TO KILL A PARROT...AND SO FORTH
As a child I possessed an ability to form mental images that illuminated a sphere of make-believe. It was a world to which my parents allowed me to wander. I was given a second hand Remington typewriter and a pile of paper. An office was created by a window under the parrot's cage. My first story, "To Kill a Parrot," prompted the removal of Polly.

I was pleased to receive literary assignments from teachers, but have never forgotten an incident that could have wounded the soul of any would-be writer. My composition was crumpled and tossed into the wastebasket by an elementary teacher who insisted such work of excellence could not have been written by a child. Perhaps, for the novice, a prerequisite to success in the field of writing is to develop an impervious attitude?

At the age of fourteen an anecdote of mine was published in a daily newspaper. Elated, I freelanced short stories, many of which were returned until I embraced the rudimentary rules of writing. I then had some success.

I married young, and after the war my husband and I travelled during his holidays to satisfy a yen for knowledge. We explored all things - from coffins to cuisine. The latter proved to be a boon, when the writer of a by-lined column retired.
I counted the words in her column on food, gave careful attention to the format, and presented a similar column to the editor of the newspaper. "...from now on the food column will be written by Margaret, who has travelled all over the world, not only has a good knowledge of cooking and a large recipe file, but also knows the background story of different kinds of cooking..."

My first column, "The Gathering of the Clans for Burns Night" was about Scottish clans and a recipe for the haggis. It included a poem. There was a goof-up in the layout and Oliver Wendell Holmes was given credit for composing Robert Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis."
I became the editor of the food page.

On the demise of the newspaper some years later, I secured a job as a columnist/copywriter with a magazine. A job of which I knew nought. The dictionary described the word copywriter but gave no sample. Copy was to be handed in the following day. Visions of being cast down the Nile in a dahabeah with a dark eulogy were crossing my mind when the words of my dad, a doggerel poet, came to me. "When your grey matter gets stuck in neutral call on the writer's god." I described the wares in shop windows, and wrote the first column under a pen name.
The death of the magazine brought waves of discontent. Should I seek another position as a columnist? Our children had learned the word deadline. Pet wolf and felines were familiar with journalese. While pondering preferences I came across a diary in Wales that inspired a year's research, and a lengthy article about an old-fogyish pasha, who, born in Ireland, travelled from Egypt to fish in Canadian waters. A few established writer friends were of the opinion it would never be published. "Too long-drawn-out," "Humour and history don't mix." Maclean Hunter bought and published the article with my pictures. I didn't use a nom de plume. Had there been a flag inscribed "NOW I AM A GENUINE WRITER " I would have flown it from the tallest pole!

I continued to write those lengthy historical articles and be published until my semi-retirement. By the way, I tend to over-research, and get absorbed in old tomes. Scrawled facts mingle with cartoon ideas amidst dust on my roll-top desk. And I have never attended a class for creative writing. (I graduated in music.)

Margaret Moffatt's articles and drawings have been published in periodicals and magazines too numerous to mention. Ger first fiction "A Voice from Heaven" received Honourable Mention in CWJ's l993 Short Fiction Contest. She lives in Langley, B.C.