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...

A tram struck him down one evening on his way to inspect the work-in-progress at the Sagrada Família. No one recognised the old man in dishevelled clothing. As he carried no identification papers, he was presumed to be homeless, taken to a paupers’ hospice and left to...

Battered by the never-ending waves of gloom and doom — the skeletal images of starving children in Gaza, the doubling of Trump’s tariffs, the pounding of Ukrainian cities — I woke up exulted to hear: David had risen against Goliath, destroying a third of Russia’s...

We’re sitting in a boardroom full of lawyers, accountants and advisers—six of them with a combined charge-out rate of between $6,000 and $8,000 per hour. All waiting for the President and his entourage to arrive. Already fifteen minutes late. They eventually show up....