Look ahead into the past,
and back into the future,
until the silence.
~ Margaret Laurence
Aging in Community
How these ‘Golden Girls’ beat the odds of loneliness
Aging with Spirit
Pass it On Network
Volunteer Movement Becomes More Vital
Writing Exercise – New Year’s Resolutions
Reflect on the past, focus on the present year with a long range view. Write out ten of your strengths, imagining how they could each grow this year and help the world. Rank the top 3, and find a step toward growth for these priorities.
Book Review
In Other Words: How I Fell in Love with Canada One Book at a Time
Anna Porter; Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Anna Porter arrived in Canada in 1968, age 22, after living in New Zealand and Britain following escape from Hungary with her mother in 1956. Now in her 70s, after a career in editing, publishing and novel writing, she weaves the details of her life among chapters focusing on our Canadian writers. Arriving in Canada, she began an intriguing career in publishing at the famous McClelland & Stewart, later with her own Key Porter Books.
Chapter by chapter, she talks about her personal experiences with writers, editors, critics, and publisher Jack McClelland in the forefront of the emergence of a vibrant CanLit, appreciated here and worldwide. We see new sides of authors – poets such as Margaret Atwood, Al Purdy, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen; novelists such as Margaret Laurence, Farley Mowat, and Michael Ondaatje; non-fiction writers such as Pierre Berton, Sylvia Fraser, and Robert Buckman. Her 48-year friendship with Margaret Atwood reveals Atwood’s genius and range of achievements as well as her generous and energetic humanity. Tears came to my eyes as I read about Anna Porter’s encounters with the retiring and single-minded Margaret Laurence, believably acclaiming her one of the finest writers of the 20th century in the world.
Porter gives the last word to Margaret Laurence, from The Diviners, “Look ahead into the past, and back into the future, until the silence.”
With this shadow photo, I bid you adieu,
Ellen