The show’s guest in this episode is Anne Bokma. She is an award-winning freelance journalist, memoir coach, dating coach and the author of My Year of Living Spiritually: From Woo-Woo to Wonderful—One Woman’s Secular Quest for a More Soulful Life.

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Listen to the podcast here

The Power of Telling Your Story Through Memoir with Anne Bokma

Hi, everybody, I’m Melanie Parish, it’s so great to be here live with you today. We have a great show for you today. And I’ve been thinking about my own leadership a lot lately. I had a conversation with a friend recently where I was thinking about, I’ve been thinking about my brand, for the experimental leader. And I’ve been thinking about my brand as a lifestyle brand. And, and he actually said, well, that explains why you always talk about yourself at the beginning of your podcast. And I think if it is a lifestyle brand, because ultimately, I think of my job as a coach is to help people find fulfillment in their lives. And mostly people come to me because they want to make more money, or they want to improve themselves as leaders or at work. But sometimes it’s just all about fulfillment. And the deepest conversations I have with people are about, you know, things that they’re learning about themselves that are perhaps not work related. And I joined a shared ministry group at my Unitarian Church last night. And I, we were covenanting together as a group and I realized when I woke up this morning, I was thinking about this group. And I was thinking about how COVID really took us away from each other. And in my house, we all went alone to our screens. And I got very good at sort of managing my What do I want right now, and not so good at being a part of a communal hole. And so, it was really interesting to covenant. And we were sort of both making space for each other. And also, I was really pushing myself to speak up for myself, because I noticed that as people ask for what they need, sometimes I feel like I might not speak up for what I need.

And people who know me would be like Melanie not speaking up, but I find that I may not say my slight preference for something. But I but I’m sometimes in a world where other people speak their preferences, and then mine just sort of I find that I might suck it up a little. And I think this is a really ubiquitous thing that people are experiencing as we gather together as humans. I think this happens both in the workplace and in our personal lives as we’re coming out of COVID. As we’re getting together more. We’re having to reskill, on how we be together as people. How do we speak our own minds? But also, how do we sort of shift over how do we accommodate? How do we do that dance? That’s the blend of ourselves and others at the same time? And I don’t always find it easy. I’m not sure that you do either. And so, my challenge to you is, how do you do both? How do you accommodate and speak up with love and kindness for those around you? And how what you need to think of as you do those two activities in your life and leadership.

And I am super excited about our guests today. Our guest is a good friend of mine, and also an award-winning author. And her name is Anne Bokma. She’s an award-winning freelance journalist. She’s a memoir coach, a dating coach, and she wrote the coolest book it’s called My Year of Living spiritually, one woman’s secular quest for a more soulful life. And I am so happy that Anne has agreed to be on my podcast today.

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Welcome to the Show Anne.

Thank you so much, Melanie. It’s a great pleasure to be here.

Well, and one thing we didn’t say I didn’t say in your bio is that we both go to the same Unitarian Church.

So that’s right. That’s how we met maybe 15 or so years ago. Yes, yes. Yeah, that’s true. And the same summer camp, which we love.

The same you can carry in summer camp, which I sometimes talk about skinny dipping at summer camp.

Yes, we have Skinny Dip together. How many people? How many people can say that?

Well, I think for both of us, it might be a larger number than for other people.

Perhaps it’s not as kinky as it sounds, people. It’s very wholesome.

Super funny. Wow. And we’re doing this book club, which, you know, it’s fun for me to get to talk about my book, I launched my book in April of 2020. And so, I wanted to draw just a little attention back to the experimental leader this year. And, and I know you’ve been very supportive in the past, and, but I we are focusing on chapter one, this month. And so, I thought I might read just a little bit. It’s actually the climate of innovation. And so, I just thought I might read a little bit because it’s kind of fun. And I wanted to talk a little bit about stability, so stability at breakneck speed. As a leader, you know, that real intentional change must have stable supportive organizational structures. Without these whether seen as upheaval, or innovation change is rockier, less productive and less energizing for the company and its leaders. Without stability. Innovation is expensive, people fight over resources, and eventually they burn out. The experimental leader needs to consider how to establish the stability that will support innovation as we hammer on at breakneck speed. And I was actually thinking about this, and I was thinking about your dating workshops.

We’re going to start with that, are we?

Oh, I was just thinking about like, one of the things I think you’re doing with those is actually creating stability for people because I think dating feels like a really unstable process. And I think that, I don’t know, is that interesting to talk about? Because I think you are providing this amazing stability for people in those.

