Bio/Maureen Arges Nadin
I’ve been a freelance writer since jumping ship in 2005 from a 28 year career in the Public Service to pursue a life long interest in writing and journalism. Since taking those first few steps of that adventure, I’ve had the privilege of writing a monthly “first person” perspective column on space exploration for the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal and have contributed periodic feature articles on various aspects of space travel, science and discovery including a public education series on exploration and mining in Northwestern Ontario.
I’m a proud member of the Professional Writers Association of Canada as well as the Superior Scribes writing group in Thunder Bay. My freelance writing work has given me an opportunity to write about human interest topics and issues that I’m interested in but I feel that I have a special mission to write about space exploration and discovery. I was thrilled to have an article appear in the nationally published “Sky News” and my article on an international radio astronomy project “The Square Kilometre Array: Scanning the Skies for Life” placed second in the 2009 International Year of Astronomy national writing competition, “Canada and the Stars.” (referenced in the introduction) was truly the genesis of my all abiding passion for the search for life elsewhere in the Universe and understanding the societal and philosophical implications of such a discovery. The discovery that I believe is not only inevitable but imminent.
My late and wise Irish mother always told me that I would be a writer as I was relatively good at it and enjoyed it immensely from an early age. Coming from a country with a deep literary tradition and history, my Mom loved all the major writers like Shaw and Keats as well as Shakespeare whose works she would read to me as soon as she felt I could grasp the concepts. Yup—she felt strongly that I would be a writer at some point in time in my life but I’m pretty sure that this is not the type of writing she had in mind!
But here I am nonetheless and I feel blessed and privileged to not only be able to do work that fires my engine and stirs my soul but to live in a time where technology allows me to tap into the proverbial Global Village and “talk” and “listen to” others who share this interest . And to do it from my humble home on the shores of mighty Lake Superior—the “Great Big Lake”( Gitchigumi to the indigenous Ojibwe people ) which inspires and moves me on a daily basis.
Maureen Arges Nadin,
2016-01-07