I have been working for some time on a non-fiction book entitled "Mango Dreams: Filmmaking Adventures in the Developing World." Over the last 20 years, I've been fortunate to direct and produce documentary films in some of the most interesting locations on earth. From the slums of Calcutta to the jungles of Central America, I've taken crews into remote corners of the world to profile amazing people doing amazing things. Our experiences have been life changing and the stories are incredible!

That's a hard one! I guess the one I best remember was called "He Married Me for Another man's Baby...", a story I'd heard via the grapevine. It was sent to True Confessions magazine and written when I was losing a lot of sleep with my young children. I followed it up with a number of other similar stories based on incidents--true, all of them--which my friends would tell me, daring me to write a "True Confessions" story.

I especially like writing non-fiction, based on experiences I've had. I generally start with an outline and take it from there. Once I have a draft of sorts, I set it aside for a while and return later to revise and edit. I honestly believe I could go on editing forever so it's important to kiss the story goodbye at some point and move on to the next.

I've often said that I believe a good writer is one who can hook you on the first page and those are the writers I love. I enjoy a wide variety of fiction from Michael Connelly to Michael Ondaatje, Alice Adams to Alice Munro. I'm a sucker for Nordic crime fiction, especially Henning Mankell, but also appreciate Sue Grafton and John Grisham.

I grew up in a small town on the prairies of Southern Alberta. At a young age and from a wise grandfather, I learned to respect and accept the diversity of the people who populated my life and also to love the open expanse of prairie where we lived. As I grew older and began to write, I realized that my passion for the natural world and an appreciation of the human beings shaped by it would inform whatever I wrote--essays, stories, blogs, screenplays.

"Memories of Home" chronicles a very stressful time in my life when my husband and I made the difficult decision to sell our treasured family home.

My desk could best be described as organized chaos. It belonged to my step-father and is huge--a testament to his career as a university professor and dean. I love working at it amidst the piles of papers and the occasional cat sitting on the printer or draped across my keyboard making mysterious additions to my writing.

I spend my time in many different ways, My husband and I have been fortunate to have worked together professionally for many years as college teachers and filmmakers. As well, we have raised a large family, kayaked, sailed and traveled the world together. We are still developing projects the latest of which is a documentary entitled "The Boat". I am a breast cancer survivor and a member of a very active dragon boat team. The friendships, camaraderie and stories of my teammates have inspired me and are the basis of the new film.