Beth has recently retired from teaching creative writing for over 30 years at Mount Royal University. For her, these past few years have indubitably been the most challenging and the most productive for a while for her as a creative writer, not only for what she has written but for what she has learned along the way. Her most recent book, "Silent Sister: the mastectomy poems," was short-listed for major awards including Alberta Magazine Publishers Association, the League of Canadian Poets Raymond Souster, the City of Calgary W.O.Mitchell, and ReLit. It went on to win the Book Publishers Association Robert Kroetsch Award. She continues to write both poetry and fiction, and she is hoping some time soon for just a little more time to do exactly that.