I am a retired British Columbia elementary school teacher of music, drama, art and language, (still tutoring ESL) who would always read to her students daily (even Gr. 6’s), instilling in them the love of reading, the love of good books and beautiful illustrations, especially picture books for younger children. One year I pioneered a buddy reading program with my Gr. 6s and a Gr. 1 class, ending in June with my students writing and illustrating their own picture books, then presenting them to their Gr. 1 reading buddies. Beginning in 2000, I volunteered four different times in six-month stints in Western Kenya, as a field agent for a Canadian not-for-profit providing secondary school scholarships to girls from impoverished backgrounds. On another assignment in Kenya, I co-taught workshops on language strategies for elementary school teachers of English, whose students' 3rd language was English. I've introduced Carolyn Grahams' Jazz Chants to ESL Classes and teachers of ESL. An amateur photographer, I often use my photos for the many haiku I compose. Writing limericks is another of my hobbies, as are baking and cooking, especially using no-knead bread recipes. I've written three children's books: one is a picture book: just published June 19, 2026, a true story about my mother at five years of age, while living in Ottawa (circa 1917). Book 2, "Brian's Got This Beat", is an Early Chapter book which tells of the struggles my tutoring student—a newcomer to Canada—had to overcome. The third, "Mornings With Mom on Bidwell Street", is about a little girl's daily walks with her mother in my West-End Vancouver neighbourhood, and all the characters she comes to know and appreciate. Volunteering remains one of my weekly commitments; for 16 years I have volunteered at the West End Seniors Network's charity thrift shop in Vancouver, Clothes&Collectibles—a shop my daughter has dubbed The Sitcom! Writing Credits: “Letters from West Africa, 1969 -1971”; self-published ”Red Pencils”, “Read for the Top”: for Postscript: a quarterly magazine for B.C. retired teachers "The Westcoast Reader": a monthly newspaper out of Capilano University, for beginning readers of English: children to adults: writer, editor. "She Always Got What She Wanted": Picture Book; published June 19, 2026. "Brian's Got This Beat!" Early Reader Chapter Book; published July 31, 2026.