This weekend I spoke to the Humanist Association of Toronto (HAT*) - a very enjoyable experience.

I sold two books and received an honorarium but more importantly I got to speak to some wonderful people about a topic near and dear to my heart - naming writing.

I had prepared some notes as I wasn’t sure of how many people would be there - I wanted to have something on hand in case I was placed behind a podium. As it turned out the gathering was just the right size for a round table forum, so my notes weren’t needed. However the process of preparing them ensured that I was prepared, which was the whole idea anyway.

There were probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty people and most of them stayed the entire time. The meeting was an hour and an half but I was supposed to speak for about forty-five minutes. I really didn’t have any idea what time it was or how long I’d been speaking until I called home from the parking lot and realized that I’d been speaking for close to two hours!

Of course I wasn’t the only one talking, although I did more than my fair share. I spent a substantial amount of time talking about The Gender Divide, and how I came up with the idea for it, and this sparked some very interesting discussion. There were some excellent questions asked and even some ideas that I may try to incorporate into a sequel.

The only sour note was the traffic in Toronto. Bletch. It took me just as much time to travel three city blocks as it did for me to get all the way downtown - and that was including driving through a torrential downpour on the 404 and even taking the notorious DVP (Don Valley Parkway for those of you not familiar with the GTA or the Don Valley Parking-lot as it is better known). I made better time on the way home by taking a different route out of the city, although I did get caught on the DVP this time around.

Despite that I had a really good afternoon and I would just like to say thank you to Tanya Long, the program coordinator for HAT, as well as to HAT, for inviting me. And of course a big thank you to everyone who attended. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did.