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. 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 Spring 2026
This spring, my first novel, Milksop, will be published by Chicken House press. Check out the acquisition announcement!
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 does it mean to be a journeyman writer? In my newest post, I share a bit about my long writing apprenticeship. Here’s a taste: “Milksop is Evan Mulder’s coming-of-age story—the tale of what happens to him the summer he turns 18. The story is my coming-of-age as a novelist—I’ll be 65 when it comes out. Arriving at this coordinate on the map of my life has involved one long apprenticeship, a steady-paced journey, but also some big leaps.” Happy reading!