I'm definitely in a lull when it comes to writing. I have lots of projects to work on, but I don't seem to have any inspiration or energy for writing.

Whoever is hired as the Saskatoon Open Door Society's new Executive Director will have to be an exceptional person because the one who just left helped create a real mess (physically and emotionally) with our recent disorganized--and, in some ways--disastrous move.

"The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it--to remember, to keep in mind--as they make their way up the hill... If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain--to the end of the story--and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you're going to have a very irritated reader on your hands." - Frank Conroy

Two movies that I saw recently and recommend are "Mona Lisa Smile" and "Something's Gotta Give". Part of the reason why I enjoyed the latter movie so much was that Dianne Keaton's character in it is a playwright.

Here are some very encouraging words that one of my distance education students (in the CERTESL--Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language--program at the U. of S.) wrote in a recent e-mail:

"I have to admit that I didn't enter the course with much enthusiasm, but I found it to be one of my favourites. I know a lot of that is due to your teaching/tutoring style and a lot of the personal contact you gave us. I just want to say thank you for all your personal investment in us as students and for taking extra time to answer all my questions. I hope to some day be as great an ESL tutor/teacher as you have been a course instructor."

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." - William James