Thanks for visiting! I am a Canadian writer who divides my time between Pender Island, BC, and Vancouver, where I teach at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Actually I work from Pender as well, as I often teach online writing courses.

My writing has won significant national and international awards in poetry, nonfiction and fiction. In it, you’ll find a great interest in form, and quite a bit to do with nature and spirituality—and by this I do not mean religion. Ronsdale Press said of my poetry, “Hers is the lyric ability to evoke the particular with such warmth and grace that one cannot help becoming aware of a spiritual dimension.”

Currently my husband, Garnet Coburn, and I have just finished a house which Garnet designed and built.  We moved in  May 2009; this will be our second summer here. It’s been an exciting process; we have almost an acre of sunny clearing in the forest which backs onto a park. Landscape architect Robin Jones of Garden Art Gate Company in Victoria is helping me with the garden. A selection of photos detailing how construction is coming can be found on my blog.

I am a passionate gardener who for years had to content myself with a tiny walled space in Richmond, BC. When we bought our lot, I immediately began planning a real garden again. When I’m in the throes of thinking about planting–it goes in spurts–it will keep me awake at night, mentally going over the Hillier Gardener’s Guide to Trees and Shrubs.

Someone recently said, “Oh Garnet must be so happy to be finished building.” We laughed. Our project here will go on for years; there is so much to be done. But at least the siding is on the house, the tool shed, the studio, we have seventeen trees in and deer-fenced, and the grounds are tidy. We have new and delightful projects on the go, a kitchen garden, for starters. . . I harvested the first greens from it on May 24th. We’re hoping the deer don’t find it before the crucial second gate gets installed.

On this website you’ll find information about my books and audio sections. The on craft section is added to on an irregular basis. If you have a question I could answer there, by all means ask.

Poke around. With any luck you’ll find writing or links which appeal to you and maybe even informs.

The photo on the header of the website is by Marjorie Simmins.

Thanks to Christopher Bowers for help with the website–meaning he did all the hard parts!

Please note I am happy to have feedback from people, but not from businesses, say like “cheappersiancarpets” telling me in the most over the top terms that I have a wonderful site which they read each day. It strains my credibility as a reader and that makes me grumpy…  I want to be told the site is “fantastic and inspirational which we all need” but if that’s from “make money blogging”  I will  spam the comment, no matter how flattering.

If however, Greta posts about what I had to say about imagery, well, I am delighted to hear from a real person.