Go and Write

Milestones and turning points - the castle will soon re-open! We'll be there, eventually. Count on it.

Thinking in terms of milestones and turning points. Congrats, Keats-Shelley House - you gorgeous treasure of a place, you, right there at the Spanish Steppes of Rome. We'll meet again.

Exactly 4 years ago in Dublin - happy, tired faces on the morning of our first-ever international Go and Write! retreat. The folks at Clontarf Castle made us feel like royalty, from Clontarf stationary to use of their boardroom for workshops and the dungeon for our one-on-one sessions. Ireland itself was like a dream come true. We do have plans to go back soon, of course.

"Optimistic" is the new "hopeful" - slightly better, in fact.

Breaking news, as CNN would say. New Brunswick has a population of about 780,000 - maybe 60-70% will be socially aware enough to get the vaccine when it's available. So that's 60,000 from Pfizer and maybe another bunch from Moderna and/or AstraZeneca and then maybe Johnston and Johnston and some others. Plus somewhere between 20-30,000 have already been done. So, vaccinating the remaining 580,000 or so people in this province by summer's end seems totally doable, and we're among the slowest in Canada. In summary, this is good news.

Moving right along... Canada, meanwhile, will soon begin vaccinating people in the age group of 100 or over. Progress, people.

In light of my previous post regarding the situation in Scotland, I thought this news was relevant. While we're realistic, that doesn't mean we are without fact-based hope. Vaccine rollouts in Canada and the Atlantic provinces have been relatively slow, but there is plenty of reason to believe the coming weeks will see a massive turnaround in the social prognosis.

Good luck to our friends in Scotland!

In a downhome Covid Christmas, all we want for Christmas is our new vaccine.

Next Saturday afternoon, Nov. 21 @ 12-2 p.m. at Westminster Books in Fredericton, New Brunswick, I'll be signing copies of The Hush Sisters.

With fond hopes and cautious optimism, we're booked for six nights at Lunga House in September 2021 prior to our five nights in the Grassmarket/Royal Mile area of Edinburgh. It'll be the best "when all this is over" party ever.

We're all going to need some serious emotional healing when all this is over. Please join us for healing through creative writing. It's only and hour and a half on a Sunday afternoon. Bring your own cup of tea, wrap yourself in a blanket, and sit with us for a spell.