WM: Tell us about your journey into teaching.

RL: The first, in known family history, to graduate high school, I followed this great feat with a half-decade of itinerant restaurant jobs whilst searching for the meaning of life. Finding everything and nothing in Solzhenitsyn, Hemmingway, Nietzsche, Hess and every other author, novelist or philosopher I could nd, I eventually entered university at age 26. I didn’t care about grades but loved it when my philosophy professor asked if “an orange is still an orange, if it is not orange”. Navel gazing introspection aside, I graduated with a degree in English Literature and the knowledge that a Bachelor of Arts was a rather pedestrian achievement after all. Teaching certi cate in hand, beautiful wife with child, I climbed into Canadian public education where I discovered the joys and disappointments of the classroom, the sta room, and parent-teacher meetings.
 

WM: How did you take the leap from the public education system into international teaching?
 

RL: The big 40 arrived and I only knew one thing – it was time for change. We took up running. My two kids laughed at my red face after my rst nine-minute jog. We sold the rancher, got rid of everything and moved to the Middle East to teach at our rst international school. Except it wasn’t an international school. It was a for-pro t, national school run like a 1950’s private school. Thankfully we had not quit our Canadian teaching job so returned to the fold relieved but still restless.

Two years later we were an hour south of Taipei in the lush greens and typhoon winds of Taiwan where we discovered that, in some ways, South East Asia is everything: fast, warm, fun, di erent and exciting to name the most positive. If you haven’t tried stinky tofu or durian fruit you’re in for an experience.

A year and a half later we sweet talked our way out of the contract, bought an RV and spent 154 consecutive days travelling in a giant counter-clockwise circle around the United States and Canada with our children and a dachshund we brought back from Taiwan.

WM: How did you end up at AISB?

RL: Over the next two years our daughter in high school and son in elementary, we thought our overseas teaching was over until goddess Wanderlust frequented our dreams whispering of unseen lands. We ew to a job fair where the American School of Bucharest won out over three other schools and we signed up for what would be the best teaching experiences of our lives.

WM: Can you tell us a bit more about your experience at AISB?

RL: Three years at AISB impacted our lives forever. It was a busy, sometimes di cult, usually fun, exhilarating experience which I suspect I will never have again. With some con dence, I can say that AISB, during the time we were there, was an ideal. It was, and perhaps still is, a collection of hard working and fun loving teachers from around the world teaching amazing students from over a hundred countries, including many great young people from Romania, with huge help and friendship from Romanian sta . I tip my hat to them all. Do I idealize? Is this the gloss of melancholy? Perhaps. Still, it was a vibrant community which I will never forget. 
 

WM: Where did life take you next?

RL: Of course, change is life, so we left. We moved to Jakarta for new jobs and experiences. Our tropical year there came to an end for the opportunity to get our son in a top-notch program back in Canada. However, when Canadian winters blow cold and gloomy, verdant hues
and sky blues of Indonesia ood back and I long to return to the sounds and smells of South East Asia. I can’t see the future but I will return-just as I will again return to the beach of Mamaia and the bucolic towns and villages nestled in the shadow of the Transylvanian Alps.
 

WM: What about writing? Did you always dream of being an author?
 

RL: All this time, my life’s goal of writing a novel lay dormant, occasionally nagging at me. I returned to Canada determined to make the leap from teacher to writer and with the unwavering support from my amazing wife I have it.

With the exception of a year in the soaring mountains and deep lakes of Northern British Columbia, where I went to work as teacher/principal to replenish our accounts and discovered another, equally vibrant world, I now spend my days in the biggest challenge yet – writing something worth reading.

I’ve written all my life. Through the 90’s I wrote for a number of magazines, supplementing my teaching income and learning more about putting words together. However, the penultimate literary goal, which I believe is authoring a good book - is a higher mountain, a steeper climb than it looks – and is littered with failed manuscripts and broken dreams. 

WM: What has been your biggest challenge as author so far?

RL: My rst book, The Eyes of the Arab Boy, received no interest from agents or publishers, most do not even reply. In fact, the hordes of would-be authors so overwhelm the shrinking publishing industry that they only survive by shuttering their doors and painting them to look like shrubbery. Thus, I join the multitudes in self-publishing my rst book even when the rising tide of poor-quality eBooks is a sea of otsam potential readers rightfully can’t and don’t trust.
 

WM: Can you tell us a bit about your second book?

 

RL: Esc4pe Jakarta is a Young Adult novel very di erent from The Eyes of the Arab Boy. That book was written for adults and is based upon our experiences in the Middle East. The new novel is an adventure story about a 15-year-old Canadian boy at an Indonesian international school when war breaks out. He, his sister, and his girl friend must avoid arrest completely on their own except for the help of some Muslim friends.


What ensues is an amazing adventure through the tropical landscape and foreign culture of Java. I’ll give AISB Alumni a teaser for my newest novel Esca4pe Jakarta which arrives in the fall of 2017. 
 

