Annette's Blog
Review of I Was Told To Come Alone by Souad Mekhennet
Souad Mekhennet’s ‘I Was Told to Come Alone(My journey Behind the Lines of Jihad)’ is a must-read for anyone asking what drives young men and women to become radicalized and willing to give up their lives for a cause they believe is good. Mekhennet is a German...
Early Spring in the Cariboo (Beetled Pines, Wild Horses & Books)
Winter ravaged the wood this year. It knocked down many beetle-kill pines and spindly aspens on our acreage. Michael spent hours cutting up logs from blowdown trees for firewood. I spend my days sitting by the cabin window writing. I watch the ice on the frozen lake...
The Cabin as Sanctuary, Winter 2018
Winter 2018: The Cabin as Sanctuary It was 28 below when Michael and I reached Meadow Lake Road, between Clinton & Hundred Mile House only to discover that the road was not yet ploughed. Night had already fallen and driving 40 k through a foot and a half of fresh...
Las Vegas in the Aftermath
Visiting Las Vegas in the Aftermath When I heard about the mass shooting in Las Vegas, I thought of 9/11 and I felt the same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was at the gym at the time and noticed that a friend of mine hadn’t greeted me with her usual chirpy...
Nightmare at Meadow Lake
Nightmare at Meadow Lake The first bat flew above our heads as we lay in bed reading in our cabin at Meadow Lake. It was ten at night and I immediately yelped and hid under the sheets. My husband, Michael, bolted up and ran to the lakeside door of the cabin and then...
Backpacking in the Chilcotin
Sometimes life offers you a challenge — a six-day backpacking trip to the South Chilcotin. Sure, you know it will be a struggle as Michael, my backpacking husband, and 3 friends, Ken Williams and Sue & Keith Akenhead are younger and stronger than me. I’m five-foot...
Review of The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall
The Best Kind of People is one of my favourite books this year. I read it in three days, unable to put it down. Whittall kept her readers off balance so we didn't know whether the popular teacher, George, accused of sexual harassment and rape by several of his female...
Letter from a Grieving Mom
On the day before I find out if Peace is an Offering will win the BC Book Prize in the Children's Illustrated Literature category, I received a letter in the mail that meant as much to me as any literary award (though I'd be I thrilled if 'Peace' was chosen as the...
Wolf Cull, LNG, OM the Bridge Rant
The premier says betcha, learned that schtick from Sarah Palin, sitting in a helicopter shooting wolves, she ordered a wolf cull in BC, gave the go-ahead for poison and shooting, likes to emulate her American sister in the hood of the U.S. of A. It’s about...
For Paris: a poem
Erasure: This is a process in which a writer extracts words, in the exact order as they appear in a text, ‘erasing’ the rest, to create a poem. I chose Susan Sontag’s On Photography. I opened Sontag’s book at a random page, spotted the word ‘Paris’ and began. For...