Whatever your plans for the summer season now upon us, I wish you days — or at least moments — filled with all you find beautiful in your life. And lots of time for reading some great books too!

… as Paul Simon wrote in the lyrics of “Old Friends” while still in his twenties. My birthday is this month. Friends older than I am smile or even laugh when I say how strange it feels to be on the brink of seventy. “You’re so young,” one said to me recently. I suppose in…

There is much to love about spring in Canada: longer days, warmer temperatures, trees budding, flowers blooming. This year it may be harder for many to find or hold onto hope in the season than other years, with all that has been lost by so many since last spring, and with so much uncertainty about what the…

Like many, my partner and I send out fewer cards than we used to. We may not have sent any last year. We are sending out a handful this year, but I wanted to share our card with all who read my blog as subscribers or as occasional visitors. The message inside reads:   As…

When I was a teacher (eons ago), one of my favourite writing assignments to give students came with the change of seasons. The idea was to write a “Goodbye…Hello…” piece based on things they were leaving behind and things they were looking ahead to. Something like, depending on the season: Goodbye hockey. Hello baseball. Goodbye sandals.…

I feel like the ground in winter, Hard, cold, dark, dead, unyielding. Then hope pokes through me Like a crocus. — Jean Little If you’re feeling at all these days like the frozen ground in winter, my wish is that hope will soon come to sit alongside your fears, your sadness, your despair, your numbness, your…

The World Wide Web was invented by an English scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, in 1989. Through the 1990s, it became increasingly useful and popular. Thanks to my tech-savvy sister, Janet Barclay, www.kathystinson.com came into being in 1999.   Janet wrote about last year’s total makeover of my site (after many updates along the way) on her own site: Janet Barclay:…

A friend recently sent me a “Memory” of hers that popped up on Facebook. It was something I’d tagged her with ten years ago. What’s still the same? she asked me. What has changed? Here’s my answer. THEN: I am going to Liberia in February. NOW: One of the writers I worked with there has…

My wonderful webmaster who also happens to be my wonderful sister is working on a new website for me. What do you like about what you see here now? What don’t you like? Is there anything you wish was here that isn’t? Anything you wish wasn’t? Answer any of these questions as a Comment on this…

Two books I’ve read since my blog post referring to an article “Addicted to Distraction” have helped cement my resolve to sharpen my focus and reduce the stress that comes with living distracted: The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr and The Distraction Trap by Frances Booth. Recommended reading…

My sister once wrote a blog post that inspired me to sum up my New Years goals or resolutions in one word. My word for 2016: FOCUS. I don’t think I’ve ever found it as difficult to focus as I have in the last months of this year. So many pleasurable activities have been calling…

Since the publication of Red is Best I’ve been treated to all kinds of stories from people of all ages about their experiences with the colour red. This spring I was privileged to hear one of the most moving of such stories. At a volunteer appreciation event at the CNIB, I had the pleasure of…

Almost a year ago I was inspired by my sister’s blog post to think of just one word to sum up my goals or resolutions for the new year. I’m sure one that came to mind was “patience” because even as I get older and supposedly mellower, I still struggle with being impatient for things…

If you haven’t joined Pinterest yet, you’re missing out on a good, fun way of finding and organizing all kinds of material relating to your interests – however many and however varied they may be – and of sharing your interests with a whole world of people who share those interests. I joined Pinterest last…

With the arrival of a new year often comes the tendency to reflect on what’s working well in our lives and where we’d like to make improvements. One of the most common resolutions made is “I’m going to lose weight!” A worthwhile goal for many, no doubt. But whatever your bathroom scale says, there may…

I bought my first computer in 1983. It was a Commodore 64 and it was great. I’ve had many computers since, all of them (despite urgings from Mac-user friends) IBM clones – PCs – until this summer. While at the cottage, a long-time Mac-user cousin said, “What you want is a MacBook Air.” “Oh yeah,…

I wanted a website that would help promote me and my books, but I had no idea about how to set one up, and wasn’t willing to take time away from my writing to learn. Luckily for me, my sister knew how to do it. Creating websites is part of her business. Since setting up…

I sure have! Most of the people in the photo here are authors. A few are illustrators. How many can you identify? Can you find me in there? All but one of the authors lives in Canada. Can you find her? She’s really famous! Meeting and hanging out with other authors is one of the great…

I turned 50 in 2002, so now I’m… Yikes! How did that happen? Find answers to other FAQs here.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, most girls were looking at pretty limited options: nurse, teacher, or secretary. I liked school, so I wanted to be a teacher. I taught elementary school in Etobicoke (as far west as you can go in Toronto before you hit Mississauga) for five years. I also wanted…

So, with the kids home for March Break, what are you going to do to help keep them entertained? (Besides reading lots of Kathy Stinson books, of course!) Why not take inspiration from the open-face sandwiches pictured here? (Get it open face sandwiches?) These faces were created by various members of my extended family at the…

Last week I had the privilege of attending the graduation ceremony at Dalhousie University where Cornelia Oberlander was receiving yet another honorary degree. Giving the convocation address, she spoke the importance of taking risks. To paraphrase: “To make the world a better place, we cannot keep doing things the same old way they have always…