shot by photographer Ryan Marshall of Pacing the Panic Room (more here from the streets of Soho)

I live on the edge of a meat-grinder sea on the far eastern coastline of Nova Scotia, Canada, where I was born.

Despite being convinced that parenthood would be a barfy-smelling, cheerio-crunching, sweatpant-wearing purgatory, my husband Justin and I made a baby born in January 2005. His name is Evan. Happily recruited into the baby gulag, I became pregnant again, this time with identical twin boys. In May 2007 they were born three months early. One survived and one did not. Liam, who lived for six weeks, whispers to us every day. His mirror-brother Ben loves cupcakes, lego, and Evan.

After Liam died I launched a collaborative blog for babylost parents called Glow in the Woods, a retreat and now a warm, embracing and entirely cherub-free community. I spend a lot of time with my camera in-hand, chasing light, and write for Shutter Sisters as a founding contributor. I also sell fine art prints.

In November 2009 my first novel was published — The Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods, a book January Magazine calls "a spirited tale, gorgeously rendered." The second edition lands in Canada and the U.S. in April 2010. The second novel is inside my head.

Why sweet | salty? Because that’s what it is. 

Find the seaweed & solomon gundy glossary, tin-can telephones, and another blog about writing and the book at my author site.

Go to the Canadian Weblog Awards for more about me, public writing, diplomatic immunity, spiritual practice, and for the most salient piece of advice I could muster for aspiring bloggers.

Another interview at The Daily Grommet gets into the process of writing the book, and here, my friend Richard asks me about bodice-ripping muscles, music that cracks you in two, and what's on my iPod. At an interview at Mamapop, BHJ wonders about opium, and I wonder back.