About Clare

I am a writer and AWA certified facilitator who makes my home in Barrie, Ontario. I write poetry and prose and have developed my craft by participating in workshops with leaders in the field of creative writing including Pat Schneider, Sue Reynolds, James Dewar, Barbara Turner-Vesselago, Ellen Bass, and Barry Dempster.

I admit to having an obsessive fascination with all things Celtic, including music, the writings of John O’Donohue, the poetry of Seamus Heaney, sacred stone circles, mystical stone walls and wild Irish rose gardens.

In 2016 and 2018 I joined a group of writers on a writing retreat in Ireland led by the fabulous Inkslingers’ Sue Reynolds and James Dewar and was immersed in that country’s history, landscape and literature. It was here in a tourist shop in the village of Ennis in 2016 that I did my first public recitation of my poem “Homage to a Dry Stone Wall – Inis Oirr” to the two enthusiastic employees. Encouraged by their response I did a second reading of the same poem on Grafton St., Dublin, to a young couple in love at an outdoor jewelry kiosk. They seemed to enjoy the experience but it may be because they were simply in love and enjoying everything.