November, 2009

Still dealing with family crises and travelling a great deal to Ontario, Canada and LA.

Family crises usurp all.

Welcome back to all my colleagues at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism.

The director of the UBC Graduate School of Journalism, Mary Lynn Young,  has given preliminary approval of the topic for my thesis: my memoir, which is a work in progress. In effect, my summer reading has been research for this auto-biography: books that fall into a similar genre. My manuscript consultant calls it the “misery memoir.”  For a sneak preview please see: BOOK: TEASE.

Natalie Goldberg, well-known author and writing coach, gave a talk at the Vancouver Public Library, British Columbia, on July 2nd. It was so popular that some people were turned away from the 300 seat lecture theatre.

I went to the event because Goldberg has recently authored a book about writing memoirs and I am two-thirds of the way through my memoir/autobiography. I am hoping to make it part of my thesis for my masters of journalism. I wanted to have a quick interview with Goldberg but she was much more popular than I realized. I will arrange an interview through her media liaison.

She is from the United States and is very impressed with Canada. She said, “This is a wonderful place. You even have marriage between gay people in Canada. I am ashamed to say we have not got to that yet.”

Goldberg talked about her walk through Stanley Park and commented on the beautiful swimming pool at Second Beach, the fact that there is a $2,000 fine for throwing house garbage in the bins in the park: “Pretty impressive, no messing around. And I ordered a Coca-Cola at the concession stand and then asked, ‘Do all of you people standing there on that side, do you all have have health insurance?’ That was a real non-sequitor. They looked at me like I was crazy.”

“You all have health insurance, such a simple, obvious, rational thing!”

Enjoying some downtime in Lake Temagami, Ontario. Updating ARTICLES page on this website and working on manuscript. See: BOOK TEASE.

I have fished my stint reporting for the North Shore News and am posting some of the articles.

Interview with the fascinating  Terry Gould, investigative journalist and author: His latest book is Murder Without Borders: Dying for the Story in the World’s Most Dangerous Places. It is about murdered journalists. I last interviewed Terry Gould when I was managing editor of Scarlett Magazine and he had just finished Paper Fan: The Hunt of Triad Gangster, Steven Wong.

I will soon be posting other recently published stories in ARTICLES.

I have inserted a demo video of my TV News days. It is appropriately filed under: ARCHIVES. Click on that page for a kick.

Found out the bear truth at Whistler this weeked.

Please don't eat the daisies.

I am working one more week at the North Shore News. I will soon post my stories in ARTICLES.