Yeah, thanks for asking me about that. So, you know, I do quite a few things, in terms of writing and memoir. And I just want to say kudos to you for writing your book. You know, I’ve written a book I coach people on on their books, it is not an easy thing to do. It is takes, you know, huge effort and time and energy. And you know, there’s often some self-doubt involved, you know, is what I’m saying important? Doesn’t matter. Who am I to write this? You know, those are some of the things I encounter with people all the time when they write their memoirs or write a book. And, you know, I think your book is just excellent for people who care about leadership and who are curious about that. And, you know, it’s a, it’s a dream, many people have to write a book, but not many people actually do it. So, kudos to you for that. And thank you for asking me about the dating workshop. This is something that I’ve just started in the past year, I am 60 years old now. I launched chapter two dating.com. A year ago, I was in a very long term, 30 plus year marriage. I’ve two children, Melanie, our kids know each other. And you know that marriage ended three and a half years ago. And you know, it’s amicable, but it was scary, being single again, after having not been single since I was 19. And so, I did what people do, and I went online, because it’s very hard. I’m interested in men, and it’s very hard to meet available interesting men when you’re my age in real life. So, I felt like I had no choice but to go online. And I did. And I met about 20 Guys, and I didn’t have any bad experiences really, but I just couldn’t find the connection I was looking for in terms of compatibility and attraction and all of that until my 20th date. With Ahmet and we have been going out for about 16 months. It’s been just a wonderful, joyful, easy relationship. And he did a quite a few people as well. He had also been in a long-term marriage. And so, we talked a lot about dating and how to go about it and the right thing to do and the mistakes people make the mistakes we made. And we launched a workshop series workshop offering called how to meet a man for women over 50 We all So I’ve offered it for for men, but men don’t seem to want help, even though they need it. So, we’ve run a numerous workshop for women over 50. Our next one is next Monday, actually, October 24. They’re only $79. It’s a very small side hustle for us. But we really feel like we learned a lot about dating. And we have a lot of advice to offer to make people feel more confident and optimistic. And it’s very easy to get down and negative about online dating. But the fact is, you know, people say it doesn’t work. Well, it doesn’t work until it does. And when it does, it’s great. So, we really encourage people to stick with it. I can’t remember exactly what the question was.

You know, I think it’s I was asking, I read that little portion of my book. And I was asking about stability.

Right? Yes, stability. Yeah. And I think during COVID, it was a very unstable time, of course, on many levels. And for people who were interested in dating, you know, you weren’t really supposed to meet new people. You know, you could There are functions on dating sites now where you could do a zoom call. But I still continued to date. But all my dates were a hike outside distanced, because I was determined, pretty determined to meet somebody. So, we are coming, I think into more stable times where people are more comfortable meeting for maybe a coffee or a meal when the time comes to do that, or a movie or a play or whatever. But yeah, I mean, stability and relationships. You know, we crave that we crave to have that person, or people in our corner, that person to check in with about our day. That’s a natural human instinct. And there are many people who are divorced and separated, I mean, half of all marriages end in divorce or separation. And I would argue the other half that are together aren’t that happy. So, you know, it is very tough to find stability in an intimate relationship. But boy, when you do have it, it’s so worth it. So that’s why I encourage people to persevere and get all the tools that they can to increase their chances to avoid scammers and danger. We talk about all that stuff, it’s very easy to avoid red flags. on dating sites, there’s just a few key things you need to know. And the possibilities for a wonderful relationship definitely exist. So, I encourage people not to give up we’ve had women in their 80s take our workshop, my own mother who’s 78 and has been widowed for four years, met a man in your building whose ad stuff and they’re having a wonderful relationship. So, some people think they’re too old for this. You’re never too old for love.

Oh, nice. Um, I, I, you know, my whole brand is around experimentation. And I think your book was the ultimate book on experimentation around spirituality. Can you tell us just a little bit about your approach and how you thought about writing that book?

