Letter from Joy
April 20, 2026
Hi, everyone,
Well, it’s mid-April, and I guess what they say is true about time passing quicker the older one gets. Soon it will be summer, and then next thing you know, it’s September and then Christmas! Oh, dear. I seem to be spiralling. If only there was a way to slow things down, at least a little. Even Covid, as awful and limiting as those years were, passed by so quickly. We’ve been in Florida now for most of the winter season - with several trips back to Toronto for various appointments - and in a week, we head back there until next winter! I wish I could say, I’ve accomplished a lot in this time, but the truth is that I’ve done mostly nothing. I worked a bit on my new book in terms of revisions, but most of what I did is to figure out what those revisions needed to be and where to make them, so the bulk of actual writing has yet to be done. I’m hoping to get them done by the start of summer. I read a few books: Don Winslow’s latest collection of short stories; The Correspondent by Virginia Evans; Hello, Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, all of which I enjoyed, as well as rereading one of my own earlier novels, A Mother’s Shadow, formerly called Puppet, that was recently reissued, hopefully to introduce me to a new audience that is unfamiliar with my previous work. I’m happy to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by how good it was! If you haven’t read it, please give it a try. It made the Canadian bestseller list, so that was also a nice surprise.
The other thing I’ve been doing is a lot of word puzzles: Wordle, Spellsbee, Spellbee and its many iterations, as well as books of NY Times Crosswords. I love doing them, but they have a tendency to take over your life. I’ve also been playing a lot of golf - much more than I do in Toronto in the summer, and I’m happy to say that my golf has really improved, even though my scores haven’t really changed. But I’m swinging better and farther than I ever have, although my putting is inconsistent. The problem is that I really don’t care that much anymore. Obviously I like to play well, but I no longer get upset with a bad shot, and I don’t keep a handicap anymore, so there’s really nothing riding on my score. I’m finding that I enjoy the game much better now.
We haven’t been to the movies in ages, although I’ve watched a few on TV, including The Housemaid, which I thought was pretty stupid. It started out well, but quickly went downhill. Another show that started off very interestingly as well as decidedly quirky, was DTF St. Louis. I loved the cast - they are all terrific, and I confess to always loving Jason Bateman in anything, but each episode grew increasingly unbelievable and irritating, so I can’t say that I recommend it. I’m currently enjoying season four of The Lincoln Lawyer. As for The Housewives - although none of the current cast is actually still married - the drama is as unrelenting as it is silly. These women will fight about anything, and Kyle has become increasingly unlikable. I do like Rachel Zoe and Boz.
And we had a bit of drama of our own here with Best Buy! We purchased a printer, but when we went to fill the ink cartridges, the cartridge with the black ink wouldn’t register properly, so we couldn’t use it. We took it back to Best Buy, hoping to either have them fix the problem or replace the printer, but they said that because it was after the two-week window one has to return things - it was closer to three weeks - it was no longer their problem! I found it inconceivable that Best Buy wouldn’t stand by their products, but even after calling the manager, they refused to do anything about it. So, just to let you know and be aware - BEST BUY DOES NOT STAND BY THEIR PRODUCTS! I will never shop there again. But the story doesn’t end there. We next called HP, but it’s almost impossible to speak to a real person there, and you wait forever only to be disconnected. Unbelievably frustrating. After finally reaching an actual human, we explained the problem and they sent us a new black ink cartridge. The problem is that it wouldn’t work! So now we’re out several hundred dollars and don’t have a printer that works!
And now, I’d like to shamelessly promote something that decidedly DOES work: Believe it or not, it’s a pillow, originally created for children and just available in the U.S. market now. Full confession: my son-in-law is one of the founders, and he gave me one to try, and I absolutely love it! It is by far and away the best, most comfortable pillow I have ever used, so while it may have originally been intended for children, I think that adults will also love it. The company is called DreamJellie, and you can look it up online at dreamjellie.com.
And that’s it for now. Have a great month, sweet dreams, and I’ll write again in May.
Warmly,
Joy