Margaret Pilkey “Peggy” is a writer living in Halifax Regional Municipality, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Between the ages of nine and twelve, the city of Tokushima on Shikoku Island, Japan became her home. Like other expatriate children homeschooled in early childhood, she became fluent in the language of her host country, speaking Japanese while playing with her sister and their friends in the neighbourhood. During her teenage years, she attended and graduated from Canadian Academy, an international day and boarding school in Kobe on the main island of Honshu, where she studied alongside students who at that time, represented twenty-four nationalities.
This international experience shaped her worldview and stoked her desire for travel and service, both of which were realized after her graduation from university when she and her husband, newlyweds, accepted a two-year teaching contract with CUSO (now Cuso International.) Their first posting as secondary school teachers led them to Guyana, SA; their second, to Jamaica.
Four years after returning to Ontario, Peggy and her husband moved with their two young children to Halifax. Their interest in other cultures continued to be enriched by long-lasting friendships with English Language Learners whom they welcomed into their family. As host parents to more than fifty-five of them from eleven different countries and the province of Quebec, Peggy and Dennis witnessed close friendships forming among them, especially at the farewell parties many of them hosted in their home. As a way of preserving those memories and her memories of living overseas, Peggy’s creative writing often includes one or more characters from diverse cultural backgrounds. She is a member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS), the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers (CANSCAIP), and Haiku Canada.
Peggy Pilkey 