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Bob Clark, when he invited me to speak to you, suggested that I might talk about ‘how I got to where I am today’—a daunting impossible subject, I thought, since I’ve been writing for a very long time. And ‘where I am’—which is really, ‘where am I?’ is one of those questions as complex as [...]

The story goes that an iron stone had sat on a hill at “Iron Creek” Alberta from time immemorial. As long as it was left there, the local Cree and Blackfoot nations prospered. Hunters placed offerings of beads and knifes at its foot before they set out, and shamans brought patients to it to benefit [...]

Christmas in our family was a long drawn-out, messy, exuberant, exhausting, and generally wonderful affair. My high-octane, beautiful, high-achieving mother, who suffered severely from gult at not being a stay-at-home-mum like her sisters-in-laws and church acquaintances and friends, began her Christmas preparations on Remembrance Day. My brother and I, primed for work the night before, [...]