The Reluctant Author
At fifty-seven years of age, Laurine Schaffer decides it’s time for her to follow her childhood dream of writing the story of her German Lutheran ancestors who fled Russia and immigrated to Canada in 1892. Growing up in an impoverished dysfunctional home environment, she realized in her adolescence that she must be pragmatic and pursue a profession that would have the potential of a sustainable career path. At seventeen, Laurine chooses to enrol in a traditional Registered Nurse training program that is affordable and provides room and board. During three years of living in a residence with other young women, she realizes her perceptions of life and people are dramatically different from many of her classmates. Although Laurine forges a successful vocation as a college professor, with the passage of time, she acknowledges that she is not being true to herself, or to her lifelong aspiration. Following an epiphany in an abandoned family cemetery on the original ancestral homestead, Laurine begins to write as a catalyst for a personal healing journey even as she fervently proclaims her reluctance to become an author.
