Me: *stumbles downstairs in the morning to find kitchen a hive of activity* Tech Support: Morning! I did the thing and the stuff and that other thing, and all that jazz. Me: *channeling Catherine Zeta Jones* Come with me, ... Read More  

What’s the first thing you do when you visit someone’s house for the first time? Admire their kitchen backsplash? Poke through the medicine cabinet? Not me. I go straight for the bookshelves. I LOVE snooping through other people’s bookshelves. ... Read More  

I have a theory* that there are three kinds of ignorance. The first kind is what I’d call neutral ignorance. The gentle, perfectly understandable kind that arises due to a simple lack of knowledge: Ignorance: lack of knowledge, education, ... Read More  

We are the caretakers of a very unusual bequest – the Tech Support family rhubarb plant. The original was planted over a hundred years ago, and cuttings have followed his family all over the United States and Canada. Our ... Read More  

It has just occurred to me that, now that I’m required to carry two passports and file taxes in two countries, I should also be entitled to twice as many holidays. Since I have thus far managed to work ... Read More  

Sunshine and naps for all! Read More  

Lately my Facebook feed has filled up with memes and videos about miracle cures for cancer that THEY don’t want you to know about. I’ve avoided commenting on them, because I don’t want to offend my friends, but every ... Read More  

It’s summer solstice today, but apparently not summer, at least not in Nova Scotia. The most hours of daylight of the year doesn’t actually help if the sun’s not shining. It’s been cool and rainy for weeks and let’s ... Read More  

Tech Support took me to see Wonder Woman yesterday.* It restored my faith in superhero movies. This is a superhero movie that’s actually about something – something much more than good versus evil. This is a movie about right and ... Read More  

One of the coolest things about fiction (especially science fiction) is how it inspires scientific discovery in real life. Cell phones – inspired by Star Trek communicators – are a classic example. Edmond Locard is another. Locard was a ... Read More  

Before life happened, I wrote about Netflix’s Daredevil and some of the reasons his character makes me slightly uncomfortable. I’ve been watching Season 2 though, mostly because I just found out about The Defenders, and I harbour a deep and abiding ... Read More  

Apparently it is May. And not just a little bit May, but the kind of May that is most of the way to June. Sigh. You know those times when work goes nuts and you have two family emergencies ... Read More  

I recently started watching Daredevil on Netflix (yes, yes, I am once again so far behind the curve that the rest of you are lapping me). I’m only three episodes in, and while I’m enjoying the supporting characters, I’m ... Read More  

I hate Daylight Savings Time. Hate it. My mental functioning is very tightly linked to sunlight. I want naps on rainy days, and the darkness of winter is a terrible trial for me. That’s why I celebrate Winter Solstice as ... Read More  

When crisis strikes, where can you turn for comfort? If friends who bring you chocolate aren’t quite enough, and assuming that you’re a bibliophile like me, you’ll probably resort to one of your favourite books. In the manifestation of ... Read More  

Writing a novel is a lot more personal than writing non-fiction. Non-fiction is external – I find and repackage information. Fiction, in contrast, comes from the inside, and sometimes what’s inside is a bit… surprising. When I first started ... Read More  

Back in September, I got some pretty fantastic news. More schools had booked me as a guest speaker than any other author in Nova Scotia’s Writers in the Schools Program. Including the inimitable Don Aker, a fact so shocking ... Read More  

And I have thoughts. Thought the first. Benedict Cumberbatch should not be allowed to speak in an American accent. I’m used to seeing him in things like Sherlock and The Imitation Game, and without the British accent, I had ... Read More