Alicia Telfer Photography
On Becoming a Writer
Gene Fowler’s quote, “Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead,” was how I experienced writing assignments in my high school English class after my family and I emigrated from the Netherlands.
Since World War II, my dad, who’d twice been a forced labourer in Nazi Germany, had fantasized about leaving the overcrowded, post-war Netherlands and finding greater opportunities for himself, my mom and four children in the “New World.” That’s how I found myself in central Ohio. Although I’d studied the Queen’s English for a year, my new schoolmates’ rapid talk and mid-western twang defeated me. No ESL—just sink or swim.
Our family after arriving in Ohio
Books became my saviour. The local library loaned shopping bags full of books. No title stuck with me, but I learned that the heroine, when in danger, was also in jeopardy. That streams are also brooks and creeks and canals and torrents. That you must use the verb “to do” when asking questions or forming a negative. Soon English began to make sense and I became fluent. But fear of writing continued through university and graduate school.
Eventually, I became an administrator in a university’s continuing education program which demanded constant written communications. To survive, I raided the files to see how the guy before me wrote the stuff and imitated his work. As it became easier, I garnered compliments on my writing. Later, I left academe to form my own company with many of my contracts requiring the written word—government reports, handbooks and corporate literature. One day I submitted an article to a magazine and launched my next chapter.
What Came Next
Our sailboat, Starkindred, in Moorea.
In the late 1990s, my husband David and I sailed to Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia in our 35-foot sailboat. This round-trip adventure on the Pacific Ocean changed my focus. Instead of penning weekly Chamber of Commerce articles, general interest pieces and teaching writing seminars, I chronicled marine-related topics, boating in all its guises, travel, people and places. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to sail about 30,000 nautical miles and write about our voyages in the Baltic and North Seas, the Dutch and Swedish canals, and the waters of the Atlantic, British Columbia, Washington and Alaska—all in our family sailboats.
Beyond the Stars on the Dutch Ijssel Meer.
I prefer offbeat stories that include unusual people and events, history, geology, science and technology. Thus, I’ve described the scientific work of Oceans Network Canada, life aboard Capt. Cook’s Endeavour, how eagles and cormorants thrive, a grizzly bear researcher, hitching rides on other people’s yachts, charting adventures in the Northwest Passage, a rescue at sea, ecological cruises, and about our sailboat’s dismasting in a storm. I’ve profiled scores of people influential in the marine industry—renowned yacht builders, naval architects and search-and-rescue volunteers. My column in Pacific Yachting, where I am a contributing writer, features “coastal characters”—people whose lives are influenced by the sea. And I have the joy of reviewing many books for Pacific Yachting, British Columbia Magazine, and the British Columbia Review.
