Anne Bokma

Anne Bokma is an award-winning freelance journalist and the author of My Year of Living Spiritually: From Woo-Woo to Wonderful—One Woman’s Secular Quest for a More Soulful Life to be released by publisher Douglas & McIntyre in October 2019.

Anne leads workshops and gives presentations on topics relating to spirituality and writing, including how she left a fundamentalist religion, the importance of finding community, how to live a more soulful life and what it takes to tell a good story. She is the founder of the 6-Minute Memoir “Speed Storytelling For a Cause” event, which features storytellers sharing tales on a common theme within a strict six-minute time limit. The event has raised more than $40,000 for local charities in her hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, since 2013.

Her work has been honoured with awards from the Canadian Association of Journalists, the North American Travel Journalists Association, the Canadian Church Press, the U.S. Associated Church Press, the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors, the Canadian Business Press Media Association, Rogers Media, the Travel Media Association of Canada and the Hamilton Independent Media Awards.

Anne is the mother of two grown daughters and makes her home in Hamilton, Ontario, where she is an active member of First Unitarian Church.