And here’s a little bit of mine. Midway through a three-decade teaching career, I found myself at a 120-year-old Toronto school. In my classroom – a cavernous basement with painted brick walls – was an old filing cabinet jammed with archival photos and disintegrating documents. Seventeen years later, I retired and published my first book, BRICK by BRICK: Swansea Public School, 1890-2020.
The next, quite unexpected chapter, was COVID-19, which was not particularly high on the fun scale. To get through it, I found solace and inspiration along the banks of the Humber River, a source of fascination and comfort that led me to me to write, Riverstoryz: Conversations on the Humber.
Recently, I combined my love of history with an interest in true crime to start writing my current book-in-progress, “Hanging on Every Word: Toronto in the Age of Execution” – 10 murders, followed by their investigations, trials and sentences. Some end in executions, and others with less grave conclusions. More than just a cycle of senseless killing – or dreary portraits of prisoners on death row – these stories unravel twists of fate that alter the lives of many.