I do most of my creative work in a prairie village in Alberta. Space, quiet, and understanding neighbours are great inspirations. Sometimes I just sit on the back porch and stare: where nothing happens, everything can happen.

Of course eventually I get up and write some of it down—or this wouldn’t be here.

A first glance at the website might lead a reader to conclude I’m concerned only with fantasy/science fiction. Not true. Although what I call fantasci (fantasy/sci-fi) has always drawn me, my writing also encompasses 'literary' fiction, critiques, articles, reviews, and poetry. You’ll see various links to pages that demonstrate that.

I have many interests. My view is that apart from an intellectually rigorous use of craft, curiosity is the core of all good art because that’s what drives imagination. The two most powerful words in the universe are "what if" (followed closely by "what is"). They’re not confined to a particular genre. And although most often experience is the great teacher, imagination allows us to be aware: make the narrative of who we are and why we want to dream, plan, act, tell our story. I would argue that all consciousness—and even the secretive machinations of the subconscious—is a form of narrative imagination. Without a story there’s nothing to understand.

And now you know my secret: I’m a quest writer. Questing around like a ferret to find the limits of imagination, the boundaries of the 'real' world, the meaning of it—what might be changed.

Why do I write? Why did I start? Here’s a story:

Summer in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. I was 6 years old and lying on my back looking up at a gigantic cumulus cloud. I’d just planted a leaf in the ground, convinced by childish enthusiasm that it would grow into a tree—my parents shook their heads and looked away. (Strangely enough a tree eventually did grow at that spot….) It was the same year my cousin in The San medical facility in the Qu’Appelle Valley died slowly and painfully from tuberculosis.

Staring upwards, I knew there was a different world hidden beyond that bloated cloud spreading like something queasily alive. I knew the other side would be dangerous. Alien. Exciting. I wanted to go there. I still do.