: About Me

Diane M. Wells, originally from Ottawa, Ontario, is a freelance writer, radio producer/host/announcer and former public servant who spent 20-very-odd years in Toronto before moving to Hamilton in 2001. She spent a year in St. John's, NL (2005). In July 2007, she returned to Ottawa.

Formerly a columnist with to-nite magazine, Ms. Wells has also been published in numerous other newspapers and magazines. A complete listing of her paid/unpaid articles published in hard-copy can be viewed by clicking here, but you might not find your way back without difficulty. She suggests you bookmark that page and go back to it at another time - it's another world altogether.

Her reviews of CDs, books and live performances have been posted on numerous popular websites and have appeared in the press kits of Terra Hazelton, Jeff Healey, Daniel Lanois, David Rotundo, and Too Slim and The Taildraggers.

Since 2000, she has provided not-for-profit promotion and/or publicity services for local, national and international artists of various genres via the Internet at "Rockin' the Blues from Canada". Also posted at this website were several self-authored narrative music journals: SEATTLE RATTLE, GREAT BIG ROCK JAM, HAMMER-JAM and T'OH-JAM. These journals reviewed and/or promoted live regional performances in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, St. John's (NL) and the Golden Horseshoe (Toronto-Hamilton-St. Catharines-Niagara Falls). She suspended publication of these journals in August 2005.

Ms. Wells was nominated for two 2006 Hamilton Literary Awards.

In addition to her career as a writer, she has also trained and worked as a volunteer audio-book recorder and on-air radio producer/host/announcer/DJ.

Until May 2006, she produced and hosted "Patchwork Blues" (standard blues and fusions of same) at CFMU 93.3 FM in Hamilton, ON, and CHMR 93.5 FM in St. John's, NL. She also produced and hosted fill-in segments for "The Herb Morrison Show" (top-40 retro hits show), "For Your Pleasure" (multi-genre), "Soundtrack" (film scores and soundtrack entries), "The Freewheelin' Folk Show" (roots-based singer-songwriters) and "Smokin' Bluegrass" (just that). She now produces and hosts "Iron Maidens", a multi-genre show, which spotlights female performers and/or composers, at CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa, ON.

Ms. Wells has written a politically subversive memoir called Honky-Tonk Blues (in Canada), with nominal assistance from an Ontario Arts Council writers' reserve grant. She has been engaged in a human rights battle with the Government of Canada since 2005, with no resolution in sight.

My passion is ...

music.

I know too much about ...

music.

My parents always told me ...

if I studied my school subjects as much as music, I'd be a genius.

My childhood ambition ...

was to be a ballerina.

My favorite memory ...

was the birth of my sons.

Why I write ...

It requires less bravery than communicating verbally.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

That varies minute-to-minute.

My first job ...

was babysitting children in my neighbourhood.

My best moment ...

Becoming a mother.

My inspiration ...

derives from either spiritual stimulation or just plain boredom.

Travel > Canada Destinations Travel destinations: Newfoundland, Canada

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ST. JOHN'S OFFERS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! Unless you are a person who has the physical stamina to endure and enjoy the extra-crisp bite of a harsh winter, oftentimes accompanied by gale-force winds, I suggest you visit St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, in the late summer, early fall. If your knees or ankles are not strong, I would recommend renting a vehicle, unless, of course, you've taken your own onto the ferry from Nova Scotia. That can be a bit of an ordeal in itself, but it's an adventure, just the same. St. John's, like that of San Francisco, is famous for its steeply hilly te...

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