Looking Forward to the Live CSA Conference in Niagara Falls

Like clockwork, yours truly gets excited when the calendar turns to September.

Wait, is it “clockwork” or “calenderwork”? The latter sounds odd. In any case, it’s an exciting time.

With my wife, Shannon, working at Starbucks — and loving it — she’s been making pumpkin spice lattes for me. And while others are quick to complain about these lattes being released too early, I respectfullu disagree. After all, pumpkin spice lattes taste like fall. Yes, you read that correctly. There is a taste that reminds me of the seasonal change.

Fall, after all, is my favorite season. But while September is certainly a good month, my favorite is October.

From my birthday early in the month to the new hockey season starting to (Canadian) Thanksgiving, October has it all — and that’s not even mentioning the way the trees look and how crisp the air feels. But there’s something else that makes October special, and that is the annual conference for the Canadian Stuttering Association.

I attended my first CSA Conference in 2018. I loved it and couldn’t wait for the following year.

Fast-forward to the spring of 2019 when someone from the CSA committee reached out to me, suggesting that I apply for a workshop for the 2019 event. My story as a sportswriter who stutters, after all, was something worth sharing. So, I applied, and a few months later, was accepted.

I had prepared for the next few weeks with my speech and then I presented on that cool Saturday morning.

It was a huge success and frankly, I couldn’t wait to be on stage again.

Unfortunately, COVID hit a few months later and everything was shut down. That included in-person events.

But while I was happy to present at the 2020 and 2021 online events for the CSA, I was thrilled to hear that 2022’s installment would be in-person with Niagara Falls — the projected site for 2020 — as the host.

So, as of yesterday, I was informed that my presentation — titled “A Curse to a Blessing: How I Learned to Write and Speak My Way to Stuttering Liberation” — was approved. But that’s not all. While finalized details aren’t confirmed yet, I was also informed that I would be part of a ‘Meet the Authors’ panel with two other Canadian authors from the stuttering community.

While both bits of news are exciting, the latter I’m a bit more gung ho about since I’ve done anything like that before.

Overall, a great way to start my week and just looking forward to the next few weeks!