The First Year: 97 Stories Distilled From 87 Years of Successful Living

After losing his cherished wife of sixty-three years to leukaemia, Don joined a writing group called The Centre Wellington Writers (thewellies.com). What he wrote was a mix of fiction and non-fiction, both realistic and larger than life. The First Year compiles ninety-seven stories from Don's first year of writing for fun, ranging from fifty-word micro-stories to a 30,000-word novella.
Follow entrepreneurs as they fight against and try to outsmart the odds. Dive into "Nurena," a science-fiction novella about a hostile planet, crypto-currency, and an oppressive regime. Rescue loons from a frozen lake, read along with a children's story, reminisce about loved ones and times past, revive a failing company, and travel the stars.

D. Burton Smith has worked as a chartered accountant, general manager, university educator and productivity consultant. Over the course of his career he visited at least a hundred companies to examine their factories, products and records to help optimize their operations. He has written hundreds of reports, cases, articles and teaching notes over a sixty-year career, but for the first time he was writing from what was in his head.

Don has six children, fourteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren (and counting). He lives in Elora, Ontario, with a longtime friend and new life-partner, Carol Eliza.