Geoff is one of Toronto's most popular speakers on personal growth, is founder of the "Renewal Seminars" and author of "The Art of Effective Living" which presents a revolutionary new method of self-understanding called "Vision Renaissance." A long time award-winning member of Toastmasters International, he is the owner of a linguistics training company. Geoff believes that the secret of telling or writing an entertaining short story is that it should contain a sense of mystery, powerful narrative, an ethical lesson if possible and, if it is a personal one, should be primarily based on truth. As with myths however they can be enlivened with colour and imagination. In most of the stories in this, his first collection he has endeavoured to do all of these. Most of them are based on real people and their experiences, and several of them, on those of the author. The spy story "Return to Canaan" is based on true and verifiable historic events and on authentic characters but not on real people. "Safe New World" is a somewhat "tongue in cheek" projection of life in the last part of this century. However the author believes it is based on significant current trends.