Welcome

My interest in reading and writing started early in life. As a child, I would often compose stories and read them to my family. Most of these received a lot of chuckles, even where they weren’t meant to be funny, but at least they always held my reader's attention. As a young teen, I wrote many stories, sometimes with friends who had the same interest in reading and writing sci-fi, which was my biggest interest in books at that time. By the time I was seventeen, I had already attempted to get some of my stories published, with no success. After several rejections, I stopped trying, and other than some small poems published in my regiment',s bulletin, back in my army days, I made an even bigger mistake: I stopped writing. 

In the late seventies I spun my life into a completely different direction. Until then I had been in CEGEP (the Quebec version of a pre-university level education) working towards a degree in business administration with an emphasis on accounting. Even though I was in the top five in most subjects I was bored and midway through my final year I left to join the Armed Forces.

The next two years proved to be very busy ones indeed. After completing three months of basic training in Nova Scotia I was sent to Calgary, Alberta for trades training. I was learning to drive armored vehicles in preparation for combat. Shortly after completing training our regiment was assigned to do peacekeeping in Cyprus. We arrived there in Oct/79. I spent the next six months on an emotional roller coaster. Excitement, boredom, fear, loneliness amongst others traded places, often all in the same week. I saw violence and cruelty as well as acts of heroism towards complete strangers. Twice we were put on full alert and told to prepare for possible combat, once during the Iranian hostage crisis and the other time when the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The stories I could tell about those six months….

We returned to Canada in April/80 and I spent a few weeks leave with my parents which influenced my next decision. When I returned to base in Calgary I gave the required six months termination notice. Even that last six months kept me quite busy, from forest fire fighting to looking for a lost child in the swamps north of Edmonton, to spending 30 days in Germany on war games maneuvers before the fall of the Berlin wall. My commanding officer had wanted me to stay, even offering a future officers training course, but I had decided I did not want to spend my life in the Armed forces. 

 I arrived back home in Montreal, Quebec in December of that year, and immediately started a course in real estate and obtained my agent's certificate a few months later. I started working in  residential but after a couple of years went into the commercial end, selling mainly apartment buildings. Over the next many years, I worked several aspects of my trade, as an agents' manager, office manager, bookkeeper, and even secretarial work. I have also worked as Director of Acquisitions for a private company and property management.

My re-interest in writing began when my firstborn son was about four years old. He had come into our room because of a nightmare. To help him sleep I told him a story about a magic compass I had that would send his nightmare monster away. Well, the compass worked as the next night he had the same nightmare and when he grabbed the compass in his dream he banished his monster forever. It was a story I had to write. 

Even though three publishers also rejected this, my interest in writing did not waiver. With four children to write for I always had a captive audience. I wrote stories for, and about, them and they loved it. I also started writing other stories again, including one that became the young teenager novel, ‘Third Times The Charm’. I still have a strong interest in writing sci-fi again, and also love to do writing for magazines, both fiction and non-fiction.  I have now written three books in the Dramsmit Children's Mysteries and this completes the introductory Charm saga. I have completed the first book in the Tom Wilkin's Mysteries, and written Blood Mansion, a gothic horror published by Sands Press.

My reading interests do not always flow along the same lines as my writing. Sci-fi & fantasy still interest me but I also enjoy the horror of Stephen King and Dean Koontz as well as the suspense of John Grisham and Douglas Preston, Readers Digest magazine, and much more. Recently I have been reading a lot of David Woods and Jeremy Robinson as well as re-reading Roger Zelazny.  Alas, there is never enough time in a day.

For hobbies, I enjoy reading, writing, hiking, TV, movies, and especially spending time with my wonderful children, and grandchildren.