Book Description

An autobiography from a Saskatchewan writer whose writing transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. Lois Simmie was born in Mervin, Saskatchewan in 1932. Filled with awe and wonder at the bountiful and remarkable world unfolding around her Simmie takes us on the journey of her life and the events that shaped her into a writer. She describes her whimsical youth in Saskatchewan in a bygone era of Frank Sinatra on the radio, Amos 'n' Andy, the jitterbug, jazz, square dances, and Hollywood movies every Friday night in the town hall. Simmie's magical delight in all things transports us through the Depression and war years to childhood summer visits to Hopkinsville, Kentucky in her relatives' Gone With the Wind -style southern mansion, an adventure in the lush beauty of Brazil, and to Scotland while writing her first non-fiction book, The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson, about the murder of a young Scottish woman by her RCMP husband. Simmie fell in love with words at a young age but it isn't until later in life that she takes up her calling as a writer while living in Saskatoon. She describes the burgeoning Saskatchewan writing scene as "electric" as she enters an exciting community of like-minded writers and poets, a hotbed of creativity and inspiration that is the impetus of her finest writing and the culmination of an astonishing life story.