Foreword
It may take a great leap of imagination to tease out what a
contemplative former executive and a little green apple could have in
common. Readers may also wonder how an indentured 19th century street
musician can find a place between the same covers as a sensitive
new-age guy pondering the merits of indiscriminate hugging. Yet they
will find these and many other equally unlikely matches within these
pages. Such seeming lack of congruity is not, however, just an
accidental by-product of putting together an anthology. It is, rather,
the result of each contributing writer’s contemplation of the same
constant: that life and the world are locked in an endless dance of
flux and change.
We adapt. Adaptation is our strength, our means of survival. Some
overcome sorrows; some dream of bigger things; some simply draw the
curtains. The contributors to Changing Ways did not have to think about
this as they wrote. They are writers because they know and live this
basic fact every day of their lives. It’s what brings them, their
stories and you, the reader, together in the dance.
Jake Hogeterp
Author Biographical Sketches
Jean Edgar Benitz lived and worked, as a child and adult, across
Canada. She wrote, as part of her career, for the design business
as well as for art magazines including, as exceptions, two articles
published on The Facts and Arguments page of the Globe. A
tradition of storytelling in her family led her to writing. When
she retired with her husband to Northumberland County, she turned
to fiction, writing about people, their triumphs and disasters, and how
they respond to them.
Patricia Calder’s life’s work has been the teaching of writing and
journalism. She strives for integrity in her stories, looking for
sub-tleties in human behaviour, and developing complex characters who
are neither purely good nor totally bad. Photography, grandchildren,
birds, reading, gardening, and politics are her other passions.
Calder’s work has appeared in Outdoor Canada, His Magazine, The Toronto
Sun, and CBC Radio Letters to the Editor.
Fran O’Hara Campbell is newly retired from a long and satisfying career
in health care, and is pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. Many of
her stories spring from a lifetime experience of the human condition.
Her special passion is children’s stories. She and her husband Don live
in Port Hope where they enjoy gardening, long walks, and visits with
family and friends.
Leonard D’Agostino: As a Production Manager and Line Producer, I have
had a lifetime of film production, planning, budgeting, and managing
award winning international dramas and documentaries for the C.B.C. and
independent producers, including Road to Avonlea, The National Dream,
and Dieppe. I am presently adapting my grandfather’s autobiography,
about a child street musician’s journey from Italy to Scotland in 1888,
into a Young Adult Novel. Northumberland Publishers recently published
one of my short stories entitled The Prosecco Proposal.
Shane Joseph is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. His first
novel, Redemption in Paradise, was published in 2004 and a first
collection of short stories, Fringe Dwellers, in 2008. His short
fiction has appeared in literary magazines in Canada, India and Sri
Lanka. Shane lives in Cobourg, plays in a rock band, writes, and scoots
off to visit one country for every year of his life.
Brian Mullally is the author of several novels, and has received a
number of awards for his short stories. He and his artist wife live in
Eastern Ontario, close to the north shore of Lake Ontario. Brian’s
latest novel is entitled If I Were A Blackbird. He is currently
working on a new book called Children of Another War, and trying to
assemble a collection of his short stories between frequent visits from
his children.
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