A self-professed “senior nomad” (she says some would suggest “crazy person”), Canadian writer Sue Harper spent 18 back-to-back winters in Kelowna, British Columbia and her adopted hometown, Wanaka, New Zealand, traveling as much as possible in between. Now she's back in the northern hemisphere, she is focusing on traveling in British Columbia as she writes a series of children's guides to British Columbia's museums. For Sue and her partner Bonnie, home is where they happen to be.
Her magazine articles have appeared in Canadian publications and internationally in New Zealand, Britain and France . She's covered subjects as diverse as French hand-crafted artist pastels and Peruvian women coffee farmers who started the Cafe Femenino movement. She believes the best thing about finding these stories is meeting the people who breathe life into them.
With 31 years teaching high school English and the authorship of 14 English textbooks behind her, Sue went back to school at age 62, to do a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Non-fiction. The outgrowth from that program is a memoir set in Paris. Winter in the City of Light: A search for self in retirement examines what happens when the sugar rush of retirement, that time when we say, “I can do anything” crashes, and we find ourselves saying, “Uh, oh, what now?”
Sue is available to attend book clubs who are reading her memoir via Skype or Facebook chat.