I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1949. My mother brought me out to Vancouver on the train in a straw basket to join my father, who has taken a job out there. I was raised in the lower mainland of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island. We live in the north for a few years. I lived for a time in San Jose, California, then took my Undergraduate and Master’s degrees at The University of Alberta in Edmonton. I married my wife, daughter of a strict Muslim family from Tanzania in the 1980s. We have been together over 40 years. I completed my Doctorate at McMaster University and the University of Toronto in 1985 and embarked on a period of gypsy scholarship at several universities in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. Eventually I accepted a tenured position at a small undergraduate university in Southern Alberta. My daughter and my son were born at this time.

My 30 years career at The University of Lethbridge was a rocky one. I was known as a troublemaker to administrators and a whistle-blower in the bargaining unit. Yet I have enjoyed many rewarding relationships among my colleagues–-and even some administrators! I taught many different sorts of courses, but mainly in Canadian Literature, Creative Writing, and the Great Books tradition. In the latter part of my career, I taught a course called Creativity Across Disciplines and an undergraduate capstone course which was also interdisciplinary in nature. I continue to be grateful that these courses became quite popular among my students. Actually, this was the reason my anti-colleagues could never get me fired.

I have published books and articles throughout my career. These are listed on the Studies and Poetry pages of this website.

Always a vagabond in my intellectual life, I have worked and studied at a number of schools, including The University of British Columbia, Vancouver Island University, The Universities of Alberta, McMaster, Toronto, Saskatchewan, Bishop’s University, The Universities of Western Ontario, Trent, Dalhousie, Acadia, Lethbridge, Calgary, The University of Nottingham, and brief stints at Urbino and Oxford. I have presented my research on literature, creativity, and education internationally (mainly in North America and Europe).

I am very fond of motorcycling, a sport or hobby that I took up many years ago. I have owned and restored many old bikes. I have ridden many miles in Western Canada and the Northwestern U.S. I have a few photos on here on the Motorcycling page.

---