This was an article I wrote on a Friday afternoon, 1967 (gr. 12), hootenany rally. (I was really into folk music by that point.)
I wrote for the school newspaper The Huskian for gr. 10, 11, 12 (1964-67), and started by covering the sports beat for the various teams, sometimes travelling with them to tournaments in Steinbach, M.B. and Grand Forks, North Dakota.
I would receive my assignments on mimeographed paper and deliver articles to the editors’ houses on weekends.
Looking back, that was my first significant writing of any kind, long before I published an article in university, Secondary education–English (1971) about Canadian literature in high schools, for the Alberta English magazine. The prof, R. Glenn Martin, later a poet-friend, was the editor at the time.
The next big step would be co-creating, co-editing, and co-writing with teacher-friend Glen Kirkland Gage’s Connections series which began with book 1 Imagining, 1980. I truly became a published book author then at the age 0f 30. About 50 textbooks and guides would follow by 2007, which ultimately sold over 1 million copies total and which were used (and still are), variously, in all provinces and territories.
Taking stock/for the record: 30+ years later, surrounded by my books and periodical publications:
