Laurie Graham
Laurie Graham
Laurie Graham, CMis a Canadian downhill skier who represented Canada at the 1980, 1984 and 1988 Winter Olympics. She won six World Cup victories and three National Downhill titles in her eleven years on the National Ski Team. She was the first North American woman to win a World Cup Super Giant Slalom skiing. She was the first North American to win on home soil at Mont-Tremblant, Quebec. In addition, Graham posted 34 top 10 FIS World Cup Downhill results...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth25 November 1947
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I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot.
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As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer's. Each day feels like a race that must be run.
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I'm thankful my parents obliged me to live with the unvarnished truth: I might not have been a looker, but I was a better speller than the prettiest girl in my class, and I was funnier, too.
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Caring burns a lot of fuel - psychological and physical, too, if any lifting is involved. The energy tank is soon emptied, and the toll caring takes is well documented. It's called carer burn-out.
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Sorry, I don't do castles. I hate those winding turret stairs.
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My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story.
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As one ages, eventually, no matter what regime you've followed, no matter how fiercely you've fought the fight, good health becomes harder to maintain. It may disappear overnight or simply dwindle, but with every year that passes, the odds shorten.
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None of us wants to be reminded that dementia is random, relentless, and frighteningly common.
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My husband is leaving me. No dramas, no slammed doors - well, OK, a few slammed doors - and no suitcase in the hall, but there is another woman involved. Her name is Dementia.
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Dementia is quite unlike cancer or heart disease or any of those other conditions where you bargain with God for a cure or even just a bit more time.
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Childhood doesn't have to be perfect, and children don't have to be beautiful. From a bit of grit may grow a pearl, and if pearl production doesn't materialise, the outcome will still be preferable to the shallowness of vanity.
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I have but one rule at my table. You may leave your cabbage, but you'll sit still and behave until I've eaten mine.
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I've never minded solitude. For a writer, it's a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a peculiar kind of loneliness.
Times may have changed, but there are some things that are always with us - loneliness is one of them.