"When my seventieth birthday loomed in the near future, I was bemused at how unlikely it seemed to be. I wondered if others had approached the biblical three score and ten with the same wonderment. Certainly some did. "I never knew a man who wasn't surprised by old age,"; Victor Hugo said, and good Queen Bess remarked, "Old age came upon me as a surprise, like a frost.";

"I decided to write a short story about becoming seventy, and Penelope Stevens emerged. In that first story, Chaos, published by Queen's Quarterly, Penelope, at seventy, thinks it is time to contemplate the randomness or otherwise of the universe.

"Once Penelope had, so to speak, materialized, I couldn't shake her off. I decided to incorporate the short stories into a novel. Thank God for small literary presses! Major publishing houses were giving huge advances to very young writers and turning away those of us approaching the fogey stage. Coteau had originally published A Celibate Season, co-authored by Carol Shields and me, (which has become a best seller in a Random House re-issue) and were delighted to accept and publish Penelope's Way.

"I got off to a late start in writing and it seems to me that I have just now attained some mastery over the craft. I'm hoping that Penelope will convince the readers that there is life, and damned interesting life at that, to be experienced after seventy. Even-or especially-for the writer.";
1-55050-173-9

[BCBW AUTUMN 2000]