I’m an author living in Victoria, B.C. on Vancouver Island, which is on the west coast of Canada. My city is often described as quaint, beautiful and quiet. That’s polite speak for ‘this city is boring and there’s nothing to do at night.’ 
I know this because my 21-year-old daughter came home for a visit recently and was shattered that there was no bubble tea café open at 1 am. Luckily, my 14-year-old son doesn’t care about bubble tea and my ageless, priceless husband doesn’t know it exits.
Bubble tea scares me, okay? It does. Sucking one of those gluey little balls up through a straw shatters my muse and makes me gag. So I don’t mind living in a quaint, beautiful, quiet city where I can smell the sea and where bubble tea is only available during business hours. I don’t drink it anyway. And, unless I want to torture them, you’ll never find my characters drinking it either.
I wanted to be a writer by the time I was in a Grade Four (long before somebody with very bad taste invented you-know-what). In my family, reading was encouraged and trips to the library were considered Very Special. I still remember how proud I was when I could finally print my name and get my own library card.
As a kid, I loved Anne of Green Gables (she had an attitude and red hair, how exotic) and Emily of New Moon (she wanted to be a writer, how smart). Eventually, I found a series of books about Sue Barton, a visiting nurse (she saved lives, how important) and Donna Parker who spent time in California with rich relatives (how lucky for her).
I knew I wasn’t going to move to California and I had no rich relatives, but because of Sue Barton (and her feverish love interest, Dr. Ned) I did consider becoming a nurse. Sick people were okay as long as they didn’t bleed too much. But nurses took orders from doctors. I didn’t like taking orders from anybody. I thought of being a doctor but I’d never heard of a woman doctor before. Besides, doctors had to cut people and deal with blood. In rather large quantities.
Being a writer was the best choice. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out how to write and get paid for it. So, two weeks after I got out of high school, I became a bank teller. Unfortunately, I’m lousy with numbers and I was terrified the place was going to be robbed.
I wasn’t a bank teller for long.
After traveling through Europe and Russia in an Austin mini van (which is like trying to sleep in a Hot Wheels car), I came home (missing most of my underwear it was stolen off a laundry line in Norway) and studied journalism.
Because I love meeting people and I’m nosy, reporting for the CBC was a great job. Except for one thing. Okay, two things. First, I kept getting recognized when I went to buy underwear (underwear seems to be a theme in my life). Secondly, I had to tell the truth. I kept thinking the story would be better if I could, well, change the ending.
Journalists aren’t supposed to do that. Journalists aren’t even supposed to think about doing that.
Even though I got to interview lots of people, and even though I went to places I would normally never go (jail, for instance, and it was just plain creepy and sad), I decided it was more fun to make things up than tell the truth.
Nowadays, I maintain my journalism ties by occasionally writing gardening articles about quiet, well-behaved plants for Canadian Gardening Magazine. But mostly I write fiction - everything from picture books and novels for kids and teens to longer novels for women. Novels where people are never quiet and are rarely well-behaved.
When I’m not writing or reading, I like to do author talks and school visits, play in the garden, drink dandelion (not bubble) tea, spy on people at the grocery store, make Very Special trips to the library and enjoy life in my beautiful but never boring city by the sea.
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