About Us
Satchel!
Not a whole lot is known about where Satchel comes from or what his family was like when he was young.
All we know is that someone left him on the street in Tehran, Iran when he was less than a year old! He was saved by someone we don't know and, eventually, brought to the attention of Niagara Dog Rescue. We saw him on their website and El fell in love with him on the spot. We drove for over a hour to get him.
He'd been on a plane for hours and cooped up in a little crate. When we arrived to pick him up, he was so smelly we had to drive with the windows down!
But he fell asleep on Mama's lap and has never once looked back.
Satchel is about the happiest dog I've ever seen. Even when he knows he's in trouble, he's wagging his tail and dancing around.
Mark Bulmer
While born in the big city, Mark was moved to the suburbs as a young lad and spent his formative years there. Since then, he's lived in eight different cities, including our nation's capital of Ottawa, Ontario.
Mark has been employed in a number of fields including restaurant, big box retail, project management, system support and even payroll. While he's never been sure what he wanted to do for a living, he's always wanted to write.
The two Satchel's Night Nest Adventures books are Mark's first foray into the publishing world, but he is working on a bunch of other stories for readers of all ages.
Olivia Hashka
From cookie cutter suburbia to the 6ix (Toronto), Olivia Hashka grew up with no plans on pursuing art in a professional way. But, at the wee age of five, her British Grannie took her as an apprentice and taught her the tricks of the art trade. Everything from creating tiny canvas pieces of oddly arranged fruit to globular trees. Yes, they may have started out as glob-like trees, but they were art, nonetheless.
These activities of drawing and painting and telling stories through images helped her in achieving art scholarships in her hometown. In university, Olivia decided to pursue advertising with hopes of challenging perspectives, telling stories and creating a few laughs.
Olivia is now an advertising art director in Toronto and finds herself dabbling in various odd forms of creative arts. When she’s not brainstorming, she can be found writing her next stand-up comedy performance or crafting seasonally aesthetic wreaths.
Illustrating Satchel’s Night Nest Adventures has been an inspiration and a throwback to the days of creating simple, playful doodles in the back of her notebooks.