A Body of Work
Legacy Work
Published writing, craft guides, and teaching — the work that came before.
Book2026
Voices of Resilience
In the fall of 2020, I was approached by members of Vancouver's Second-generation (2G) Holocaust Survivors' community. They asked if I could develop a series of workshops modelled on the approach taken by Guided Autobiography (GAB) that would help them to write about what it was like growing up in families with this traumatic legacy. I said it would be a privilege. After leading groups with them for two years, and being blown away by their stories, I mentioned they might consider an anthology. Little did I know this anthology would consume a large part of my next three years—editing the stories and helping to convince a publisher to take it on.
The book was published May 5th, 2026. A labour of love for sure.
WORKSHOPS2014 to 2025
Guided Autobiography
Guided Autobiography helps people to recall, organize, write about, and share meaningful parts of their life. In a supportive group setting, a trained instructor uses stimulating exercises and questions to spark creativity and support memory recall. Between classes participants write a short story about their experience of themes like turning points in life, family influences, health, and work. They then bring those two-page stories to share aloud with others in a small group in the next session. Participants share only what they are comfortable sharing, and all must agree to keep confidential the stories they hear. Many of those now writing in the Writers' Room are past GAB participants.
EDITING2009
In Praise of Strong Women
I provided a structural edit for the book, In Praise of Strong Women, by psychiatrist, David Kirkpatrick. This work included conducting several hours of interviews with David to flesh out his narrative—work that I love doing. In Praise of Strong Women went on to win the Independent Publishers Award for Non-fiction.
RESEARCH2004
The Sustaining Study
While working as a qualitative researcher with SRDC (Social Research and Demonstration Corporation), I designed and led a two-year in-depth study, following 12 single moms on welfare as they struggled to make a life for their children and find a way to gain stability and security for the future. The 12 were part of a major social experiment, The Self-Sufficiency Project, testing the degree to which a generous income supplement would convince single parents to leave the meagre financial security of Income Assistance for full-time work and/or a chance to increase their education. The report, Sustaining: Making the Transition from Welfare to Work, is available here.
BOOK2011
Cinemazoo, My Urban Safari
Gary Oliver was an animal wrangler for movies who became an exotic animal protector for the many animals now given refuge in his zoo, known appropriately as Cinemazoo. Gary is a wonderful storyteller with exciting stories to tell, but he'd be the first person to say he's not a writer so when the publisher wanted a writer, I was brought into help him tell his story. For many hours and many days, Gary told me about his adventures, and then I took the transcripts and made them into a book. Available at Amazon.
WEB SERIES2012
Saving Cinemazoo
After the book was written, Gary and I kept in touch and, when a new provincial government regulation threatened his zoo and all his animals, I decided to produce a web series documenting Gary's efforts to save his animals. (In this shot he's warming up a frog.) The series can be seen here.