still don’t — ourselves the marrying types. Despite being the least extroverted person I know, she puts up with me writing publicly about her and our family with a fair amount of grace. I pay her back with the occasional Ritter Sport bar (dark, dark chocolate) and by not saying things like, “Hey, why don’t we order in sushi? Oh, wait, I don’t feel like it.” Because she hates it when I say things like that.

We have two sons, who go by, on these pages, Rowan (born in 2004) and Isaac (born in 2007). They are more extroverted than Rachel. They are finger-lickin’ good, often exhausting, occasionally astonishing, and partial to cheese strings.

Writing

I am coeditor, with the lovely Chloe Brushwood Rose, of the anthology And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents and Our Unexpected Families, published by Insomniac Press in 2009. Check it out — especially if you or some queers you know are considering making a baby and wondering where to get the goods. Or if you’ve been asked to donate said goods. You can read the introduction and first chapter here.

My writing has appeared in Lilith Magazine, Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales, interfaithfamily.com, Xtra!, and The Globe and Mail, among others. In 2006, my radio documentary, “Finding out” — about my decision to be tested for the genetic mutation responsible for my mother’s cancer — aired on the CBC. You can listen to it here.

Now, I’m working on a novel, tentatively titled Step on a Crack. The Ontario Arts Council recently gave me a whack of cash to work on it, so now I have to or I will have nothing to write about in my report to them. And now that I’ve told you, I’m even more accountable. Perhaps not surprisingly, the novel deals with issues like cancer and motherhood. But it is absolutely not an autobiography.

In a previous life, I once ghostwrote a personal finance novel about life insurance. Then I ghostwrote a parenting book while I was pregnant and during the first six months of my first son’s life. No, it wasn’t hard to find the time: I never slept. You’d think that writing a parenting book would have helped me with my own parenting, but all it did was give me a false sense of confidence and make me prone to dispensing unasked-for parenting advice. Mostly, I’ve got over that.

I write all kinds of other things — like magazine articles, handbooks, websites, reports, newsletters and press releases — for all kinds of other clients. I also edit all these things. I have won awards for both writing and editing. If you’d like me to write or edit something for your organization, please send me an e-mail.

I teach creative writing at Lakehead University.