I was born and raised in Montreal, in a neighbourhood called Park Extension. This was a great place for a writer to grow up because there were lots of colourful characters around, lots of street life, and lots of different ethnicities to be curious about. The predominant ethnic group at the time (the 60s) was Greek. I grew up hearing as much Greek as French and English, and I learned to love the food and customs of my Greek friends. It was, however, early training in being more of an observer than a participant. When I was 13 my parents bought a house in Ville St-Laurent, a suburb of Montreal. Perhaps because of my Park Ex days, I found myself hanging out mostly with a group of Armenian friends the first few years. I was just comfortable being different– and having to decode foreign languages. This gave me an interest in languages, so I went on to learn German (my father’s heritage), as well as Spanish in later life, which means I speak four languages, although none but English well enough to write in.