Many of you know that I’ve been working on my third book for a few years. The title was always going to be Silver Buckshot, but no one liked this idea–except my friend and former colleague Rebecca Lewis, an Associate Professor in the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the University of Oregon. Without her enthusiastic support I could not have gone ahead with it; I even had a publisher reject the book, in part because of the title. There just was no other way to frame the argument: that there is no silver bullet to fix the housing crisis, that we have so many solutions that we’re already using…or could be.
This book discusses Canadian solutions, and quite a few from other countries. While it does give readers the context for how we ended up in the current housing crisis, I based the discussion on 31 interviews with people in the non-profit sector, funders, planners and people working in the trades who know very well the many solutions to building and managing affordable housing in our communities. I’ve attended many conferences and webinars on housing, whose speakers presented engaging projects that made their way into the book. Publications from national, regional, and local organizations informed the writing. It’s been a privilege to get an inside look at some of these projects and organizations as a board member of the Community Housing Transformation Centre, which took me to Ottawa, Fredericton, Brandon, and Saskatoon. I’ve also been able to incorporate some of the amazing work of community partners on the New Housing Alternatives grant.
Every writer knows the writing process is full of challenges, and self-publishing is definitely its own adventure. I started the preliminary research for Silver Buckshot in 2022 during my sabbatical, but was sidelined by life: COVID had delayed the research Lina Olsson and I were doing in Sweden, so I used some of 2022 to play catchup. Lina and I attended the amazing Stockholm Writers’ Festival where I attended sessions on self-publishing. In 2023 my mother got sick and I spent most of my free time in Ontario on senior care. After her death in April 2025, I signed up for a writing workshop at King’s College here in Halifax to make a final push to finish the manuscript. I made a zine version of the book to explore layout options. I took a book design course at NSCAD with the wonderful Katherine Diemert and got feedback on fonts, drop capitals and gutter width from my Book Buddies in the class. I designed the text layout, cover, and chapter title pages inspired by the collages I made for the original zine. And finally…this week, the book is being printed by Rapido Books in Montréal.
Writing this book has been a personal and professional journey that I’d love to chat more with you about. I hope that Silver Buckshot and its inspiring stories make its way to you through my website or an event in your city. Right now we’re in the pre-order phase, but I’ll be having events in Montreal, Halifax, and Toronto. You can keep up with events on my Books page.
