ALL ABOUT LINDA

Singer, Songwriter, Author - Linda's relationship with words and music while growing up in East York Toronto and beyond, is chronicled in her award winning essay, "A Soul Full of Sundays". 

A songwriter and storyteller at heart, Linda has published achievements in the areas of recorded music, essay and poetry.

• Certificate of Achievement for "A Million Times A Circle", included on Linda's Indie Label & CD entitled Folklore in Song2,  from the UNISONG International Song Competition spanning 4,200 entries from over 45 countries. 

• Award of Excellence for "A Soul Full of Sundays", published by the Canadian Poetry Institute, "Sketches of Memory: Anthology of Creative Writing", 2014.

• Published winner in Scarborough Arts Council poetry contest in 1991, for "His'Tree" - later set to music and song and re-released on Folklore in Song2.

You are invited to explore all areas of this website for the latest news on Linda's musical performances, readings, interactive short stories, and more.

A SOUL FULL OF SUNDAYS 

Throughout my earliest memories growing up in East York, “Toronto the Good”, a devout catholic priest breathed hell and brimstone from the pulpit every seventh day. He displayed impatience and shouted intolerant remarks at anyone who coughed too many times or whose infant sighed or cried, interrupting his spirited cavalcade of biblical quotations and translations. As if that wasn’t enough to save us, a punishing Sunday school ritual followed the Mass, imposing cataclysmic guilt and catechistic memory work involving a series of questions and answers on the content of one’s faith. I never once received reasonable answers to my innocent questions on heaven or hell, or where babies really came from, or when we were going to get to the fun stuff and sing songs. So, at a very impressionable age, the devil took hold of me and I started refusing to go to Sunday school and recite dogmatic texts, or go to Mass or enter a confessional. You might say I tried the patience of all the saints, including my mother. 

Looking back, I realize that I instinctively took the best of what there was to have and left the rest behind for the more pliable souls. Let me shed more light here. At some point in the midst of my torment, I discovered some of the most beautiful prayers, meditations and hymns — my first introduction to poetry and music. More effective than a flame-throwing pulpiteer on a Sunday morning, gentle and lyrical invocations were indelibly inked on my brain as an unfailing source of inspiration, respite and solace. Eventually the use of words quite literally shaped my life’s work. Where clerics failed me in the reasonable explanations department, I committed to a career in illuminating good business values and ethics in the field of human resources management. Where Sunday school music had been withheld pending the memorization of dogmatic texts, years later I took up the beat as a part-time singer/songwriter for no reason other than the guilty pleasure of making music’n rhyme meaningful for myself as well as for others who dared to listen. 

In a sense, religion created a life-long vibration in my soul immeasurable on the Richter scale. A soul full of Sundays . . . a link to my past, a pathway to the future and, a tranquility zone in the devilishly chaotic world we live in! © 2013 Linda Dempster. 

This piece won an Award of Excellence and was published by the Canadian Poetry Institute, Sketches of Memory: Anthology of Creative Writing, in 2014. 

Click on "HOME" below to take you back to the menu across the top of the page to explore all areas of this website.