Welcome!
My name is Geoff Micks. I started this blog in my late-twenties, and then I allowed it to lapse for a number of years as other things came to occupy my time and attention. I started it up again in my mid-thirties, and haven’t done all that much with it since, to be honest with you.
Still, I’m on a blogging kick lately, so I guess it’s time in my late-thirties to refresh the About Me section again, if only so I don’t see a decade-old picture of myself whenever I visit the site.
It is an interesting exercise to revise an ‘About Me’ section. My priorities have changed. I have changed. As I read through this line by line, I find I want to change almost all of it. That is probably for the best, although I will confirm that I am still living happily in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In my earliest ‘About Me’ write up I then devoted a couple of paragraphs to what I studied in school and what I have done for a living. It read very much like the cover letter to a job application; I imagine I was writing those on a regular basis at that point in my life. Now it comes across as pretty dull stuff. If anyone has the interest, it is all available on my LinkedIn profile.
In the beginning this blog was intended to be a place for me to express myself, but it was pretty quickly overtaken by my Twitter account, my novels, the Facebook page I maintain talking about my writing, and conversations I have on Reddit. As the years passed, I also came to be just a little intimidated by this blog: One of my posts went viral to the point where I have been mentioned in passing in the Washington Post, interviewed by the New York Times and NPR, and hired by Vice Media to write and narrate an animated short that aired on HBO. I will confess you get a little gun shy about what you could possibly write next after several hundred thousand people have read one of your posts but not the other hundred and fifty.
As I said many years ago, this blog is not really about anything. I do not have an agenda to push. I do not consider myself an expert to be heeded or a resource to be utilized. I am not going to make any lofty promises to be insightful. I will continue to publish anecdotes, stories, thoughts, and anything else that catches my interest that I am happy to share with the general public. I also hope people who like what they see here might give my books a try. The older I get, the more I think writing historical fiction might be how I leave my mark in the world. I’m not bashful about calling myself a writer. That’s my chosen medium, and historical fiction —by and large— is my preferred genre. It’s what I come back to time and time again to both read and write. It’s one of my passions, and I excited to share it with anyone who is interested.
Anyway, this is the third time in a dozen years I have revised this About Me page. In that time I’ve changed careers, self-published five novels, fallen in love a couple of times, travelled widely, eaten well, slept like the dead, and generally enjoyed myself. I am an optimist by inclination. I hope the next time I revise this, I have a lot of new adventures to look back on that are still ahead of me today. Maybe I will have shared some of them with all of you in the meantime?
All my very best, and thanks for reading!
–Geoff Micks
(Last Revised: June 26, 2021)
The Writings of Geoff Micks 
Hi Geoff,
Just came across your site and love what I’ve seen so far. I came across it after looking for the ‘daddy wait for me’ picture to send to a friend in the UK. My dad was an officer, commanding in the 1970’s, with the Royal Westminster Regiment in New Westminster. My great-uncle Burt was a steam tug captain, then a destroyer captain on the North Atlantic (later a coastal pilot out of Victoria). Other cousins that served in WW2 were Tony (senior officer with ‘The Green Howards’, an armoured division from Yorkshire), captured at Dunkirk – 6 years in a camp, Desmond, a battlefield surgeon who went over on D-Day, and George, a Hurricane pilot who died in ’41 while retraining for night fighter duty. When I visited his sister Muriel in Lewes, Sussex, then 94, she told me the only thing they were told was he had ‘flown into a hill in an English county without any hills’. A rather droll way of putting it, oui? Ironically, just came across your site after coming home from my son’s sea cadet annual (RCSCC Fraser – perpetuates a Canadian destroyer lost in WW2). He’s determined to go to the RMC in Kingston – we’ll see if he gets his grades up in the meantime!
All the best / M
Hello Mike,
Thanks for reading! Which destroyer did your Uncle Bert captain? My grandfather was a wireless operator on the HMCS Drumheller, a Flower-class corvette that did convoy runs for most of the war, then was switched over to indepedent duty escorted ships between ports in the lead up to D-Day. He was off the Normandy beaches on June 6, and was deafened in one ear by a salvo from the HMS Norfolk. He didn’t want to be put ashore, so he didn’t tell anyone, and he just worked his radio with one ear for the rest of the war.
You’ve just come back from your son’s annual? I remember those well. I spent seven years in the air cadets from age 12 to 19. The cadets are a big, big help for an RMC application. If I remember correctly, his years in the cadets will count towards his pension if he makes the Canadian military his career after the five years you have to serve upon graduating from RMC. Here’s hoping his grades are good enough, as you say, but I’d also recommend he takes all the French he can, as that will also be a big help on his application.
Cheers, and good luck to him!
–Geoff
Hi again Geoff,
Thanks for the pointers re: Kingston. My dad took courses there in the summers as a junior officer while and after doing the ROTC program at UBC, then serving in the signals corps under NATO command while in Germany for several years before I was born in ’62 (yes, I’m becoming an old fart very quickly!).
