I can’t swim. Growing up my parents taught my two older sisters but by the time they got to me I was horse and pony mad and that won out. So I can ride but not swim. Though I did sometimes swim on horseback across ponds when I was a teenager but since the horse did all the work that doesn’t really count does it?
Kim Izzo
I have a horse and two dogs. To say I’m an animal love is an understatement. I’ve worked with rescue does ever since university and currently have two, Cash and Abby. Plus I have a rescue horse, a former show jumper that didn’t want to jump anymore. His name is Bogart. We’ve never swum together however (see above).
I was a tomboy. Kind of still am. Growing up I had a short haircut and despised pink and dresses and dolls, preferring to wear jeans and play with model horses and cars. While I like pink and dresses now, I still am passionate about horses and cars.
I was a blonde. Once. In high school. For six weeks. Never again. But oddly, it was during the same period of the annual yearbook photo so there is proof.
I’m only one-quarter Italian. My maternal grandfather’s family emigrated from Naples at the turn of the last century. The rest of my lineage is English, specifically from Yorkshire. In fact my great-grandfather, Walter Dawson, who survived the sinking of the Lusitania and is a character in my book worked in Halifax before immigrating to North America.
I went to film school. Despite a career in women’s magazines and writing three novels, I actually studied cinema, screenwriting and production at York University in Toronto. Film is still my passion and I’ve returned to screenwriting and plan on making a short film this summer.
I get seasick. I found this out the hard way when I took a transatlantic voyage from New York to Southampton aboard the Queen Mary 2 to research Seven Days in May. It wasn’t pleasant but it did give me firsthand knowledge of what a week at sea feels like and that made into my book.
I love country music. Being an urbanite it surprises people that I am passionate about country. I prefer the classics of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to “new” country, but love current stars like Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton.
I play guitar. Okay, not well… but in the past few years I’ve taken it up and bought myself a CF Martin acoustic so I could learn some of my favourite country tunes (see above).
I am Canadian. Canada turns 150 this July 1st – a veritable baby compared to Europe - and I will be wearing red and white no matter where in the world I am.
