Greetings from Hermine Steinberg
My name is Hermine – pronounced Her mean. (Yes, it is different from Hermione in the Harry Potter series). Growing up in Toronto with this name at a time when most of the girls in my class were either Susan, Sharon, Cathy or Jane made me automatically feel different. Combined with a last name - Lichtblau – unusual, unpronounceable, and definitely foreign sounding - just reinforced the idea that I wasn’t like a lot of other people. Being Jewish in a predominately Christian world just completed the picture – different. My parents were born in Poland and came to Canada (via Israel) after World War Two and I was born in Toronto into a working class immigrant neighbourhood. Everyone’s parents were struggling and working a lot so I spent most of my time with my friends and sisters. We were baby boomers so there were lots of kids my age on my street, in my community, and in my classes.
I realized early on that everyone felt different and if you owned your unique self, being different was not only okay, but cool. I also felt that standing up for people who were different was the right thing to do. It may have been because of my family’s experience as holocaust survivors, my own sense of being different, or simply an idea I came up with but I always knew that is who I was. It guided a lot of my choices in my life and it came to define me in more ways than I realized for a long time. I think it is also why I ended up on the path to becoming a teacher, counselor, and mentor.
The other aspect of my life that had a tremendous influence on who I am has been my love of reading. I learned to read and write pretty early in life. I love words, stories that make me think, and take me places I would never otherwise have been exposed to as a young person. I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Adventure series, Nancy Drew, Where the Red Fern Grows, Anne of Green Gables, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and all of the Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes mysteries. By the time I hit “junior high school” - grades 7 to 9, I was a science fiction and historical fiction junky. Charles Dickens and Marc Twain to Isaac Assimov, Ray Bradbury, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell. But the stories I loved most were about young adventurers - independent thinkers that were resilient, noble, and fearless. The more I read, the more I loved to write – everything from poetry, short stories, lists of ideas and plans, and even questions I wanted to think about more deeply. Writing helped me think things through and express myself.
I started writing The Co-Walkers as a short story for my children. I wanted to share some of my own ideas about life with them but also take them on an adventure similar to the ones I loved as a child. It evolved over time from a short story to a novel. It took on some experiences and knowledge I gathered along the way – trips to Ireland and Watkin’s Glen, readings about Celtic mythology and pagan philosophy, experiences of my students, and some of my concerns about the future. Most importantly, the process of writing The Co-Walkers was a journey of discovery and joy for me, transporting me for hours at a time to a place where everything was still possible and my adventures were only limited by my imagination. But then, I believe life is really like that – if you have the courage and vision, you really can go places you never dreamed possible.
I realized early on that everyone felt different and if you owned your unique self, being different was not only okay, but cool. I also felt that standing up for people who were different was the right thing to do. It may have been because of my family’s experience as holocaust survivors, my own sense of being different, or simply an idea I came up with but I always knew that is who I was. It guided a lot of my choices in my life and it came to define me in more ways than I realized for a long time. I think it is also why I ended up on the path to becoming a teacher, counselor, and mentor.
The other aspect of my life that had a tremendous influence on who I am has been my love of reading. I learned to read and write pretty early in life. I love words, stories that make me think, and take me places I would never otherwise have been exposed to as a young person. I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Adventure series, Nancy Drew, Where the Red Fern Grows, Anne of Green Gables, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and all of the Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes mysteries. By the time I hit “junior high school” - grades 7 to 9, I was a science fiction and historical fiction junky. Charles Dickens and Marc Twain to Isaac Assimov, Ray Bradbury, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell. But the stories I loved most were about young adventurers - independent thinkers that were resilient, noble, and fearless. The more I read, the more I loved to write – everything from poetry, short stories, lists of ideas and plans, and even questions I wanted to think about more deeply. Writing helped me think things through and express myself.
I started writing The Co-Walkers as a short story for my children. I wanted to share some of my own ideas about life with them but also take them on an adventure similar to the ones I loved as a child. It evolved over time from a short story to a novel. It took on some experiences and knowledge I gathered along the way – trips to Ireland and Watkin’s Glen, readings about Celtic mythology and pagan philosophy, experiences of my students, and some of my concerns about the future. Most importantly, the process of writing The Co-Walkers was a journey of discovery and joy for me, transporting me for hours at a time to a place where everything was still possible and my adventures were only limited by my imagination. But then, I believe life is really like that – if you have the courage and vision, you really can go places you never dreamed possible.
