This site includes my blog, “A Single Leaf,” where I post about Tolkien studies, medievalism, Old English, and university teaching — and sometimes all of those things all rolled up together. Mainly, my blog posts aim to inform researchers in Tolkien studies (and that includes faculty, independent scholars, students) as well as fans who are interested in exploring Tolkien’s works and/or medieval literature, or who are just curious about what professors in the field are talking about in their conferences and articles.

My other webpages will also give you a glimpse into my life as an English professor at Mount Saint Vincent University. Although I have now retired from teaching at the Mount and hold the rank of Professor Emerita, I will be continuing with my research activities. As a result, the Teaching page only links to former course outlines as well as information about my other teaching experiences. For a look at my various past and current scholarly activities, go to the Research page. (And if you see something there that you’d like to read, do email me to request a copy). I’ve also included a page called Service – as every professor knows, part of our job is to work on administrative tasks enabling the running of the university. On the Service page, I outline some of the major projects I have been involved in that have contributed to the intellectual life and ongoing maintenance of the university. The Contact page includes everything you need to know to get in touch with me.

I am currently a Professor Emerita in the Department of English at Mount Saint Vincent University. I’ve also served as an adjunct faculty member in the graduate English program at Dalhousie University and in the Joint M.A. in Women and Gender Studies (Saint Mary’s University and Mount Saint Vincent). All three of these universities are located in the lively city of Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada. Although I have now lived here for many years, I am originally from Montreal, where I completed my undergraduate degree at what was then Loyola College (but which became part of Concordia University by the time I graduated). I continued my studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where I received an M.A. and a PhD specializing in Old English literature. Before finishing my doctorate, though, I spent two years teaching on sessional contracts at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John and at Brock University in Ontario. Once I had that PhD in hand, I was lucky enough to get a permanent job, so I moved my family to Halifax to take up a position at Mount Saint Vincent.

Selected recent additions

• List of Tolkien sessions at IMC Leeds 2025
• Download links to two free articles I’ve recently published on Tolkien’s “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth”
• An outline of my talk on “Dreaming the Middle Ages: The Case of Grendel’s Mother”
• It’s here! First impressions of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien
• Links to 2 of my recent publications on Beowulf and children’s literature Beowulf as children’s lit: 2 recent publications
• Inclusive Perspectives on Tolkien & Religion
• an updated Research page with a list of my conference papers and publications. If you want to see the full range of research activities I’ve engaged in during the last 7 years, see my Recent Research page.

Image: The image used at the top of this page (“Bird in flowering tree”) is a detail from early drawings by J.R.R. Tolkien published in the J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar 1979 by George Allen and Unwin. The image can also be found in various places online.

Disclaimer

This site was last updated on 28 July 2025.