Yesterday was Eid ul Adha, and I kept thinking to myself, I can’t wait to get back to work. And I started asking myself if I’m a workaholic, and then I thought, nah! A workaholic would get more done. I’m only partly kidding. I’m at that stuck stage of a project. I began working on […]

The first time I heard the term, I felt quite flattered. Me? A pioneer? It was said by a recently published Muslim author I had connected with. Then I heard it again by another published Muslim author, and another. And then, I don’t know, it doesn’t sound so cute. Oh I get it. They’re saying […]

I’ve had some strange experiences recently. I’m not sure if I mentioned this one, but I went to lunch with some old friends and a kid recognized me and wanted a selfie. Then went to a wedding and a teacher who works with disabled kids, told me how she’d been at a school where the […]

when it becomes too depressing is not only wise, it’s prudent. We have such limited time on this earth. You have to pick and choose your battles. And yet writing this is giving myself the advice I need reminding of. Foolishly I started watching the Republican National Convention footage. Watching all these white people’s faces […]

Not sure. But I’ve been thinking of Neil Gaiman quite a bit for the last few days. He’s the author of Coraline and is really good at writing creepy stories. I read his Graveyard Book and although it’s nowhere near as good as Coraline, it is kind of interesting and the fact that I finished […]

Especially when things are really funny! Like when you had a chip on your shoulder and you made a terrible mistake, a faux pas, and then life has a way of circling around back at you, as if to nod and say, “It’s okay.” That’s what happened to me today. About twenty years ago, when […]

My goodness, it seems pretty hard to recapture the magic of picture books. They are so deceptively simple! And yet, I wonder if I haven’t sort of moved on. I’m looking at most of the picture books I find in libraries and thinking ‘meh’. And I watch my grandchildren’s reaction closely as I read picture […]

“…if you forgive me ISIS.” This is a sentence I wrote to a friend of mine Brent Olsen (a former pig farmer) who writes a fabulous column called Independently Speaking. I’ve known him for decades. After reading his Christmas and New Year columns, I felt a lot more hopeful! That’s what Brent does. He can […]

I read an interesting article about the creative process recently. I’m always curious about other people’s processes, comparing them to my own, trying to imagine how they came up with an idea and then how they developed it so the story was properly executed. So I came across this article written by a person charging […]

When you see the light go on in the eyes of someone whom you’ve been guiding along on a process! Today I feel like I had not one, but two breakthroughs! One of my sessions at Downsview Public library is attended by one boy mostly, who’s been coming pretty darn regularly. When he first began […]