Jockie is a BRONZE DIARIES WRITER (1-14 published stories)

Now 90, Jockie Loomer-Kruger, who lives in Truro, Nova Scotia, has loved writing since she could first print and spell. Her formal education was teacher training, and later secretarial and bookkeeping. She has been a nursery school teacher, a receptionist, a bookkeeper, a florist, and an antiques shop owner. And for over 35 years she has also been a folk artist creating colourful, playful paintings and sculptures.

Early publication was mostly articles in small magazines and local newspapers. When her children were young, however, she wrote participation plays for a child audience; seven in total, all of which were produced in her hometown of Truro, Nova Scotia, and elsewhere.

Later she had pieces published in the Globe and Mail, Homemakers Magazine, Folklore Magazine, plus a few other publications, and poetry in several anthologies.

At 80, and then living in Kitchener, Ontario, she received a grant from the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund that helped her self-publish a collection of 32 memoir stories of her growing-up years in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. She also illustrated her book, Valley Child – A Memoir, with her own folk art. That collection of paintings is now on permanent display at the West Hants Historical Society Museum, in Windsor, NS. (The book is still available through the author.)

When she was 85, Moosehouse Publications of Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia published her novel Until the Day We Die, which is available through Chapters/Coles and Amazon.

Jockie has a history of joining (or starting) writing groups in the various locations in which she has lived. She continues to write short pieces and poetry, which she enjoys sharing with three writing groups (two, local; one, online). She appreciates the opportunity to also share some of her writing with others through Diaries.