Sure. Yeah, definitely. It was a year of experiments. I just the brief background, I was brought up in a very fundamentalist Dutch Reformed home, where church life was the center of everything all my whole community was Dutch. When I was 20, and went to journalism school, you know, I say the skills sort of fell from my eyes and I left that church which was very difficult experience. I was threatened with excommunication. But worse than that was losing the losing the ties with my family, they were very upset. They felt I was going to hell and all of the stuff that people go through when they leave in fundamentalist religion. So, for years, it was very difficult relationship ups and downs and for when I wrote my book, which was published in 2019, I’ve been estranged my family for a decade. There is a happy ending to that story, which we can talk about in a bit. But so, I wrote this book, you know, to sort of examine my religious upbringing, the impact that it had on me, and to also experiment with different types of spirituality I really left religion behind. But I craved as many of us do spirituality. You know, the great writer Thomas Moore says that he believes the big problem of our time is loss of soul. And how can we be more soulful? How can we nurture our inner spirit is usually through spiritual practices. So, I tried all kinds of things. 24 different spiritual practices from daily gratitude practice to experimenting with Solitude by living in a tree house by myself unconnected from media. I went to a witch camp for a week I tried magic mushrooms. For the first time, I did all kinds of yoga, I learned to meditate. I did a past life regression session I experimented with Reiki Forest bathing, I mean, the list goes on. And all of these things. I also include a lot of research on them and what the studies say about the impact that they can have. And you know, by and large, they were all very, very positive experiences that helped me so sort of figure out the path that I was on. I was 56. At the time, I was going through sort of a midlife slump, my marriage was failing. My kids were about to launch, you know, I was going to be an empty nester, I was still having these pangs of alienation from my family, even though we’d been estranged, I still miss them, especially my mother. And I think I looking back I might not have realized at the time, but I think I embarked on this journey to find answers within about my marriage, and also about my family, and if things could be repaired, and if they couldn’t be repaired, how could I end things in a lovely way? So that was the purpose of the journey. And I just had a lot of fun trying all these different things. And, you know, the current reward of the book really was the number of strangers who have written to me who were also in fundamentalist religions, especially Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the stricter Baptist sects, even people from my own reformed religion, who wrestled like I did with leaving the church because they knew it would mean often being shunned by their family, which, which is devastating. I mean, one of our greatest needs as human beings is to be accepted by our tribe. And our tribe is our family of origin. And sometimes they do reject us, and how do you cope with that? It takes a lot of strength to leave. And it has been very rewarding to hear from people who, who found some hope in my book. That has been really the great blessing of this book, I would say.

Do you have other books in your future?

Well, you know, when I wrote this book, I’ve been a writer my whole life. I’ve been a journalist since I was 20. I’ve written that’s how I make a living. So, but I was surprised how hard it was to write this book.

Me too, by the way, yeah, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, like so rewarding, like, amazingly rewarding, but wow.

Like, it’s hard it is. And I think a lot of the reason why it’s so hard is because we write in isolation, it’s just us on the page. And, you know, when I teach my memoir, writing workshops, the biggest roadblock for people is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath said, the greatest enemy to creativity is self-doubt. And everyone has self-doubt, the most confident people, your leaders, right people run huge companies, you probably see this all the time, all the time. And so, I think the trick is to acknowledge the self-doubt, and almost make friends with it. A great memoir, writing friend, coach and mentor of mine, Allison wearing beautiful writer, talks about self-doubt is like, when you’re writing and you feel this voice, or you could be doing anything leading a company, you know, being in a relationship. When you’re writing and you hear this voice, it says, who are you? What do you think you have to say, you know, this is very good, you’re not a good writer, you actually sort of acknowledged that voice as a person and banish them down the hall for a while and say to them, you know, I’m just going to make you go down the hall into that other office, and I’m going to shut the door, and I’m going to continue with my writing. And I know when I’m done, you’ll still be there. But in the moment, as I’m writing, I’m just not going to let you in. And it sounds silly, maybe. But for me, it really worked. Because it was freeing too not be self-critical. And women especially, we tend to be very self-critical. So, getting over self-doubt, leads are a path to creativity and trusting that your voice and what you have to say is important. Because it is we all have stories, and we learn from each other through our stories. So, it is so important for us to tell our stories, whether it’s an a how to book, or a book, like yours, that inspires people to be better leaders, or a book like mine that shares my religious spiritual journey. We learn so much from each other. And that’s why it’s a great gift. When you put your story on the page. It’s really the greatest thing you can do, I think.

Well, and one of the things, one of the gifts I think that you’ve given the community that we share, and our city is your six-minute memoir series. And I think those are workshops that you offer people as well. And I don’t even know how they started or, you know, I just know they’ve been a part. I know, there’s one coming up that people are telling stories again, I’ve done one, you know, people, people, so many people I know have them and they become this little bit of intellectual property for people. I am there. So how did they start?

