M.T. Kelly

        THEMES, PASSIONS, a way of being, are much clearer in what someone writes that they can be in such histories as I have just laid forth. I can simply say I have been a writer most of my life, have worried about it, have done some work, maybe not enough, had a difficult childhood and an intense relationship with my mother – so often that seems to be the case with writers – have been a searcher and suffered like everyone else, and have been touched by things which redeem. I have wondered about fathers and have loved being a father myself, and a writer.

My wife Lynn King died on March 5, 2005. Here is a poem in her memory.

        The aftermath of my wife's death lasted a long time, but I had Dr. George Awad to help me, one of the most important people in my life, a man I loved.

        I had stopped caring about writing with my wife's diagnosis, but that changed, with Dr. Awad's encouragement. I published.Downriver was printed, books are being re issued, articles where my work seemed really understood, as in T.F. Rigelhof's book, Hooked On Canadian Books: , The Good, The Better, and The Best Canadian Novels have appeared. To sum up I use the words of two writers who have made the world a much less lonely place. W.B. Yeats wrote of being my age:

And Carole, dearest friend, said to me in that way she had: "The thing I like about your work, Kel, is that you somehow always manage to get hope into it."
I believe that's still true.