Words that Cross the Country

Heard from my Mom last week that a friend of hers was in Winnipeg, picked up the Sun, and was pleasantly surprised to see my Cigarette Butt piece on the editorial page. She immediately called home to spread the good news.

The way it works is simple: my columns are published bi-weekly in my local paper, the London Free Press. But they are also made available to any other Sun Media paper that wishes to run them. It doesn't happen all that often - most papers typically have fairly static page layouts, along with fairly consistent skeds of whose column gets published on any given day - but this marks the second time I've heard about it: The first one was my firebombing article in April, also in the Winnipeg Sun.

It's not chain policy to advise writers precisely when something's been picked up - they're somewhat busy actually putting their respective papers out - so I rely on my far-flung network of readers (as if!) in each city to let me know.

Just my way of spreading the literary love. Read on...