​

As a curious reader and researcher, I aim to engage other curious readers with thought-provoking ideas to challenge a few assumptions about the conduct of Homo sapiens. If you are drawn to narratives rooted in research and scholarship, my writing offers what I hope is a compelling journey into the complexities of human behavior and the power structures we navigate.

 

Pushed by my fascination with social dynamics, I have authored seven books—four Canadian historical novels and three non-fiction works. Both genres allow me to explore and challenge traditional ideas of power. With a PhD in English from the University of Alberta and a career focused on Canadian Studies, I bring an interdisciplinary lens to my writing. I am curious about how internal and external forces shape identities, teams, communities, power structures and societies—what I call "culture clubs." Manners are my entrée: who sets them, who likes/doesn't like them, who is the enemy, who quits the club.

 

Central to my research is the tit-for-tat theory of socialization and how, even though we individuals seek advantage over other individuals in the game of life (because we're shaped by what Richard Dawkins calls the “selfish gene"), we are consciously aware of the way selection actively allows us to mitigate rampant and destructive selfishness, much like the good fairy saves Sleeping Beauty from death.

 

We are equipped with herding instincts. Through herding, we create and sustain complex societies — our culture clubs. Sometimes even at the cost of our lives, we are sufficiently controlled by cultural expectations, aka., group manners of warrior societies.

 

Political scientist Robert Axelrod (and some social scientists) believe tit-for-tat is the matrix, the archetypal social game. I argue that the social game is more nuanced than two simple tit-for-tat choices (cooperate or don't cooperate). Instead, we navigate a matrix of three tit-for-tat options, a trichotomy. We throw in a zero for endgame. Our behaviour is not predictive (sorry, economists) but adaptive and responsive, with each of our social moves confronting and debating an envelope of contemporary circumstances (the prisoner's dilemma). Psychologists call the envelope of circumstances our "affordances." Contemporary affordances drive an individual's game choices: Shall I dominate, comply, or quit? Perhaps not surprisingly, quitting a culture club is often a damn problematic game choice.

 

To socialize, individuals balance the tension between two powerful instincts — a compulsion to assert individuality versus the need to fit into a group.

 

For over twenty years, my work has explored the tension of this dynamic, uncovering how these two conflicting forces configure everything from personal relationships to global politics. Whether through fiction or nonfiction, I aim to spark your curiosity about the social matrix to offer you a new way to see yourself as an individual and perhaps discover why you fit into your culture clubs. 

​​

​

​

 

​

​

​​