Unretired Writer
Welcome! Thanks for stopping by. Here, you’ll find stuff and nonsense about me and my writing life. For 35 years (until July 1, 2025), I was an English professor. Now retired, my passion is writing short stories and novels (and poetry occasionally). Feel free to explore my work and how you might get your hands on it. I’d be happy, too, if you’d follow me on social media and subscribe to my Substack blog, ODD (Old Dog Dumps). It’s totally free and always will be. The links you need are below.
Full BioComing Soon!
My Debut Novel, Milksop
Coming May 23, 2026
This spring, my first novel, Milksop, will be published by Chicken House press. Check out the acquisition announcement!
Pre-ordering will be available widely beginning April 23 but is already available at Chicken House Press. Here’s the link to nail down now your copy of Milksop (print or digital), to be delivered to your door or your device.
Milksop is Evan Mulder’s coming-of-age story, both funny and sad, kind of like him. At one and the same time, it’s a tale of unrequited love and the story of how he meets the woman who will eventually become his wife. In June 1979, he’s dumped in a farm laneway in Huron County, Ontario. A normally studious, math-loving 17-year-old, he’s unexpectedly dropped out of school. The result? His family have sent him for work therapy to a dairy farm north of the city where he lives with his intense Dutch-immigrant parents and overachieving siblings, Jeff and Annalise. Jeff, whose nickname for Evan is “Milksop,” has conspired with their father to land Evan at Niall and Connie Logan’s farm in hopes that eight weeks of country living and manual labour will fix him. If it doesn’t, he’s finished with school and condemned to begin the night shift at Cameron Confectionaries, where his dad’s a salesman. The question is whether country living and hard work will transform Evan from an indecisive, cowardly milksop—or show him there are worse things to be.
To learn more, check out my Substack post, “Today’s ODDity: I’m Publishing My Debut Novel. I’m 64.”
The Latest from My Substack, Old Dog Dumps (ODD): Dispatches from a Journeyman Writer
What’s in a “word of intention”? In my newest post, “Something Ventured. Nothing Gained?,” I share a bit about my word of intention for 2026, “venture,” and what it’s meant for my writing life.
Here’s a taste: “Why ‘venture’? Because in life and writing I tend to be risk averse, and that can be quite limiting. Venturing involves undertaking daring actions that offer but do not guarantee a reward, a return on the investment of time, energy, or money. Of course, marriage is such a venture, as is having children, writing a novel, or wrestling an alligator. ‘Putting yourself out there’ in any of these ways might lead to your body marinating beneath a log in a swamp if things don’t go well with family members, critics, or critters.”
The background question I’m asking: might our writing lives be strengthened by this practice?
Happy reading! And as always, if the spirit moves you, feel free to share your thoughts and the post itself. Don’t forget to subscribe: it’s all free all the time.
