about
Once upon a time, a young girl wrote a book report on The Diary of Anne Frank. The year was (undisclosed), and the young girl was 11. She knew she wanted to write from the moment her 6th grade teacher asked her to read from her report. The young girl tripped while walking on stage, you see; as the old wooden stage was housed in the school gymnasium, the sound of her falling down the stairs was amplified for all to hear.
The young girl made two vows that day: 1) to never walk on a school stage again, and 2) to write something every day. The first vow was broken when she was in the 9th grade. Her high school crush (who didn’t know she existed) joined the drama club, so you know what that meant for the young girl. The second vow has held a little more weight.
I was raised in rural Ontario. Summers were spent boating, camping with friends, and listening to my dad play his old acoustic Gibson guitar (Bluegrass, if you must know). I’m a bit of a hick and happy about it.
Life now consists of a day job – writers in Canada often fall prey to the need for that elusive thing called a regular paycheque. But I like my day job. I work at a beautiful winery in the Okanagan. And since drinking is good writer cred, I try to ensure that I do my part.
What else do you need to know about me? In 1997, I got hitched to a wonderful fella named Ian. Never thought I would get married, but it seemed convenient at the time. Long story. We bought the ring while we were lost on Lexington Avenue in New York, making our way back (we thought) to our hotel after visiting the Guggenheim. Thank goodness for my bad sense of direction. He proposed at midnight on the one year anniversary of what we agreed was our first date. I think he said something like, “Here.”, gave me the ring, and then rolled over to go to sleep. That was in Atlantic City. Another long story.
We live in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. Our house was built haphazardly in 1947, and we’ve been “renovating” it since we purchased it 2007. Small things, like knocking out walls and building new stairs. Oh, what I would give to have someone magically appear to finish the drywall…
Between working the day job and writing for some fantastic clients (a small but hardy bunch), my time is fairly full. However, I do manage to take part in the local community. I’m on the Board of Directors for the Penticton Art Gallery, and as a consequence our art-to-wall-space ratio is severely out of whack. But we have great art.
One last thing: we have three cats, who we speak to as people. Jackson (aka The Dude) is 12, Jasper is 3, and Tippy is just over a year old. They live together in an unharmonious and tenuous truce.
~ Jeannette
