Recent Writing

I had the invaluable opportunity to collaborate with Kristi Lee, producer of Canadian True Crime, on this in-depth series on the opioid crisis in Canada. There are three episodes which originally aired in August and September 2023, available wherever you get your podcasts. Kristi wanted to cover the history of drug criminalization in Canada, and to explain why the opioid crisis is not something that can be solved with a crime-and-punishment approach. It can only be solved through healthcare and related social supports. She reached out to me after she read the article my daughter Emma and I wrote for the Globe and why jailing my daughter Sophie’s drug dealer was not the answer (see below).

I wrote about the tricky business of sharing other people’s stories when you choose to tell your own for the Canadian Nonfiction Collective blog in this piece called Not Just Mine to Tell.

Happy Pride! Let’s remember how it started. Here is my article for Spacing magazine about Toronto’s 1981 first official Pride parade, based on an interview with organizer Amy Gottlieb.

I wrote this piece about the importance of language for the Moms Stop the Harm blog.

Got to embrace my inner curmudgeon with this Globe and Mail opinion piece (April 1, 2023), Is it just me, or is society becoming ruder and meaner? My original title was  “Don’t be a dick, “ but you can’t print that.

I was honoured to win Briarpatch Magazine’s 2022 Writing in the Margins nonfiction prize with this essay, Cause of Death, published in the March/April 2023 issue. This is Sophie in 2015, at age 23.

My daughter and I co-wrote this article for the Globe and Mail (December 17, 2022) based on the victim impact statements we prepared for the sentencing hearing of the person who sold my daughter Sophie the fentanyl that killed her. We don’t think he belongs in jail, for reasons we explain as best we can. If the article is behind a paywall, you can read it here.

This article in BusinessInsider (September 25, 2022) looks at the reality of aging women without pensions or savings (me, in particular).

I wrote about my mid-century modern apartment building for a series called Home Truths in The Toronto Star (July 30, 2022). Artist Shruti Bhatnagar created this delightful illustration.

It was my pleasure to interview Natalie Moores for this feature in Chatelaine, June 2022. Natalie came out as trans and as a lesbian during the pandemic and is celebrating Pride for the first time this year.

My article Gigging Toward My Golden Years appeared in the summer 2021 issue of This Magazine, accompanied by this wonderful illustration by Matthew Daley (shinypliers).

A personal radio essay called Grievous Injuries was published and aired on CBC’s The Sunday Edition on May 3, 2020.