Growing up on a farm, with many cousins and brothers, sometimes an aspiring writer just needs an escape to the city.

Ha ha.

I write this as a city woman now, escaping to the country, so that I can write. Life is funny.

I’m grateful to my aunt Nancy for snapping this photograph.

I’m grateful that she allowed me to squeeze myself into her hatchback and invite myself to her home for a week somewhere in the neighbourhood of my tenth year. I set up camp in her bedroom on a foldout lawn chair and a sleeping bag, and looked out the window to see that in the middle of her urban backyard, there was a groundhog.

My aunt has always been avant grade. She was probably growing some kind of organic delicacy before the word “organic” was part of the vernacular. I wasn’t surprised the groundhog had found a place he liked to eat.

Though she was happy to have a stowaway for a week, she didn’t have plans to entertain me. I’d have to entertain myself. Her roommate Paul suggested I read Black Beauty. That took a day. I wasn’t a big fan. He suggested the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I apologize in advance to all die-hard fans of C.S. Lewis, but I was not hooked. I was getting a little bored, until that evening when Paul wanted to make masks in the living room. He covered his wife’s face with vaseline and proceeded to cover her in wet, white strips like a piñata. She was laughing a lot, so Paul’s project was a little wobbly, but I was inspired. Starting the next day, I would stop reading and start writing. I would make my own art.

The groundhog was my muse.

City folk love dogs and cats, but wild animals in their backyards are not usually welcome. But these people my aunt lived with weren’t your typical household. They were artists and academics, teachers and students. They had no plans to evict their little digger. And so I wrote about a groundhog who stole the hearts of a little hippie commune, and ate granola and spread love and happiness around the neighbourhood. The End.

A masterpiece of literature, no doubt.

In any case, a story must begin somewhere. A writer must begin somewhere. And so, here I am, thirty years later, heading to Wiarton, Ontario, home of Wiarton Willie, to talk about stories, and read from my novel.

If you’re in Bruce County, come on down! Otherwise, stay tuned for the video on YouTube next week.