This Cake is for the Party

Last night, I met with with The Bookshelf Book Club to discuss Sara Selecky's debut fiction collection, This Cake is for the Party. Selecky was one of the 2010 Giller Prize nominees.

Selecky catches her characters in the midst of acute crises--adultery, alcoholism, loneliness, death, religious fanaticism--and reveals the back stories. Many of us agreed that "Where Are You Coming From, Sweetheart?" is the most compelling piece in the collection. A fourteen-year old Christine is coming home to Sudbury after spending the weekend with her aunt and cousin in Mississauga. While plotting to escape from her overbearing, religious fanatic father, she learns that he has died.

A Message of Hope

Listen to the sermon Joel Osteen delivered when Oprah and Tyler Perry attended one of his Sunday services at Lakewood Church.

Theme--Staying Positive About Life

Inspired by Grace Massa-Langlois

Yesterday, I read an article in the Waterloo Record about an amazing woman who successfully reinvented herself in London, Ontario.

In 2003, Grace Massa-Langlois faced a debilitating medical condition that forced her to leave a successful career as a financial services manager. The following year, her husband died, leaving her with two young children to raise on her own. After spending several years in a  fog, she started watching television food programs. She became interested in Italian cooking and invested in cookbooks, gourmet magazines and the latest kitchen gadgets. She also did extensive online research and experimented with different Italian desserts.

In April 2010, she started blogging about her Italian cooking adventures on a website called La Mia Vita Dolce. The following spring, she received an email from Ulysses Press, a publisher in California, asking if she was interested in writing a cookbook on Italian desserts. Her book, Grace's Sweet Life, will be in bookstores soon.

Check out her blog.

Dinner with Writers Ink

Last night, three of us met at Symposium Restaurant for our monthly dinner meeting. While the cold temperatures and other commitments kept some of our regular members away, the conversation was a lively one as we discussed the latest movies, books and our respective writing journeys.

As always, I leave inspired to continue writing and submitting my work.

Great Coffee News

In yesterday's column, Dr. Oz proclaimed coffee to be one of of the most beneficial weapons in the war against cancer.

I love reading these statistics about heavy coffee drinkers...

• They are less likely to develop endometrial cancer than those who have less than one cup a day.
• They run a 20 to 50 percent lower risk of getting breast cancer after menopause, versus women who sip less than a cup.

And equally important...

In 2011, coffee was confirmed to ward off Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and Type 2 diabetes.

While I don't consider myself to be a heavy coffee drinker, I do enjoy my three cups every morning.

Published

Two of my articles appear in today's edition of The Dollar Stretcher.

The Dollar Stretcher is a group of publications dedicated to helping readers save time and money.

Read Frugal Fitness and Internet Time Wasters.

We Bought a Zoo

This is a great family movie for the holidays.

Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson star in this movie based on Benjamin Mee's experience of buying the dilapidated Dartmoor Zoological Park in Plymouth, England. Director Cameron Crowe decided to move the story to California.

Favourite line from the movie....All you need is twenty seconds of insane courage and I promise you something great will happen.

Watch the trailer.