Selina Appleby

Field of Empties Selina Appleby

The material for this album of stories began in the thirties as I was turning over upside down on the garden fence railing overlooking the corner saloon in downtown Toronto, and ends early 2000 looking out from my window at the tourist-drenched streets of Niagara-on-the- Lake. Once upon a time, the view from my kitchen window surveyed the garbage pail of life and broken bottles and human shards, and a lone snowball bush and monkey-nut tree, which were the only reminders of the beauty before saloons, drunks and hookers moved in to create a field of empties.