It was all Laura’s fault. “Hon, if we’re going to Tanzania, can we visit a game park? The kids would love it.” “I’m going home after thirty years. I thought we could spend a week in Dar-es-Salaam, looking up relatives and friends I’ve lost touch with. If we go to,...

I met Hazel on my first trip to Cyprus. Thin as a twig, white-haired, she strode along the promenade in front of my hotel in Pyla, a seaside village on Dhekelia Road. Her beige McGill University cap matched her shorts. Hazel drew my attention by annoyingly outpacing...

What was I thinking? I had got myself lumbered, training as an accountant at £600 a year ($1,200), with two weeks’ unpaid study leave to pass my exams. I was 18 years old, a high school failure, scraping into a CPA programme by the skin of my teeth just before its...

Being bachelors, Joe—my boss—would regularly take me out for late-night supper. Calgary, being a sleepy town, only had one place serving food at that hour: Chinatown. The only restaurant open until 4 a.m. was the Golden Inn. Joe, a real estate mogul worth hundreds of...

A rarity in the interviewing world once asked me, “You seem unsure of what you are. One minute you say you’re a writer, another minute an author. Which are you?” The question haunted me, as I was dissatisfied with either title. At the age of five, I was parcelled off...

“How did you get from mistakenly entering Canada Immigration in London to sitting here in front of me in Calgary?” By now, the lunch-hour crowd had thinned at La Petite Pâtisserie. My time was also running out. Mike shrugged apologetically. “These days, it’s hard to...

La Petite Patisserie was not one of my favourites. Restaurants or cafés, I preferred “mum and dad” businesses, where you were instantly recognised and welcomed as family. Upon entering, you would feel as though you’d arrived home. You’d exchange banter. Not so with La...

The phone rang. “Hi! This is Mike, a neighbour of yours. I read the blurb you posted about your writing in the mailroom. Can I buy you a coffee?” Without thinking, I agreed. Did I make a mistake? Mike was so ordinary. If you gazed into his face for an hour, you’d...

“The mandala – the Buddhist Wheel of Life – revolves through six realms. The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction, where we...

8 December 1996. The whole world was mesmerised by a penny stock company based in Alberta, now worth US $6 billion — from nothing. Anecdotes abounded in small towns and villages across the province of burgeoning millionaires on every street, thanks to stock they’d...