Look and Listen

Biography

Here's the boring bit - Born and raised in southern Ontario, Canada; graduated from the University of Guelph in the early 70's, worked for more than 30 years at Sears Canada Inc. in many management roles from the retail store departments to the buying departments (I was the token skirt in major appliances for a while), into the IT department where I was a project manager for a touch screen kiosk development and then the HR department for a time and attendance system where I taught the non-computer HR managers across Canada how to use the new system. While doing this I was also involved along with my husband's career as a journalist (film and little theater critic and then automotive journalist covering new vehicle launches and the entire industry) where I covered events where he was double-booked. Had some amazing travel around the world with that - not a boring bit. Early retirement !!! Pain in the knees from Osteoarthritis !!! Work at home with my husband on some books. Created and published Car Advice For Women (and Smart Men) in fall of 2008 based on hubby's extensive career as a freelance automotive journalist. We could see that the industry and the media were not serving women well so we wrote this safety book to help women in many aspects of their dealings with a car. In the past year we have revived an earlier career of movie reviewing from the 80's and early 90's for a weekly newspaper chain and produced 3 of our series of movie review guide books by theme. We're working on the next few, have ideas for over 20 and will eventually publish books in the series written by other enthusiasts using the style we have developed. These guide books are true reference texts that provide overviews of movies from early days up to current time and concentrate on the films that got litte notice when they came out. There's a concentration in our first three on women's issues and we're trying to bring as many women directors to notice as possible. This is an area of the business that is vastly under-represented by women. We're supporting charitable causes with the sale of all of our books and Movies About Women is focused on improving the lot of women who have to go to shelters. With an added contribution from our purchasers through our web site, their $2 addition becomes $5 toward women's shelters as we match it and top it up. Once we go to Amazon, we lose most of the profit margin, but if volume allows we will continue to donate for those purchases as well. I'm a lover of life, all things craft related - especially Crochet and English Smocking, family, faith and fun. We are guardians and slaves to our cats who I like to think dote on us too. I believe in hard work, recycling, sustainable resource use and the joy that can be had with having love and giving love to my family and friends.

Inspiration

I love to read fantasy and a bit of science fiction along with inspirational works. Mostly my writing is influenced by speaking straight forward and reading me is like listening to me talk.