Author: Marsha

What do you do to avoid writing? I have cleaned the fridge, got the bills all up to date, and the house doesn’t look too bad. All ten of my scrabulous games on facebook are waiting for someone else to make a move. I guess this means I must write.

The novel I’m working on is set in the 1500s in what is now Ukraine but was Poland-Lithuania. I did TONS of research (that’s another way to avoid writing). This week, I finally began writing in earnest. Sum total of the week? A few hundred words.

Maybe someone’s made a move in scrabble ….

If you’re a kid who loves to write, you’re in luck! There’s a brand new magazine out that specializes in publishing writing and illustrations by kids.

It’s been a fine balancing act, arranging the schedules and speakers for Brantford Book Camp, Burlington Book Camp and Brantford Summer Writing Workshops (SWW). But it is all looking so good! Everything has come together beautifully!

Sylvia McNicoll, who is the opening speaker at Burlington Book Camp, had a lovely write-up about her and Book Camp in the Burlington Post.  There was also a tiny plug for the Brantford camp in a round-up of book reviews that I did for Saturday’s Expositor.

Both of the Brantford camps are full, but I think there still may be a spot or two available at Burlington Book Camp.

Many of the people participating in the Brantford SWW are already published — some in book form, and quite a few are newspaper and magazine journalists. And they’re coming from all over!

I can hardly wait til next week!!

Mahtab Narsimhan, brand new fantasy author extraordinaire, has a new blog. Check it out.

What are you reading right now?

I am plunged into research mode, and I am rewarding myself with a novel for fun each time I finish a book for research. I just finished Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know last night. It was great! Good character development (I’m a sucker for character development) and an unexpected yet oh so perfect ending.

Last week, I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, of course. I wasn’t one of these people who skimmed it in a couple of hours and then blabbed about the ending. When I was in a waiting room last week with my precious Harry, someone offered to tell me the ending and I just about did violence upon her head.

The book that I read for research last week was The History of Ukrainian Costume. And just before Harry Potter, I read Europe’s Steppe Frontier, 1500 – 1700,

The book I’m starting today is A Description of Ukraine by Guillaume LeVasseur. It is a traveller account from the 1600s. I have flipped through it already and it looks awesome!

IN MEMORIAM: Mary Manko Haskett, 1908-2007

The Ukrainian Canadian community mourns the passing of the last known survivor of Canada's first national internment operations, Mary Manko Haskett, who died peacefully, in Mississauga, Ontario, 14 July 2007. Born in Montreal to a Ukrainian immigrant family, Mary was just six years old when she was transported into the Abitibi region of Quebec, interned with the rest of her family as "enemy aliens" in the Spirit Lake (La Ferme) concentration camp. Her younger sister, Nellie, died there. Thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were unjustly imprisoned, not because of anything they had done but only because of who they were, where they came from. Forced to do heavy labour for the profit of their jailers, what little wealth they had was confiscated, and they were subjected to many other state-sanctioned censures, including disenfranchisement.

Mary Manko served as the honourary chairwoman of the National Redress Council of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She asked only that what happened to her, and so many others, be remembered and that the contemporary value of the internee's confiscated wealth and labour be placed into a community-administered endowment fund and used for commemorative and educational initiatives that would help make sure that no other Canadian ethnic, religious or racial minority ever suffered as Ukrainian Canadians once did. Mary never asked for, nor wanted, an apology from the Government of Canada, nor did she favour compensation to victims of the internment operations, or their descendants. The fair and honourable position Mary took became that of the Ukrainian Canadian community.

Despite the Royal Assent given to Bill C 331 - The Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act (25 November 2005), and the Honorable Stephen Harper's endorsement of that private member's Bill in the House of Commons, 24 March 2005, the Government of Canada has yet to fulfill its legal obligation to negotiate a Ukrainian Canadian Redress and Reconciliation Settlement with the designated representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian community.

We promised Mary that, sooner or later, we would see justice done. We regret that she will not now be a witness to the righting of the historical injustice done to her and so many other innocents.


Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association 
Ukrainian Canadian Congress
Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko 

Check it out here.

I got a nifty package in the mail a few weeks ago from the Ontario Library Association. It was a big poster for Aram’s Choice, signed by a bunch of students. Here it is:

The salad died some time ago, so I finally buried it in an unmarked grave last Wednesday. As it slithered into the dirt, I couldn’t help but note that the cherry tomatoes still looked fresh…..