My Story

I’m a writer and essayist. My work is inspired by fairy tales, mythology, nature and the adventures and challenges of my own life.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a child when I discovered that there were people called writers who wrote the books I loved to read.  Around the same time I was given a diary for Christmas, launching a life-long habit of writing in a journal nearly every day.

I was born with a mild form of spina bifida, a congenital condition that impacted the development of my spine. As a result, I’m short (4’7”) and have scoliosis (curvature of the spine). I’ve had three major spine operations, but have mostly lived a healthy, normal life, although I have experienced bullying, discrimination and body image issues. My writing has helped me to process and overcome these challenges. 

I started writing seriously as a teenager and my first story, an article about a family sailing trip, was published when I was 16 years old. This was followed by a poem in an international children’s magazine. Later, I published another poem in a Canadian teen magazine and got an opinion piece published in the local newspaper (even though the paper adamantly refused to publish student writers or offer meaningful internships.)

But I was told repeatedly by my family that I couldn’t make a living as a writer and that I needed to find something more practical to do. On leaving school, I moved to Toronto and got a job as an accounting clerk. I hated the monotony of the work and quit after two years to pursue a degree in political science, thinking I would go to law school. It was a “practical” and secure career choice, but in my last year of university, I realized that I really didn’t want to be a lawyer. At the last minute, I applied and got into journalism school. I thought it would be a practical way to write and still earn a living. 

Journalism school was a huge disappointment. I discovered that my instructors didn’t really care about great writing, making snarky comments about “wanna-be Hemingways.” I also learned that it was just about impossible to break into the industry without doing unpaid internships, which I just couldn’t afford . Instead, I’ve pursued a career in communications. Over the last 20 years, I have written everything from annual reports to web copy for non-profit organizations and government agencies. 

But my love of creative writing has never really left. Over the years, I’ve studied creative writing at the at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, the Unexpected Shape Writing Academy and Catapult.  My travel essay, The Deepest Blue, won third place at the Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference in 2017. Most recently, I workshopped a short story with Sheila Heti at the Humber School for Writers Summer Workshop.

Today, I share personal essays on Substack and am currently working on a novel and a collection of short stories inspired by fairy tales and European mythology.