RAPTURE

Description

I began this collection of stories in 1978. While my wife attended an art workshop in Voluntown, Connecticut, I was left to cool my heels in our motel. I had just taken up the sport of scuba diving, so sat down and wrote “Strange Deliverance.” The other stories followed in due course, interspersed with three novels.

Two of the following works would not really be classed as short stories, in the strictest sense, but I decided to include them because I believe they may be of interest to some readers. “The Bush,” is sort of a statement on the degree to which the farms in southwestern Ontario rid themselves of their wood lots in the middle of the last century to make way for cash crops.

“Betty’s Monologue” is the result of a writers’ workshop I once attended where we were paired off and asked to interview one another, then write something about the person interviewed. I was quite taken with Betty’s (not her real name of course) life as she told it to me. She was one of those people that give everything of themselves and receive little in return. I sensed that as a result of the workshop, she intended to turn her life around. I hope she did.