Patricia Calder

photographer/writer

Photographer


 
Contact: patinpei@yahoo.ca
https://patriciacalder.ca/photography/

I have loved photography since I purchased a Brownie box camera at the age of 16. The play of light through the lens on land and water, the muscles of animals, and the feathers of birds entices me. I want a closer look. I want a permanent record of the beauty in that moment.

In September I visited the Great Bear Rainforest in BC and came home with images of Spirit Bears, black bears, eagles, and whales. In October I drove into Yukon to photograph landscapes studded with glacial rivers and lakes. I met a young grizzly nuzzling along the ditch for berries and ants, a moose cow and calf trotting through a rest stop, three generations of First Nations people on horseback with camping gear, all fodder for my camera.

My past travels have taken me to Sable Island to photograph the legendary feral horses. I spent 5 weeks in Newfoundland, and was especially charmed by Change Islands and Fogo, with the ponies and icebergs, the music and stories.

Prince Edward Island was my home-away-from-home for 15 years. While I was teaching at Kenner Collegiate in Peterborough my dreams were filled with red sand, blue sea dotted with fishing boats, and green hills in summer; red foxes on snowy meadows, ocean sunsets sparkling with ice chips, and my cozy cabin with its woodstove in winter.

I rambled around Europe for 14 months when I was 24, skied all the famous mountains, lived in a commune, danced the vine in an olive grove. I drank it all in, developing my eye as a young photographer.

These days around home I photograph mostly horses at liberty, birds, and dogs.

Writer

Contact: patinpei@yahoo.ca
https://patriciacalder.ca/writing/

patricia-calderBorn into a prolific family of eight authors, Patricia Calder started writing at age 11 in a Hilroy notebook which she carried on field adventures.

Always a lover of stories, she has taught literature, journalism, and creative writing in high schools, community colleges, and at York University. When she retired as Head of the English department, she was the driving force behind the school newspaper and literary magazine.

She has studied fiction writing under Canadian authors Matt Cohen, Katherine Govier, Anne Simpson, and Christy Ann Conlin, among others.

Since devoting herself full-time to writing, ten of her short stories and creative nonfiction pieces have been published, and three of these have won recognition.

Roadblock by Patricia Calder

Calder’s first novel, ROADBLOCK, was published in April 2015. It is available from Amazon.ca and Kobo as an e-book, and from www.patriciacalder.ca as a tree-book.

Patricia Calder lives in Colborne, Ontario, and summers in Prince Edward Island. She has two children. Her other passions are photography and music.

ChangingWays-FandBCover

Changing Ways is an anthology of six Northumberland County writers in which three of Patricia Calder’s stories are published.

Publishing Credits:

hill-spirits-200
  • “The Unexpected Gifts of Alzheimer’s” was published in The Globe & Mail on May 9, 2011.
  • “Deadhead” was selected as a finalist in the 2010 Writers’ Union contest for developing writers.
  • “Stand Down, Soldier” was published in both Northumberland Today newspaper and The Intelligencer newspaper. The piece then went viral on the internet, appearing on at least twenty military websites. It was co-opted by Mike O’Leary for his column in The New Tanner of Acton, ON. On Remembrance Day 2009 “Stand Down, Soldier” was read on K-LEE radio 1600 AM Cape Breton, and by soldier Tim Cooke at the Rockwood, ON ceremony. In May 2010 it was short-listed for an award by The Word Guild in the single column category.
  • “You’ll Have to Change Yer Ways”, “I’ll Meet You on the Other Side of the Stars”, and “The Mirror” were published in the anthology, Changing Ways, Hidden Brook Press, 2008.
  • “Phone Calls in the Night” appeared in Transitions, the magazine of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Saskatchewan division, Spring 2010.
  • “The Shadow of My Uncle” appeared in both Northumberland Today newspaper and The Intelligencer newspaper, Remembrance Day edition, 2009.
  • “Forced Landings” appeared in both Northumberland Today and The Intelligencer, Remembrance Day edition, 2011.
  • “Expropriation” appeared in the Canadian Writer’s Journal anthology, Choice Works, Volume 15, 2006-2010.
  • Earlier articles by Patricia were published under the surname Cooper in Outdoor Canada (twice), His Magazine, the Toronto Sun, and CBC radio.