Fact
As an independent writer, I have a range of experience in terms of types of writing and subject material. I have a natural curiosity and find it quite satisfying to be given permission to ask questions where it might otherwise be considered nosey.
I am a freelance contributor with Village Media, through the online local news outlet, BradfordToday.ca and InnisfilToday.ca
Here are some recently published pieces:
Column Theatre showcase wonderful and little nerve racking
Guest shares history of fur trade effects on indigenous peoples
Theatre Pro offering audition workshop, acting classes
Give Edible, decorative plants a fresh look
Bond Head author launches book about textile collecting
South Simcoe Theatre’s gamble with Honeymoon in Vegas pays off
How 1855's Toronto Circus Riot will be brought to life in Bradford
Inspiration Blooms as Frankie Flowers addresses Innisfil Garden Club
God of Carnage brings out a range of emotions
Chess Club continues at Library thanks to Grade 9 student
Bradford area Christmas Bird Count takes flight
Peanuts Gang at the South Simcoe Theatre
Simcoe County Historical Society award given to Bradford students
Seeding for Pollinators story and photos feature article published in the Summer issue of Niagara Escarpment Views, 2022
Niagara Escarpment Views published my feature about Clearview Township’s Small Halls Festival and Creemore Festival of the Arts, in the Autumn 2019 issue. Click on the title to read: Clearview’s Fun Festivities For Fall
Access my feature in the Niagara Escarpment Views fall 2018 issue about growing apples in the Georgian Bay Fruit Growing District by clicking on the title: Apples for All Seasons.
Click on the following title to read the online pdf of Celebrating Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Norval Home. It is a feature article I wrote and photographed, for the Summer 2018 issue of Niagara Escarpment Views.
Niagara Escarpment Views, Spring 2018 includes my feature article and photographs:
Smelling the Norval Rose: The Lucy Maud Montgomery Children’s Garden of the Senses. Click on the title to read the pdf online.
Orangeville’s Street Art: Enhancing Community, is a feature I wrote and photographed for the Summer 2017, Niagara Escarpment Views. Click on the title to read pdf online.
Willow Park Ecology Centre Success and Sustainability , is a feature I wrote and photographed for the Summer 2016 Niagara Escarpment Views. Click on the title to read the pdf online.
This is what WPEC said about the article on its Facebook page:
Excellent eight page feature article about Willow Park Ecology Centre, our successes and future directions. Thank you Rosaleen Egan, writer and photographer - you really captured the beauty and interest of the EcoCentre. We would love to hear feedback and ideas from those that you inspired.
As well as journalism, website content, and so forth, I also write fiction. I am a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada . My plays may be purchased and performance rights bought by clicking the link: Rosaleen Egan
Here are some stories that can be found online.
Just click the white text to read:
Profiles of Artists at the Williams Mill, 2007:
Sideroads of South Simcoe Profiles:
The Decadent Chef (text & photos)
The Partland Brothers (text, photos submitted)
The Country Connection Magazine and Harvest Homes
The Country Connection Magazine
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Below is a personal experience story printed as an accompanying
piece to the article above.
More than a Walk in the Park
by Rosaleen Egan
After hibernating most of the winter, I decided to go out to explore the world. I wanted to enjoy the renewing spirit that comes with spring, and so I joined a group of weekly hikers from a local women’s group.
The whole affair was admirably well organized, with what seemed to me very complicated arrangements for pick-up cars and car-pooling worked out with amazing speed. Everyone, other than me, arrived clad in sensible, layered clothing and sturdy hiking boots.
The efficient behaviour and appropriate dress combined to make me feel a little uneasy about the whole outing. As we set out, the hunch that I was not in the same league as these people grew deeper.
Never having been on the Bruce Trail - which roams 1,000 kilometers atop the Niagara Escarpment from the Niagara Peninsula to Tobermory in Ontario - I knew little of what to expect. Although I had been around short trails in Algonquin Park and followed the trail at Crawford Lake near Milton (which is primarily a boardwalk), I had never been on a real-live hiking trail - a trail that challenges the fit and conquers the weak.
The mud was the first thing to greet me as we slithered toward the path. Concentrating on my footing, I didn’t really have a chance to examine my surroundings. I sensed an incline and dared a quick look ahead. My heart rate sped up, and not just with the increase in effort. I was at the beginning of a steep hill - the escarpment wall. I bravely followed along for what seemed like eternity. Not only was the mud a constant source of worry, but shame of foregoing the hike altogether threatened.
I was ascending the Niagara Escarpment with no help of climbing equipment, wishing fervently - being a mild asthmatic- that I had taken my “puffers’ before leaving the house. As we continued on, I felt that standing erect would send me flipping backwards down the mountain.
Just about twenty minutes into a prayer for redemption, I noticed the others had reached the top. They had stopped and were performing mysterious stretching maneuvers. This I found quite disconcerting - like, was I supposed to know how to do those things?
I was more conscious now of my slow pace and started to wonder if all the physical motions being exercised farther ahead were meant as a polite way of filling time until I caught up. I did eventually make it to the top and arrived trying, but I suspect not succeeding, to appear nonchalant. In order to fit in, I managed a few limp jumping jacks and hoped to impress them by dismissing the need to stretch.
At this point, feeling so thankful I had not collapsed on the hill, I followed dutifully behind the others as they led me through the bush, confident nothing that was yet to come could be as challenging as what had already been.
I soon learned that this assumption was incorrect, for I discovered that the climb I had just completed would force me to face a fear worse than the fear of failure - the fear of heights.
As my feet dodged rocks and roots while trying not to slide in the muck, my mind went out to lunch. A fellow novice commented in awe that we were a mere foot from the edge of a very high cliff of sheer rock. Not impressed, I started to search for sturdy tress to cling to. Again, I speculated how much longer I could endure. I could do nothing, however, but go on. I took a deep breath, as deep as my constricted lungs allowed and resolved to sally forth.
The pace picked up over relatively flat ground. Huffing and puffing, I arrived where everyone had gathered at a sort of lookout point. Curiously, most chose to do just that. I took great interest in the forest and took comfort in the rows of trees standing naked amidst a blanket of limestone dust from a nearby quarry. It was a peaceful scene, and it lured me into a false sense of security, for next we came to....the bridge.
This was the ultimate test. I can’t stand at the top of slide or watch people on a Ferris wheel without feeling weak in the knees, and here I was on the middle of this bridge seemingly miles above ground. My fellow hikers found it a perfect place to point out familiar landmarks such as the CN Tower. I was trapped on the bridge and I was talking to distract myself. I became a babbling idiot.
The rest of the hike was a bit of a blur with only the odd, shaky stride over the gaping, dark fractures in the rock formation, conjuring up a familiar feeling of trepidation.
Although I do not yet own hiking boots, I will go hiking again. I am now an adventurer. I survived baptism by fire. “I can climb every mountain, ford every stream”.
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