(NOTE: I made a huge statement here that got lost because my computer crashed, so I'm going to start again at 6:00am)
I was born, raised, and continue to live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
I graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelors of Science in Psychology, Forensic Science, and Professional Writing and Communication. Now you may wonder, what the hell would I do with this?
Well, before going into university, I wanted to be a detective like my favourite detectives I've watched/read as a kid - Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Matlock, and Jessica Fletcher (from Murder, She Wrote. Then, when my high school classmates heard about my program, they joked that I would be a cross between Mulder and Scully, or that I would "talk with dead people." At the mentorship for the Forensic Science program, I got to shadow a forensic psychiatrist in sessions with his different clients - out-patient offenders, psychiatric ward patients, prisoners, attendee for a behavioural group for sexual offenders, and candidate for sex reassignment surgery.
While at university, one of my biggest extraccuricular activities was with my campus' Sexual Education and Peer Counselling Centre. During my time with that group, I did a number of things including bringing famed sex educator Sue Johanson to do her talk, talking about my experiences as a gay man both on and off campus, and co-founding the queer group at my campus.
Then, when I met some of the candidates for sex reassignment surgery during my mentorship, I became interested in gender identity disorder. This became the basis of my undergraduate psychology thesis in my final year. I worked with the top clinician/researcher in this field on testing a gender identity questionnaire. After I completed my thesis, my supervisor submitted an abstract based on my thesis to a conference for the International Academy for Sex Research, and it got accepted. What was even funnier was that my supervisor listed me as the first author.
So from that moment, I thought I definitely would go into graduate school. But because of this achievement in research, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go into forensic psychology or gender identity/sexual orientation. Just before I graduated, I thought, "Oh no, I'm screwed. What am I going to do?" So I decided to take a year off after I graduated, and I had a very simple plan during that year off:
(1) find a job to finance grad school, to gain more experience under my belt
(2) figure out if I really wanted to do forensic psychology or gender identity/sexual orientation or something else all together
(3) figure out what grad school to go to
Well, that "year off" turned into two years. I couldn't get through point (1) in my plan because it was so difficult finding a job after graduating (despite whatever experiences I gained either in school or at work). After several months of job searching, I did find a great job as the research officer at a post-secondary insitute. But despite the significant progress I made in nine months, my boss was forced to lay me off because of "departmental restructuring."
I haven't found a job as great as that since. I've worked in many positions (get your mind out of the gutter): research assistant/consultant on short-term contracts usually with a non-profit organization, a teaching assistant for an undergraduate psych course and an undergraduate writing course, an invigilator for the psychology department and for the accessability resource centre at my school.
A number of the jobs I've worked happened at my alma mater university. However, to do these university jobs, I needed to be a student. And so, I took one course each year to be a student. In the first course (which was an independent writing course for the Professional Writing program), I written the stories that became the basis of my second book, Lost in Transition . In the second course (a book publishing course), I put together my first published book, Dear Mum, I have something to tell you .
In publishing these books and publishing my first story in The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities , I finally came out to myself as a writer and as an author. I thought that I would be writing and publishing when I was in my late 40s, early 50s, after I completed grad school and landed a great research job.
At the same time, while trying to find a job, I volunteer with Planned Parenthood of Toronto's Teens Educating and Confronting Homophobia where I co-facilitate anti-homophobia workshops in high schools, community settings, and group homes in the Greater Toronto Area. I've also done side projects working in plays, anthologies, and even a children's story. And I started to realize that perhaps my "career destiny" (as I call it) would not be in research or forensic psychology, but would revolve around writing, storytelling, educating through writing and storytelling, and perhaps with a slant in sexual orientation/gender identity. At the moment, I'm trying to figure that out, but I do admit that I have a little more clarity and direction as opposed to two years ago.
And that's my life... at the moment.
My books or contributions to books:
(information on these books are located in the section, Books)
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