A psychologist, a professor, a police officer, a nurse, a farmer, a midwife, a soldier, an engineer, a lawyer, an accountant, and a handful of public servants all walk into the public library. It sounds like the opening of a long-winded joke. It is, in fact, just a regular Thursday in Stittsville. The Stittsville Creative Writing Group has been meeting weekly for 13 years to share our creative fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Like villagers contributing the produce of their gardens to the simmering pot of a delicious stone soup, we read aloud the stories that have grown in our imaginations. We learn from each other: how to be a better writer, a better listener, and a better human. Since 2017 we have collected the results of each year's literary toil into an anthology, so that we might share our triumphs with friends and family, and the world. But mostly, so that we can, in the way of obsessive writers everywhere, force ourselves to stop editing and go write something else. Thank you, dear reader, for being our audience. I have been writing for most of my life: as a child, as a soldier, and now as an independent author. My favourite colour is purple. I have two cats, who choose to annoy me most when I am trying to write. I'm a middle aged white dude suffering from psychosis, but with medication am perfectly stable (except for singing to my cats).