As for publishing, I will again court agents and publishers but this time I am targeting parents and teachers by writing an exciting adventure story but one which deals with thought provoking situations. For example, the protagonist is a Grade 10 Christian boy while his girlfriend is a Grade 10 Muslim girl. What is that relationship like? What do they talk about? Can they, should they, be together? Are their parents right? Another issue in the novel asks the question: when does a boy become a man? When does a girl become a woman? Do those sentences even make sense any more or are they cultural and patriarchal legacy attitudes? Of course, these questions are to be explored but they are not overtly discussed in the book. The novel is written for 12 and over and thus, focusses on action and fun, friends and family. Still, there are larger socio-cultural aspects which parents or teachers could explore if they desired. In the end, I suspect I might have to self-publish initially which is perfectly ne. I’m in for the long haul.

 

WM: So, what keeps this dream ignited?

 

RL: If your eyes still follow, here is a small reward – imagine an old fool with not a lot of money turning his back on one hundred thousand a year to get up each day and face the tyranny of the blank page, at a time when average attention spans are measured in seconds and CG-aided, visual extravaganzas, with world-destroying plotlines, run to empty cinemas because the public is inundated with choice and inured to novelty. Further imagine that fool has a wife and children who can’t help but watch and wonder.

But all I’ll say, here and now, is this: sometimes it’s enough to leap. Sometimes it’s enough to leap, whatever the consequences.

Rodism #26: Nothing is promised, but barren stands the unopened door.

So, here I sit, my second novel nearing completion. The future unclear. Success statistically unlikely, yet determined still. And anyway, if it doesn’t pan out, my old friend Change will turn up and I’ll see Bali and Bucharest again.

WM: What advice would you give to those of your former students who are aspiring writers? 

RL: I would suggest they get started early, work hard, keep their core strength (hours and hours in concentrated focus and physical stillness is hard on the back), know they are worthy, and keep the day job. The written word will never die. However, reading, may already be going the way of crocheting. Sadly, our screen lled lives and always on apps seem to be turning books into decorating paraphernalia. I fear few have the patience to wade into a ctional world of wonder, broadcast through twenty- six simple shapes. Image this magazine was devoid of colour or image. Who would read it? However, on a more positive note. If novels are less important, good writing is critical. If you can pull thoughts and opinions into a logical discourse and present them in some sprightly syntax, maybe throw in arch connotation or highbrow innuendo then, well, you will work. You will have a job. You will likely have a great job – so long as you’re not providing powerful prose to protolyze repugnant philosophies! Lastly, I would advise aspiring writers to avoid sentences with fancy-pants vocabulary like you’ve just read. Read a little Hemmingway to see the power of simple words.
 

WM: What about life advice in general?
 

RL: I think, almost all life advice is suspect, self-evident or wrong. However, since you’ve asked I will o er three more Rodisms (aka aphorisms by Rod). The rst is #26 which is above. The others are:
 

#3. Either you run your life or your life runs you.
 

#2. Sometimes you have to go a long way to travel a short distance.
 

#10. It’s not that others can and you can’t but that others do and you don’t. 
 

THE EYES OF THE ARAB BOY

Stash and Anna... a Canadian couple in their rst overseas teaching jobs, are in danger of imprisonment and ogging when their attempts to ‘spice it up’ are witnessed by a Muslim neighbour. Things go from alarming to heart pounding when the Omani police, investigating expatriate teachers in relation to computer crime, nd blasphemy and illicit images on their computer. Charged with crimes against Sharia law they must escape the country and hold on to their marriage...

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ESCA4PE JAKARTA

This isn’t Canada anymore! Fifteen- year-old Spencer must grow up quickly when war breaks out around him in the tropical country of Indonesia. Without their parents help, Spencer and his 11-year-old sister nd themselves running from arrest, stealing, and avoiding wild animals in this adventure of a lifetime. Escaping Jakarta with the help their Muslim friends, Spencer comes face to face with his own prejudice and must discover if his father is wrong, if his young heart is true, and if he can save not only himself but his whole family. Spencer knows every boy becomes

a man but what kind of man will he become?

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Suddenly planes start falling out of the sky. Sometimes they blow up, sometimes they crash. No-one knows why. Some say it is hacker terrorists. Others blame 3D-printed, home-made rockets cheaper than a new bicycle. Most media say it began with an American/ Israeli plan to destroy Middle Eastern nuclear weapons, ending with mini-nuke detonations over Iranian cities, fistfights on the foor of the United Nations and sleeper terrorist cells bombing cities in the West. Online the English- speaking Internet blames China and North Korea for the renewed Korean war. After ve days of worldwide disaster including 57 downed planes, 34 of which are commercial passenger ights, three quarters of the world’s ights are cancelled, militaries everywhere are marshalling, and protesters ll the streets of every capital.

By the seventh day most airports in South East Asia are closed, trapping tens of thousands of expatriates. Overnight a new military government in Indonesia takes the US and Australian embassies hostage and shuts down television and radio stations. Average peaceful Indonesian protesters take to the streets only to nd curfews and soldiers locking down the capital city of Jakarta resulting in mass riots.
 

An anti-Muslim, o -air comment by the American president, broadcast live at the same moment someone shoots and kills the Pope in Vatican City in ames religious/ cultural/national angers and fears already raging out of control. By day 10, the world’s economies have crashed, most of the internet is down, and every single government on the planet is advising its citizens to return to their home country. But how? 

Read the entire WORLD Magazine Spring 2017 edition here.