Finding out the name of the destroyer, or possibly corvette (I was told destroyer, but who really knows at this point) would be extremely problematic. Uncle Burt and Aunt Isobel never had any children, with Burt passing away about ’65 and Isobel about five years later. They left everything to my father, who passed away suddenly in ’88, only 51 years old. Dad was the historian in the family and I have all the materials he left behind. Burt’s siblings, my grandmother and a brother who was a neurologist in Toronto, also predeceased Aunt Isobel, so at this point there is no one to go to for information other than the RCN archives.
According to the government requirements, for me to get his service records I have to a) provide documentation as to his death, and b), the problematic part, a single piece of documentation that mentions both his name and mine and there being a relationship. So, basically this would be a massive task even if given allowance to use multiple documents backing up the family tree. It really is a shame when families don’t pass on the greatest detail they can, especially when it’s so important they need to be remembered and their contribution to us and our country is witnessed fully for the generations to come.
But, we must take what we get and also take a lesson from that as well when we pass on our family stories. The only hard evidence I have of Burt’s existence is his pilotage authority ID from the ’50’s. Too bad… At least with cousin George the RAF provided me with the details of his night fighter training aircraft and its serial number. I sent them a letter back in the ’90’s early in the year, but never received a response. Then, in late November of that year, I received a letter with the details and dated November 11th. I was surprised by that point and very touched.
Keep up the good work. It’s important for our younger Canadians to pick up the torch and carry on. I’ve bookmarked your page and look forward to reading through the archives!
Best / Mike S.
hi, my dad served on the drumheller beginning in ’43, he spoke of the refit in new york, meeting jack dempsey the famous boxer in his bar, i haven’t met or corresponded with any others that may have known my father but would like to. if you know of any contacts i would like to get in touch with them as well as hear stories you may have
jim o’neil, nova scotia, son of lewis, lou o’neil
Hey found your profile on LinkedIn. Was interested in knowing how you like working as a conference producer. I am asking because I saw a posting that the Canadian Institute is looking for a conference producer and I wasn’t sure if I should apply.
Just came across your site and love what I’ve seen so far. I came across it after looking for the ‘daddy wait for me’ picture to send to a friend in the UK. My dad was an officer, commanding in the 1970′s, with the Royal Westminster Regiment in New Westminster. My great-uncle Burt was a steam tug captain, then a destroyer captain on the North Atlantic (later a coastal pilot out of Victoria). Other cousins that served in WW2 were Tony (senior officer with ‘The Green Howards’, an armoured division from Yorkshire), captured at Dunkirk – 6 years in a camp, Desmond, a battlefield surgeon who went over on D-Day, and George, a Hurricane pilot who died in ’41 while retraining for night fighter duty. When I visited his sister Muriel in Lewes, Sussex, then 94, she told me the only thing they were told was he had ‘flown into a hill in an English county without any hills’. A rather droll way of putting it, oui? Ironically, just came across your site after coming home from my son’s sea cadet annual (RCSCC Fraser – perpetuates a Canadian destroyer lost in WW2). He’s determined to go to the RMC in Kingston – we’ll see if he gets his grades up in the meantime!
+1
Hey – you did some great reviews of our site. Since then we have added many more – we are up to 114 now. Fancy giving us another listen?
db
Oh, I still listen regularly David. Please keep up the good work! I haven’t done a new review lately because it takes all day to do the article. That, and I’ve gotten a little frustrated that you keep changing your site’s address and the article links, so if I do a review, within a couple of months no one can actually hear what I’m referencing anymore.
New review is up and running, plus the old ones have been relinked to your new URLs. Cheers for the kick in the pants. keep up the good work!
Saw your review of Bernard Cornwell … I’m researching top historical fiction authors, what makes their fiction so compelling. I’ve only read his Sword Song – you seem to know a lot about him (and you’re a fellow Torontonian). What do you think makes his stories a great read.
Sword Song is an interesting one to start (being the middle of a series and all). I’d recommend the Warlord Trilogy, which is his imaging of the Arthur story before the myths set in. He bases as much of the story as possible on the history, but he makes it a human story through characters you care about leading lives of adventure that force you to turn the page. I can’t think of the last Cornwell book I didn’t read in under two days. They aren’t savoured so much as devoured.
I stumbled upon this blog from reddit and I really enjoyed reading your Presidential Knife Fight entry. I looked at your books and I just wanted to say that what you’re doing is really cool and I hope everything works out for you.
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Hey, Geoff! Thanks for your review on my cover of “I Need You,” and enjoyed reading your other reviews. You might also want to check out my George Harrison ukulele tribute album, “If Not For Uke.” Lovingly arranged, I believe, the way George would’ve done them. Peace & Love!
Hi Geoff thanks for this article. My Dad was Bob Green and my uncle was Chub Downey. This really brought back fond memories of my Dad’s stories about the milk route and especially of his horse Queenie. My Dad died in 1982 and Chub died 2 years ago. Thanks for keeping this memory alive. I’m going to print it and read it to my Mom. Bless you. Take care. Nancy Green