Reading locally: Life With Yourgogirl

How amazing it is, really, that anybody with access to a computer and the internet can now write for the world. It's easy to forget that it hasn't always been this way. And how easily we seem to adapt, so that what is still quite astonishing we now treat as ordinary. The world of print continues to shrink and fold as the era of Gutenberg sputters to a close. But don't be sad. Online the world of news and information expands and unfolds like one of those magic flowers dropped into a glass of water, revealing unimaginably crinkly surface areas filled with curious nooks and quirks and crannies that never would have made it into print, back in the old days.

Now dedicated authors can write for a loyal audience of a couple of hundred or so. Not everybody in the world will ever care about the remote places of Nova Scotia, for instance. But what extravagant riches are strewn at the feet of those who do!

I'm certain I haven't discovered every terrific Nova Scotia blog that's reporting out from the watery wind-blown crevices, the cloud-swept skies, the placid marshes and inlets of the province. But I have come across a few. So let's begin a tour of them.

Life With Yourgogirl is Carla Allen's Yarmouth-and-south-west-Nova-Scotia-based blog. Carla is a reporter for The Yarmouth Vanguard and she writes a syndicated gardening column, too. But Carla is so much more than the sum of her professional writing. She truly will do anything, I believe, for the adventure of it. At the beginning of lobster season, that meant working as the bander on her cousin's lobster boat The Scalded Witch. Last summer it meant a visit to Seal Island, a hard-to-get-to place. Then there are the unexpected detours down never-traveled roads, and who knows what you will find along the way? She has her reporter's instinct for what makes a good story. Plus she's a terrific writer. Hitch a ride with Carla's blog and you will discover life in Nova Scotia that's really real.