Find Saskatchewan Writers

I am not a ‘professional writer’, just someone who loves writing and takes it seriously. My experience was mostly gained during my business career - composing letters, proposals, policies, training manuals, marketing studies, reports and presentations. I have also written countless essays, short stories and opinion pieces, some of which have been shared with friends and relatives, others published in the Star Phoenix & The Globe and Mail.

Literature and composition were the only subjects I paid much attention to during my schoolyears (1958-70), though my role as class-clown often limited my output to off-the-wall tales of little redeeming value.  Teachers agreed, “Donald could do so much better if he just tried.”

On special occasions I write to friends and family, sometimes under pseudonyms such as Santa Clod, The Beaster Bunny, The Mad Pumpkin and Pamela-Pam the Toothy Fairy. The Wild and Whacky Adventures of Tommy-Pee-Pee and Betsy-Wetsy is also my brainchild, though those tales have yet to be shared with anyone but my children and grandchildren. My memoir, The Life of a Stupid Boy is a work-in-progress consisting of ‘draft’ stories and essays that draw on my first few decades as a lost and unhappy camper, drifting aimlessly from tent to tent in search of ‘I don’t know what’.

While I travelled extensively for work and pleasure, Saskatoon is my lifelong home. Closing in on 50 years of marriage, I have two married children and two grandchildren all living nearby. Like my father, I spent most of my working life in the propane industry. After 25 years of service at Federated Co-op’s Head Office in Saskatoon, I retired from my role as Marketing Manager in 2013.  

I follow local, national and world affairs, am a prolific reader and serve as the Kardash family historian. My daily routine includes The NYT Crossword, three intense games of Scrabble with my wife Brenda and playing along with Jeopardy, also with Brenda. I enjoy an eclectic array of music, cooking fresh and hearty meals, stimulating conversation, gardening and driving the backroads. I volunteer with the Saskatoon Prairie Hospice Society assisting terminally ill people with tasks around their home, getting to appointments, shopping or simply providing them company and a change of scenery.

For the past seven years I have been attending classes at the U of S through the Saskatoon Seniors Continued Learning Program, studying politics and modern history, including the two world wars, the decline of democracy and rise of populism. Hitler and Stalin figured prominently in those studies, as did Trump and his loyal entourage. I am both enlightened and fearful in the knowledge I’ve gained: enlightened because I now understand how authoritarianism can take root; fearful because of the apathy and ignorance that allows it to happen again and again.