Carolyn Bennett Writer/Comic

I’m Carolyn Bennett. Not the doctor and Member of Parliament, but the writer and comedian. I’m about ten, maybe 15 years younger, similar in colouring, hair length and height. My friends say I’m better looking, but they’re my friends. Dr. Carolyn Bennett makes ten times what I do, so okay, I’ll take being better looking. It’s difficult having the same name as a person more famous than you, especially when you’re in the fame business. I’m not nearly as well known as Dr. Carolyn Bennett, although I do get the occasional stare in the subway. Then again, who doesn’t? I’ve had a modicum of national exposure (my own CBC Comics special, spots on CBC Marketplace and various other odds and sods around the dial) but I can’t compete with a woman who is both a doctor and a member of parliament. Maybe I should have studied medicine as an undergrad, instead of the bottom of a beer glass in the school pub. Oh well. Then again, maybe she wonders about all those years she wasted delivering babies and c...

In the most recent issue of Canadian Screenwriter Magazine a column appeared about using blogs as a means of self-promotion. Let me make one thing clear -- I only have a blog because everyone else is doing it. I am following the herd on this one. I have no problem proclaiming that I have a gift for writing. What I have a problem with, and have always had a problem with, is promoting myself. My self is a mishmash of painful memory, something I actively try to escape through writing and performing. I'm reminded of the film Amadeus, when Mozart pitches himself to the Court, saying something to the effect of "I am a silly, irreverent man, but my music is pure, is glorious." I understand that sentiment. I have just completed my first novel. Now it will go through the rounds at publishers. I feel like I've just begun. If it goes no where, at least I will have written a novel. But dang, it's good! My best to this year's WGC nominees. You're all winners. You have ...

There comes a time in every freelancer’s life when they say “enough”. Sure, the advantages of freelancing are many -- the 10 second commute to the home office, being able to concentrate without interruption, the freedom to sing when the urge strikes. The downside is the office politics. I can be cruel to myself. There are days when I take myself out for lunch and find it impossible to make small talk. Complaints to the boss fall on deaf ears. Sometimes it gets really bad, when I can hardly stand my own shallow breathing. The slight rise and fall of my chest, ugh, make it stop. One day while trolling the internet to avoid writing, I stumbled onto the Times Change Women’s Employment Service website (or as I lovingly call it, the Shit Happens Employment Service). Times Change offers career counselling, job search workshops and computer workshops for women who by choice or necessity are in the market for new employment opportunities. These services are all offered free of ...