That’s a great question. Thank you for asking me. So, the six-minute memoirs, two things. One, it began as a storytelling, a public storytelling event. And I’ll start with that. So, I had been reading about something called the six-word memoir. People use this in coaching as well. And the six-word memoir is a huge enterprise. It’s a website, its books, and it’s a way of distilling laying your life story into six words. So, and it was inspired by Ernest Hemingway who was once challenged to write a story in six words and he wrote what did he write baby shoes, never worn for sale baby shoes for sale never worn now there’s a story what happened. And Nora Ephron the great comic writer, her six-word memoir is secret to life, Mary and Italian. Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes, the hard childhood leads to royalties. So, I thought, you know, if people can tell a story in six words, imagine what they could do if you gave them six entire minutes. And that’s how the six-minute memoir was born, almost 10 years ago, next spring, it will be 10 years if you can believe it. And so, I created this as a fundraiser. It used to be held a few times a year now it’s once a year, one big event. The next one is in November, the 12th. I encourage people just look up six, six-minute memoir, and you’ll find it and I bring them together 12 people who share a personal true-life story on a theme. And this year’s theme is missing. There’s going to be a story about someone whose brother went missing a story about someone who was the victim of theft, where someone something went missing in their house, there’s a story about someone losing a child, there’s all kinds of stories around the theme of missing these tend to be very deep and meaningful stories, sometimes funny ones as well. So that has been a great joy. It’s all for charity. And sometimes I bring together high-profile people like I’ve had Lawrence Hill, author of Book of Negroes, Jess Foley, author of from the ashes and so on. But mostly, it’s just regular folks like you and me, telling a story from their life. And during COVID, I thought, you know, I’m going to offer workshops in my home and Hamilton for a small group of people around the table, and you can write your own six-minute memoir. Once COVID happened, my plans went out the window. And this is where being adaptable and experimental came in because I thought, well, you know what, I’m going to offer it online. And I’ve been doing that for the last three years. Every other month. I sell workshops for group of 12 people there three, two and a half hour workshops. And then the last workshop, we share our stories with each other. And I have to say they’re the most meaningful, enjoyable thing I do. And I do other things. I work for a marketing company; I do my own writing. But being together helping people shape select and shape a story and tell a story from their life gives me just the greatest joy and I did my first in person retreat this summer in a camp where I had 15 or so people usually women with sometimes there’s one or two men and so now, I help people write their stories. And from that has come requests for people to do one on one coaching. So, I currently have six clients who are writing their memoirs, sometimes just for their family, a couple of people are writing for publication. I have a client who’s produced a beautiful children’s book. One of my clients is Paul Burton, the editor of the spectator, who just published his book, shop Romania. So, I’m doing a lot of one-on-one coaching as well now and my next series, my writing series is in November, you can check that out at my website. And the next storytelling event is on November the 12th. So, it’s just been a great joy to do these, the six-minute memoir has raised about $70,000 for local charities, including the social justice work of our church, the First Unitarian Church of Hamilton. And next spring is the 10th anniversary and I’m planning something big. So, stay tuned.

I’m excited for something big. See what you’re up to? Where can people find you?

So, they can find me at my website is the best place and bookmark. So, it’s ANNE with an E. You can find everything about me there, you can order my book there. You can sign up for my workshops, you can find out about the six-minute memoir event. I have a free chapter of my book there a bunch of things. My summer writing retreat. And I’m also on Facebook, mostly on Facebook. I’m on Twitter and Instagram as well but mostly on Facebook. So, I hope you will check me out. If you’re single or have a single friend who’s over 50 We have some spots left in our workshop on Monday. I run them with my boyfriend I’m at Korea, and we are a Canada’s only dating coaches for women over 50 who offer advice and guidance from both a male and female perspective, which I think ups the odds of meeting somebody. So that’s where you can find me.

That’s great. Thank you and you said there was a happy ending to your story. I want you to share that. And then I have one more question for you.

