I wrote the first draft of this bio for the SFWoE website after placing second in its annual contest. In the absence of anything livelier, I offer an expanded version below.

For almost 17 years I worked as a publicist in film and TV and wrote more biographies than there are stars in heaven (or Hollywood) without a second's thought. Asked now to write one for myself, I find I am suffering from the worst writers' block...

In the beginning...

I am born. On the Feast of St. Genevieve (Jan 3). Hence my name. I grew up in a semi-rural town named Boucherville on the South Shore of the St. Lawrence River, about 30 minutes from Montreal. My primary school education was done in French, which is how I became familiar with French-Canadian folklore and legends. Boucherville was a great place to grow up in, an odd mix of centuries-old stone churches and homesteads abutting sprawling, treeless subdivisions which in turn gave way to weathered farmhouses and pastures that had remained virtually unchanged for decades.

Eventually we moved to Nuns' Island, a new development just off the island of Montreal. Today it's a very ritzy neighbourhood. Then it was only 7 streets of apartments and townhouses in the midst of fields, woods and wild places. I secretely named the wild places after locations in the Lord of the Rings. The forest was Mirkwood. There was a great standing pool of water on the far side called Mirrormere. On Canada Day (July 1), there was always a huge open air family dance in the square between the community centre and Dominion. It was a great place for a teenager with a hyperactive imagination.

Let there be light...

I was a voracious reader, devouring anything from cereal boxes [which I got to read twice - in both French and English] to Joan Aiken, C.S. Lewis, and the Brothers Grimm. With a British mum and granny and Irish-Canadian father, I was exposed to a million worlds, and counted characters from Odysseus to Siegfried to Cuchulain to Bilbo Baggins as my friends. Of course I did the flashlight-under-the-blanket thing. I even went one better. When the batteries ran low I discovered that if I held the book just so, there was sufficient illumination from the streetlights to decipher the type. I have even read by candlelight in an underground snow-fort, which is how I discovered snow burns...but I digress.

When I was ten I read The Lord of The Rings for the first time (I'm up to 45 times now, and once in French), and decided then and there to become a writer.

The Road goes ever on and on...

Life is indeed a road that can sweep you away if you're not very vigilant. On my way to today I explored several sideroads: being a ballerina, being an actress, being a journalist and theatre critic. For many years I ran my own p.r. firm, specializing in publicity for film and TV. I've worked with some of the greats, including Rod Steiger, Nikita Mikalkov (who won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in '84), Phil Collins and Lynn Redgrave.

I had brain surgery for a blood clot when I was 25 and can now truthfully say I have holes in my head. In '98 I retired from pr after receiving a diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and have been pursuing my writing ever since. In 2001, my friends and family took up a collection to send me to Clarion, which I must say was one of the best and happiest times of my whole life, and is where I wrote "The Lady of Land's End" which placed 2nd in the 2002 SFWoE contest. Or, to be more precise, is where I wrote the story version. I had written a screenplay version the year before, for a contest I didn't win.

If at first you don't succeed...

I originally wrote the script because I wanted to share the magic, mystery and richness of French-Canadian folklore with an English-speaking audience. I revisited the story at Clarion because of a chance comment our Editor-in-residence, Shawna McCarthy, made to me. I can't recall the exact remark but it had to do with fairytales and source material. I did exhaustive research on-line and e-mailed people I have never met to ensure accuracy about tides, birds and minerals. I hope "The Lady" will inspire readers to seek out other French-Canadian legends.

Today...

I live now in Toronto with my husband Ron, an historian who does research for documentary film companies and who proposed to me in hieroglyphs ; my eldest stepson Brill who builds robots in the basement; and my three cats, Mungojerrie, Rumpleteaser and Goblin. Teaser and Goblin, "the boys", sleep on my desk when I write and occasionally assist by stepping on the "caps lock" key. Lady Jerrie prefers the sofa or filing cabinet, which, contrary to popular belief, is really a cave.

I have two brothers, Jerome, who lives in Montreal; and Christopher, who lives about six blocks away. He is a plastics engineer and jazz fanatic, is married to a lovely Italian-Canadian, Gina, who is a nurse and gourmet cook. They have two daughters I adore; Anjelica and Celeste.

I am a Morrisman (retired). Morris is an obscure form of ancient English folk dance that involves vigorous leaping, copious beer drinking and the singing of bawdy folksongs. In 1997, we performed at Stonehenge.

I practice Taoist Tai Chi, which is a particular form of Tai Chi adapted to maximize the health benefits, and to which I attribute the fact I have not yet shuffled off this mortal coil.

I love gardening and my office window looks out on a glorious wild garden in which culinary and medicinal herbs jostle for space with giant zuccinnis, tomatoes and wildflowers. My home is decorated with pre-Raphaelite prints, gargoyles and Egyptian reliefs. There are books in every room and we never have enough bookshelves. I have a wonderful collection of kitchen witches.

My taste in music runs to classical, Celtic and Broadway showtunes, and in food to Indian and Mexican. Hot, hot, hot! My beverage of choice is tea - orange pekoe, hot - and dry white wine, preferably French, but not chardonnay. I have a knack for languages and speak French and Spanish well and have enough Italian to get myself a glass of wine and German to get me to the bathroom. I despise political correctness and linguistic revisionism. A woman is a woman, not "womyn", thank you very much, and I consider it no shame to be one.

My all-time favourite movies are Lawrence of Arabia, Braveheart and Lord of The Rings. One of my Clarion friends says that makes me an "epic"-type person. I can't begin to list my favourite books but they include authors my American friends often haven't read, like John Wyndham and Terry Pratchett.

Tomorrow...

I finished my first novel, an epic fantasy quest story with a twist, when I was thirteen and am still (to the dismay of my husband who thinks I'm too much of a perfectionist) revising it. I hope to submit it to a publisher soon.

And tomorrow and tomorrow...

I can't really think of how to end this, so I thought I'd shamelessly steal a quote from someone. Did you know I found 557 quotes about the word "tomorrow"? Too many to pick one. So, in a nutshell...[deep breath] Tomorrow-I-hope-to-be-a-famous-published-award-winning-novelist (don't we all?) who-can-sing-dance-and-type [deep breath].

"The End"