As if following that often heard advice, ‘write what you know’, Deirdre’s first major writing project was a hand-written manuscript detailing her time spent drifting through Morocco with a French rock 'n roll band. Along with the keeping of nearly illegible notes she sang & played the tambourine. This manuscript, Diary of a Drifter, remains unpublished.

Originally from New York,  she later settled in British Columbia, first an island and then a valley where her children and forestry work kept her busy. But when a local theatre company could not settle on a script, she counted up the actors and wrote one to order.  She called it The Northern Light Show, featuring a can-can dance performed first by the women and then by the men.

From playwriting and professional stages to poetry she followed up with enrolment in the M.F.A. creative writing program at Univ. of B.C. where she wrote the short story that won The Journey Prize. 

She lives in the west Kootenays with her husband, dog and assorted livestock. And although her writing since Diary of a Drifter has moved more firmly into the realm of fiction, there remain kernels of lived experience.

A Reluctant Mother is her debut novel.