Elizabeth Templeman lives, works, and writes in the south-central interior of British Columbia. She continues to enjoy teaching at Thompson Rivers University (TRU). Pastimes and passions include running (ever-more slowly), swimming in lakes or skiing their frozen surfaces, and cooking, baking, and gardening—and writing.
A bit more about me…
An avowed introvert, I love to write, and to read. And so while I shy away from crowds or from formal engagement, I am a sucker for communication—for connection. I started writing terrible poetry as young as ten. My biggest fear about aging is that I’ll forget words and won’t be able to get that too long, quirky idea across.
About my writing, the personal or familiar essay is the genre where I’m happiest—and at home. While I always wanted to write and always loved good fiction, the idea of giving in to a fictional world was more than I could imagine, especially in those years of juggling work and young kids at home. I love that home, and cherish those kids, but I could no more have taken on fictional characters than taken in another cluster of children. Discovering literary nonfiction changed my life.
I also love my work. TRU has been like an extension of home. Over the decades I’ve been there the institution’s name has changed twice, and my role has morphed at least that many times. Teaching language—or more specifically reading and writing—was my first professional passion. Later I’d fall down a rabbit hole of learning—providing learning support and working with students in entirely different, but equally fascinating, ways.
“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.” – Francis Bacon (with thanks to Tim Pychyl for passing it on)