More About Me

I was born in Toronto in 1946, the first of three children of two World War II veterans, both my father and mother having served overseas in the Royal Canadian Air Force, the RCAF. My parents had the wisdom to relocate to Parry Sound, Ontario where I was subsequently raised and where I completed my elementary and secondary school education.

I completed my undergraduate and graduate work in science and microbiology at the University of Toronto before being employed by the Ontario Government in the Public Health Laboratory Service as a scientist in their Toronto laboratory and then director of their laboratories in Timmins and Peterborough, Ontario until retirement.

My science background informs my writing. I published more than three dozen papers in peer reviewed scientific journals. My true interest is fiction, although I found it hard to break the "just the facts, ma'am" scientific approach. In truth, who could resist such a hot topic as Rapid biochemical test to identify verocytotoxin-positive strains of Escherichia coli serotype O157.

My father was a photographer with a photo studio in Parry Sound. But his start was in the newspaper business, first at the Peterborough Examiner after his RCAF service was over. After he established himself as a photographer, he would often work part-time for theToronto Star, Sudbury Star and Orillia Packet & Times.

My mother and father ran the photography business until they decided to close it. Then my father was editor of the Parry Sound North Star, the local twice weekly newspaper. Although I did not know my grandfather, he was long-time editor of The Canadian Florist magazine until his death in 1943.
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My first publishing project was putting together a series of my father's photographs in Reflections of a Special Lens. Most of the pictures came from a Kodak photo paper box marked "Book" discovered after his death in 2003. It was such a pleasure for me to do this that I also republished his World War II memoir, Bomber Crew. After that, I started on my own stories.