Michael Hobson Productions

Why? The simple question all writers are asked at some point in their lives. Why write when everyone you know and love argues that you can’t make money writing fiction. Of course, we know that business rides along with any pursuit but motivations to write should not be transactional in fiction. That’s how I feel. The creation of story should be intrinsic to our being, an idea we wish to convey.

I was born in the wee hours of a Sunday morning in the Lachine hospital maternity ward and was named after a popular song of the day—Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore. I continue being thankful that my mother wasn’t as big a fan of The Boll Weevil song or Runaround Sue.

I was raised in Lachine which, at that time, was among the poorer of Montreal’s suburbs. My father wasn’t around much so it was up to my mother to care for her boy on a $50 monthly income. To this day, whenever Kraft Dinner or Hot Dogs are offered as a meal or even as an addition, a revolution occurs in my stomach.

There is an old proverb—It takes a village to raise a child. I was raised by a village. My grandmother was one of twelve children, all of whom had children and grandchildren. There was always an aunt or an uncle or an older cousin stopping by with food. I grew up sharing a strong familial bond—we looked after one another.

The desire to write originated within the confines of a conventional public education system. One of the questions on my English final exam, as a fifteen-year-old high school student, was to create a story—the elements of which I have long since forgotten, though I remember sitting in the school gymnasium and on a chair/desk combination made from plywood. I was so absorbed in the story’s creation that I lost track of time; I don’t remember if I answered all the questions. That feeling of total surrender to the story has stayed with me for my entire life. I feel it now, writing this biography, though not nearly as deep.

I began my search for writing opportunities that summer. I had an article published in the local newspaper—I was a participant in a citywide bowling tournament and wrote about it afterward. Quebec was in chaos at that time. The language conflict, fought since the province’s inception, was brought to the forefront by the election of the Parti Quebecois—a separatist party. Many companies with English operators and international ties chose to leave the province and move to Ontario, which turned Toronto into a world-class business and arts metropolis.

We settled in Milton where I completed my high school education. Shortly after the school year began, an opportunity arose during morning announcements. The local independent weekly, in competition with an established newspaper chain, was looking for a stringer to report on the school’s upcoming events. I had written several sports stories for practice and brought them with me to the interview. The editor, who later became a close friend, agreed to hire me as a weekly high school sports columnist for ten bucks a week. I would have paid him for the opportunity, but since he was offering to pay me…

The high school column led to my being offered a full-time position the following summer, and I accepted despite having already been accepted into a college journalism program. I would learn more on the job he said, than I would learn in school. The sports reporter position evolved into being named sports editor—I was responsible to fill on average between six and eight pages of a between twenty-four and thirty-two-page edition. Yes, the entire sports department was on me, and I loved it. Working alongside people who were remnants of the Woodstock generation, I learned a great deal—mostly about life, and stayed with the paper until its inevitable business closure.

I took a position as feature writer for a lifestyle magazine, based out of Guelph, and was accepted into the creative writing program at York University. I also wrote freelance articles which I sold to local and international publications. I was then offered a partnership in an independent business. School was proving too costly so I accepted the opportunity. We ran two businesses—a catering company and a reverse osmosis water purification company. (I have been on the environment protection bandwagon since the 1980’s) The partnership ended when I sold the remaining pieces of both companies to my partner. I then decided to devote my time to writing while working a job that simply paid the bills.

That job was restaurant server which turned into restaurant manager. I opened the only Canadian Chapters café in Oakville, managed several restaurants with annual sales approaching two million and rose to the position of Executive Training General Manager for an American based restaurant chain. Life can take you on an unexpected ride.

I continued to write—both fiction and sports. I created a website (The Fan View) which ultimately connected me with The Team 990 in Montreal and The Fan 590 in Toronto. I wrote a weekly column for the Fan and I was a weekly radio guest on both stations for years. I also contributed weekly columns to the Vancouver Sun website.

In 2006 I self-published A Walking Parody—the satirical tale of a broken man and his equally broken friend seeking self-discovery while on a perilous European adventure. The Greater Fool is now ready for publication with The Corridor on deck. Synopses for all three novels can be viewed on this site, along with the links and transcripts to my YouTube and Instagram commentaries.

I have been married for twenty-six years and we have a beautiful daughter who is an undergraduate student at University of Toronto.  

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Why I write

“If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise.” –William Blake

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul.” – Roald Dahl

“If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.” ― Lord Byron

"You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page." ― E. Annie Proulx

“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” – Gloria Steinem

"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it." ― Anais Nin

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or for hours, nobody can say." ― Virginia Woolf 

"The best stories don't come from ‘good vs. bad’ but ‘good vs. good’." ― Leo Tolstoy

"You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then you gradually get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence." ― Octavia E. Butler

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." ― Beatrix Potter

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” – George Orwell

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." ― John Steinbeck

"I write to discover what I know."—Flannery O'Connor

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."     –Toni Morrison

"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn." —Anne Frank

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." –Thomas Mann

"Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences." –Sylvia Plath

"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself." –Albert Camus

What i've achieved