I’ve been asked that by people I’ve met at book signings. I’ve watched them as they flip through one of my books, debating whether to purchase it, watch their expectation that I’m going to come up with something brilliant, pithy. That’s not my style. My style is more about blunt honesty, which sometimes borders on my inside voice becoming vocal.

Why do I write? It’s part of what I am. As a child I spent long hours alone, so my formative years were very insular, very much about my own inner world. They were also turbulent, unstable years. Those circumstances can often make or break an individual. I chose (and yes that’s the exact term I mean) to let those experiences, those circumstances, that environment make me, in a positive sense. I learned a lot about survival. I learned a lot about human dynamics. And I learned to listen, because often that meant the key to a situation far beyond my scope. I learned to think, to process, to watch people and how they interact.

Later in life, when I worked as a freelance journalist, I wrote a weekly column for the local paper (Orangeville Banner) called Lorina’s People. The column gained quite a following, and explored local artists and artisans, business owners, people who had extraordinary jobs or extraordinary experiences. There were palliative care nurses, song writers, film makers, painters of art and painters of faux finishes, weavers and potters, beekeepers and politicians, writers and travellers. The only common thread through the years I authored Lorina’s People was that everyone has a story. Everyone. Listen enough, ask the right questions, and you discover the islands that are the lives of just ordinary folk.

This, to me, is rich harvest. This is why I write. I write about ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances. I write about the common and mundane made legend. Because in all we do, in all we are, there is wonder if we just have the curiosity, and the courage, to discover it.