I suppose it's easier for most writers to create and vivify characters of their own gender.

As New York careens toward the modernity of the twentieth century when Gibson girls were transforming themselves into working women, Clara Driscoll enters the male field of stained glass artistry and builds a lively, multi-national, multi-class women's department within Tiffany Studios.

I absorbed as many Impressionist paintings as I could, in Parisian museums and in many museums in the United States and in books, looking for clues to architecture, clothing, settings.

I made my personal discovery of Emily Carr while visiting Victoria in 1981 to write a travel article. Immediately, her strong colors attracted me; her spunk fascinated me. Her down-to-earth voice in her writing appealed to me as authentic and original.

I got my transferrable skills from working at entry-level, gauging what I wanted from my career, and making sure I had what it took to get the one I truly wanted. But now there's a Catch 22: school leavers need experience to get jobs, but they can't get experience without jobs.

A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this, get out of the profession.

I've spent most of my career in ensembles, and I'm good with that.

Some people bring their work home with them. You might suppose that Sid Mashburn is one of those guys - the man was born with a name so brand-ready he basically had to become an entrepreneur.