Yeah, so I was very close to my mother growing up. My mother was 18, when she had me. She had been married at 17 had made 18. And she had my baby brother. And my father, my biological father, grew up in this Dutch Reformed environment, had diagnosed us later with bipolar was a very troubled individual and left my mother when she was only 21, with two young children, myself and my brother, she was on welfare, she had no money, he left her high and dry. And you know, he was troubled. So, I understand that more about him now. And I do write about him in my book and the things I discovered about him. So, my mother and I were always very close. We were often mistaken for sisters. But when I left the church, we had a falling out. We kind of repaired it after my daughters are born, they’re now 25 and 22. But 15 years ago, when I became a Unitarian, you know, a left leaning open, LGBTQ friendly, eccentric cetera, religion. I didn’t even have the guts to tell her about it. Because I was very fearful of her disapproval. And my seven-year-old daughter at the time, Ruby, do we have time for this long story, Melanie? Okay, my seven-year-old daughter at the time I grew up, my mother said to her, do you still go to the United Church? Because we’d been sort of going to the United Church? And she said, Oh, no, we’re Unitarian. We never talked about Jesus. And the shit hit the fan. And there was a huge falling out. And I went into therapy. And my parents were just devastated. And really felt I was going to hell and told me my children are going to hell and me, I had to break off the relationship because it was no longer healthy. And, but then I wrote my book. And my mother ended up figuring quite prominently in my book, I did a deep dive into her past, tried to understand her upbringing better and the challenges that she faced. And I felt I should give it to her. Not everybody does this when you write memoir, but I felt I should let her see it before it was published. And so, I gave it to her. And she’s like, Yeah, I’ll get around to reading it. Maybe it was my, my stepfather had died, I went to the funeral. I gave her the book. And the next morning, she called me, and she had stayed up all night and read it and said, you know, she had a couple of things she disagreed with, and wanted me to think about changing. And she said to me, for the first time in 20 years, 25 years, I love you, and, and I think she saw in my book that, you know, I totally wanted things to be better. And I just didn’t know how to navigate this divide in religion. And things began to change between us. That was three years ago, I started visiting her again, and we work through our issues, and we are extremely close today. And it’s like, I got my mother back. And really, in the end, she said, I guess we have to agree to disagree about religion, which was all I ever asked. But she was finally able to do that. And I respect my mother and her religion. It’s just not for me. And I feel she respects me too. So sometimes we feel it’s too late with estranged family members. And I’m sad to say I think it often is when it comes to religion. I tell people Don’t torture yourself by trying to be accepted if you’re not accepted for who you are. But in the end, my mother was able to accept me for who I am. So that’s been a beautiful gift in my life.

Thank you for that story. Wow. I you know, I’m all weepy.

Yes, that happens.

Well, I love that, and I had an estrangement and my family as well. I think we’ve talked about it, and I always want to be a voice for people to continue trying to repair relationship if they want to, you know, yeah, work. It’s okay. I’m with you. You don’t want to harm yourself. Yeah. And it’s okay to continue to allow yourself the possibility of repair in a safe way. Okay, my last question for you. You did all this experimenting, and you continue to experiment in so many ways in your life I think it’s so interesting you’re an experimenter and your soul all the 20 something spiritual things that you did, and you published several years ago. Is there any like what are the highlights that you’re left with spiritually after all that experimentation? This is super personal question.

Oh, that’s okay. You know what one for asking questions. So, I don’t mind if someone asked me.

Well, I think I think Anna is the first person who ever I found out I was pregnant. And what was I was like deer in the headlights, so she found out before anyone else, but um What are you left with? Like all that experimentation trying all those things? Was there anything at the end of it that really stands out for you? That created meaning for you and all that.

