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To My Family... My life “| had no connection to publishing and didn’t even know how to type.” Diane Robin-Lee Author's book designed to help young people bond with older relatives _ For a woman who says she never intended to become a writer, Diane Robin-Lee has certainly created a successful authorial life for herself. Having devoted herself to teaching evening fitness classes and high school phys. ed. (before having a family), the (then) 33-year old wayward Baptist minister’s daughter started committing words to the page in order to explain her renewed religious enthusiasm to those around her. “Tt was impossible to communicate the change in my life in a one or two hour conversation,” she explains. Her first writing venture was simply distrib- uted to friends and family. “I had no connection to publishing and didn’t even know how to she says. But Diane’s next idea required resources. She wanted to convert her own experiences as a rebellious minister’s child into a research book by interviewing clergy’s children. For this she needed a tape recorder — cost $123 plus tax. This former Beaverton mother and housewife cleaned 246 boxes of glass slides at 50¢ per slide in order to make her dream come true. After conducting interviews across Canada and the U.S., Diane banged out the manuscript five pages per day (every afternoon while her son attended Kindergarten) on a borrowed Selectric typewriter set up on her dining room table. “I would envision the finished book sitting a Diane with on my piano,” she says. . her good After a year, Diane (in her naiveté) took her finished manuscript down to friend Lola David Mainse at 100 Huntley Street to get a ‘blurb’ for the back cover. “He was so thrilled with the book, he agreed to publish it,” says Diane. That book sold 12,000 copies and led Diane . to her broadcast career. The idea came She was asked to co-host 100 Huntley Street and eventually hosted “Night Light” for 7 years. “I to her while would get up at 10 p.m. and leave home at midnight to go on air from 2 to 4:30 a.m.,” she explains. . “And I would often think about reaching out to all the individual people behind each of the small lights cleaning out I saw in a city the size of Toronto at night.” Diane continued to publish books such as Spirit-Led Days (Castle Quay Books), Grown in the Spirit a bathroom (Welsh), Into All the World, her history of Toronto’s Peoples Church and a private family history for drawer! Please turn to “Local Author” on page 21 fl Dee ASSOCITATCS website: www.focusonscugog.com FOCUS - MARCH 2008 15