About LouAnn

Lake Erie in the winter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have lived in the charming town of Kingsville, Ontario on Lake Erie for…a long time.  I am a freelance writer for the newspaper that I once worked for as a full-time reporter/photographer/columnist. Today I am a columnist and municipal reporter, magazine writer, poet of little merit, songwriter of sorts, and aspiring writer of books.  Still working out the timing of my stand up comedy routine, I am destined to serve it up on the page and not the stage.  Some of the things you will read in this blog are from my weekly newspaper column but I promise never to include any of my articles about town council. Though absolutely fascinating and good fodder for the bottom of birdcages, the less said about sewers and drains and riled up residents the better.

I have been married to my husband John for 34 years and we have two wonderful, smart and handsome sons, Adam, 30 and Tyler, 25.  Adam is a rock god (soon to be a world renowned lead guitarist) and basketball aficionado and Tyler is my computer savvy clever (about to set the world on fire) business marketing graduate.  Over the years they have appeared in my columns so often that they no longer read them—so that when they meet someone “on the street” who has read about them, they feign ignorance.  Oh yeah, and we have a cat called Kitty Bob who sometimes gets a column or two devoted to him. I mention the cat as he is a much beloved family member, who would be missed more than I, if he took a train to Austin and did not come back.

I began my writing “career” at the tender age of 10. My first story was a composition for a grade five literature exam and my teacher liked it (she really liked it!).  I “honed” my craft a little more at university, where I was taught by hippies, poets, (it was the 70’s) and strict grammarians.  Some of it stuck; some of it didn’t.