That’s a great question. So many of the things, everything I did, I got something out of even the past life regression session where she tried to bring me back in time to pass lies, which I didn’t quite believe, but my session with her was still sort of healing. I’ll tell you the most profound and amazing highlight for me, and I’m not pushing drugs here was doing magic mushrooms, which I’d never done in my life, and which are now becoming quite a bit more accepted. In Canada, I think legislation has been passed to allow it in selective selected cases when people are terminal, because it can help you accept the reality of your own death. Psychedelic therapy, I predict psychedelic counseling is going to be the next wave of mental health care. Already, there are retreats that are ready to launch and open. It’s always best to do psychedelics with a guide, not on your own, not in a party atmosphere. And I did them very carefully under medical supervision. And it was a seven-hour trip that was extremely illuminating and healing for me. So done the right way. That can be wonderful. But the lasting practice for me, well was two things. One was nature, just understanding the power of nature in my life, I do live across from a beautiful trail. And I feel called to go there as much as I can. And that I do think nature can heal us the whole concept of forest bathing, the chemicals that are put off in the woods, can really help us I know whenever I’m stuck creatively, or I have a problem. If I go for a long walk, I can usually have it solved by the end of it not completely, but I get ideas. That to me is the best idea generator is being in nature. But by far, the single most meaningful spiritual practice for me was gratitude. I kept an app on my phone, I still have it called the happy tapper gratitude app, it was free at the time, I think it might be a few bucks now. And it allows you to just tap out every morning or night, a few things you’re thankful for. And they can be usually the very simple things because most of us don’t win the lottery every day or get a job promotion every day. But we wake up every day, thank goodness, or we have a coffee with a friend, or our kid says something nice, or we accomplish some tasks or another that feels good. Or we’re grateful for the bird song at our window. So, I use this app every day for three years consistently. And the cool thing about it is it keeps a running tally. So, on those days, when you’re feeling down, and don’t we all have those times in our life, nothing is ever always up, you can scroll back and see hundreds if not 1000s of the things that you’re grateful for. And I think this is a beautiful thing, because often, you know, our negative mind can look to what’s not working in our life, you know, our kids in trouble, our relationship isn’t going well. We feel we don’t have enough money. We’re frustrated in our career. We don’t have enough friends, all those things. But you know, creating a gratitude practice where you actually write it down or tap it out. Studies show that this can change our neural pathways. When we focus on what’s good in our lives, we tend to be happier, when we’re happier, we’re more creative and effective beings in the world were better leaders too. So, I would say gratitude. I think it was Cicero or some famous person like that, who said philosopher, gratitude is the highest virtue of all this portrait practices. Gratitude is the top. So that’s what I would say I learned the most is really learning to be grateful.

Thank you for that. And thank you so much for being on my show today. It’s been fantastic.

Thank you so much for having me, Melanie, I really appreciate it.

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It’s been so fun to be here with you today. And oh, my goodness, Ann is just such an experimenter in her soul. It’s so fun to talk to her about how she approached her book. You know, it reminds me of being in a workshop at the University of Michigan with Mike Rother, who’s the author of Toyota kata. And he, you know, said if you want things to change to start changing something somewhere. So, if there’s something in your life you want to have been different, start doing some things, start changing something, start experimenting somewhere. So, my challenge to you is find a place that you aren’t so satisfied with and pick a place to experiment. Doesn’t matter if it’s exactly right. Do a short experiment, maybe a week and pick something and start trying something new. It’s been great being with you here today. Go experiment!

Important Links: 

• Anne Bokma – Website
• ChapterTwoDating – Online Dating
• Anne Bokma – Twitter
• Anne Bokma – LinkedIn

Anne Bokma

Anne Bokma is an award-winning freelance journalist and the author of My Year of Living Spiritually: From Woo-Woo to Wonderful—One Woman’s Secular Quest for a More Soulful Life published by Douglas & McIntyre in October 2019.

As a journalist, she has reported on the legal challenges of the Sixties Scoop, interviewed tiny house dwellers who have said goodbye to mortgage payments, gone undercover in a popular Toronto sex club, written about how she found a brother she never knew she had, and how she finally learned to stop being a helicopter mom.

As a travel writer, she’s gone swimming in Thoreau’s iconic Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, tried out living at North American’s oldest commune in Virginia, talked with the dead at the psychic town of Lily Dale in New York State, and biked around Schiermonnikoog, a quirky island with a notorious past in the northern Netherlands.

A leading expert on North America’s 80-million strong “spiritual-but-not-religious” demographic, Anne was the award-winning “Spiritual but Secular” columnist for the United Church Observer (now Broadview) for four years before writing her popular My Year of Living Spiritually blog for the magazine.

Anne also leads workshops and gives presentations on topics relating to spirituality and writing, including how she left a fundamentalist religion, the importance of finding community, how to live a more soulful life, and what it takes to tell a good story. She is the founder of the 6-Minute Memoir “Speed Storytelling For a Cause” event, which features storytellers sharing tales on a common theme within a strict six-minute time limit. The event has raised more than $45,000 for local charities in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, since 2013.

Her work has been honored with awards from the Canadian Association of Journalists, the North American Travel Journalists Association, the Canadian Church Press, the U.S. Associated Church Press, the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors, the Canadian Business Press Media Association, Rogers Media, the Travel Media Association of Canada and the Hamilton Independent Media Awards. In 2020, she received a City of Hamilton’s Arts Award for her work as a writer.

Anne is the mother of two grown daughters and makes her home in Hamilton, Ontario, where she is an active member of First Unitarian Church.

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