the paradox of the solstice

 Welcome to all participants of the Insecure Writer's Support Group and wanderers!

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The IWSG meets monthly to support each other in our writing - both to offer cheers and to encourage the writers to keep on keepin' on. It has been going for ages and ages and it simply the best thing of its kind. 

This month the question is - As a writer, what was one of the coolest/best gifts you ever received?

Hmm. . . I don't think I ever received a gift as a writer. Or I receive all gifts as a writer. I'm wrestling with the question and while I think I know the intention I still find it awkward. Have I received gifts as a woman? Or as a feminist? Or as a secretary? Or as a Buddhist? You see the problem.

I'll just go with what I think the intention is. The best gift I ever received that helped me with my writing was my copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It was my dad who gave it to me and it meant that he believed in my ability to write and get better with it. When you are perceived as an artist you get all sorts of gifts with that theme in mind, some of which are grand and some which are not so great, because how should someone know what tools are helpful if they aren't themselves an artist, or even if they are - they are a different artist. But when you are a writer people don't know what to get you. A pen? Maybe a great gift (a huge gift) to a writer might be a retreat in a cabin somewhere or a course that they've been dying to go on. Or a standing desk might be good but again - so personal. Probably it is just that my closest people gently ask me how it is going with my writing. That's good.

my fella getting our tree when we lived in Labrador.

I entitled this piece The paradox of the solstice. My birthday is on or near the winter solstice (and the summer one if you live down under) and people say either 'ugh - the shortest day of the year' or 'ah, the return of the light'. Both are perfectly true but like when people mark something we must know it such a slight thing, this turning of the seasons, the days, the planet. It is the shortest day by minutes. It is the return of the light ever so slightly. Yes, we've reached the top of the slog but does it feel like winter is over? No it does not. It feels like it is just beginning for most of us. You'd think as a person who has really only experienced a four season climate and has no desire to live in one that only has two seasons, I'd be okay with this time of year, but that isn't true. I definitely have to fight the dark. What I'd like to do, and this has been true since I was in my thirties, is go to bed in November and wake up in March. I don't see why we humans can't hibernate. Oh well. 

Writing News : My newest book Butter and Snow will be published in February of 2026. It is part of the Nell Munro mystery series (the first was The Crooked Knife). Constable Nell Munro, an RCMP officer, works on a First Nation's reserve in Labrador. Nell is getting fed-up with the slowness of the RCMP to deal with missing and murdered Indigenous women. Her boss puts her on a short leave with the orders that she is to make up her mind if she is in or out. While retreating to her cabin in the tiny isolated community of Butter and Snow she comes upon a murdered Inuit woman. As she begins to dig further it seems the crime is connected to a possible human trafficking ring. Her sergeant is reluctant to let Nell in on the case but she is determined to make sure there is justice for the victim.

Stay tuned for more publishing news!