Author: Marsha

I have a spinach salad in my fridge that I bought a week ago and forgot about. I found it just now and it is still crisp and green. The tomatoes look like tomatoes and even the mushroom slices look fresh. What the heck did they spray on this? Formeldihyde? I don’t think I’m going to eat it.

My Dear Canada is set to be released in the fall. I just got the cover art on Friday. Here it is:

This year was the first time that all of the Forest of Reading award ceremonies happened on the same day and at the same place. And because I feared traffic and exhaustion, especially after a hectic Wednesday, I stayed overnight in Toronto the night before and took a taxi to Harbourfront.

The Silver Birch Express Award wasn’t given out til past noon, but they had us autograph for a couple of hours in the morning — outside. It was cold! Nancy Shouse (who won the Silver Birch Express that afternoon — congratulations, Nancy!) and I sat side by side in what I am sure was a wind tunnel. We were both frozen.

There was no anxiety or anticipation for me at all. I had known all along that Aram’s Choice would not win the Silver Birch Express. It’s not a fun book. It deals gently with an unknown chapter in history. And it specifically appeals to boys who don’t like to read. But it was so wonderful to have the opportunity to meet more children who had been touched by Aram’s Choice. There is nothing more satisfying for an author than to have oodles of 8 year old boys come up one at a time and say, with wonder, “Did you write Aram’s Choice? I loved that book. It was the first book I ever read because I wanted to.” And what followed after that would inevitably be a combo of:

What happened to Mr. Chechian?
What was Mgerdich okay after he fell out the window?
Will there be another Aram book?
Did this really happen?
How do you know all this stuff?

And then they would ask to have their photo taken with me.

It was awesome!

But even more awesome was that I got to meet one of my writing idols — Sheree Fitch — who was also nominated for the Silver Birch Express.

We had never met and so I didn’t recognize her on sight. When Art Slade introduced us, I was gobsmacked when she said, “I have always wanted to meet you!” That shocked the heck out of me. How did Sheree Fitch even know who I was?

Well, she said that she was thrilled with the review I had given her for her first YA novel — The Gravesavers –a couple of years ago. She said that of all the reviews she got, mine was the one she loved the best because, I “got” the novel. She knew all about my books. Wow! She is such a high profile author, yet so down to earth and nice. She was encouraging and chatty with everyone she met. That personality shows in her writing. Down below is a photo of Sheree, Art Slade and myself in the “Green Room” at the Tree Awards:

Thank goodness a long weekend comes after the Forest of Reading festivities. Now that I have had three sleep-ins and three days of exercise, I am feeling almost back to normal.

Wednesday was quite the hectic day.  I had somehow committed to participating in two separate Forest of Reading events in two different communities — both of which were WAY on the other side of Toronto from me!

Shelley MacBeth of Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge has run a fabulous celebration for several years running for children in the Uxbridge area who can’t get in to the Toronto Forest of Reading event because the tickets are limited. Her celebration is held at the local community centre and is for the Silver Birch, Silver Birch Express and Red Maple reading programs. I attended this one when Nobody’s Child was nominated for the Red Maple a couple of years ago and was very impressed with the organization and the enthusiasm of the kids.

The other one I had committed to was organized by Jane MacKenzie of Whitby and was held at a giant sports centre. This one was for the participants in the Whitby area and it was for all of the reading programs and is HUGE. Again, these are students who wouldn’t have been able to go to the Harbourfront events in Toronto on the Thursday because of limited ticket sales.

What to do, what to do?

I fessed up to both Jane and Shelley, offering to go for an hour to one, then drive 35k to the other and attend that one for an hour.

And then — thankfully — it turned out that I wasn’t the only confused author. Several had committed to both, thinking they were the same event. Some chose one or the other. Three of us managed to hit both. Gail Nyoka, Elizabeth Etue and myself attended Uxbridge from 11 til noon, then we convoyed to Whitby and did it all over again from 1 til 2.

I skedaddled out of the Whitby sports arena before the first school bus left the parking lot because I was on a mission. When Linda Bailey was in town on Monday, she had amassed a collection of lovely gifts that had been given to her by various librarians. One was a beautiful door wreath decorated with action figures depicting scenes from Stanley’s Party. I had taken that plus a beautifully large gift umbrella from Linda and offered to drop ithem off at Kids Can Press on my way to my downtown Toronto hotel. When I got to Kids Can, it was pouring rain. I was tempted, but I did not use Linda’s umbrella. I parked slightly illegally, dashed in, dumped the items off and was on my way to my hotel as quickly as rush hour traffic would allow.

That evening, I got together with a number of other Silver Birch and Silver Birch Express nominees for good chats and dinner.

Blue Spruce nominee and author supreme Linda Bailey was in Brantford and Paris yesterday, doing readings at both libraries. I have been looking forward to meeting Linda in person for a long time so it was a delight to drive her around for the day. It was also neat to be with another author for a whole day. It can get scary though. Linda’s sense of direction is as abysmal as mine so there were many times when we lost the car in the parking lot, turned the wrong way out of the bathroom, and so on. Thank goodness for the GPS in my car.

It was a pleasure to watch Linda present at the Brant County Library in Paris. Every child in the audience was sitting in rapt attention. Linda has a way of presenting that makes each person in the audience feel that they’re part of a dialogue. She got rave reviews.

After the Paris presentation, I took Linda to lunch at the Arlington Hotel right downtown in Paris. This place is now a beautiful restaurant, pub and hotel, but when I was a university student, it was the cheapest place to get beer. A glass of draft was 15 cents. My sister and I ran a youth drop-in centre just off the main drag in Paris for a few summers from 3 til 11pm each day, so became familiar with this place.

After lunch, there was the usual tussle over who got to pay the bill. When I have lunch with Valerie Sherrard, there have been times the bill has ripped in two has we’ve struggled for the right to pay, but Linda had a different idea. She challenged me to an arm wrestle. I won, but just barely.Ha!

I don’t have a picture of our arm wrestling, but here she is, looking might fierce:

And congratulations to Marina Cohen, whose first novel. Shadow of the Moon, is now out.

Marina is also a Private Kidcritter.

And Melissa Poremba, who looks after the publicity for Brantford Book Camp, won this from the OLA. Congratulations, Melissa! Well deserved!!!!!

I am thrilled to announce that another one of our Private Kidcrit members has received a book contract.  Mahtab, The Third Eye is going to look fabulous between Dundurn covers! Way to go!!!!!!!!!!

I was at Oakville Public Library yesterday as the guest speaker for Battle of the Books.

I had no idea what to expect. It had been on my calendar for over a year. A couple weeks ago I googled Battle of the Books and found out that it’s sort of like Jeopardy or a spelling bee. There were about 20 schools represented — each with a team of half a dozen or so students. I had a brief moment of fear, thinking maybe I was supposed to ask the questions??!!!!

But no, I was to give a talk. Yesterday was Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, and since many of my books are centred around the Armenian Genocide, they asked me to speak on that.

I arrived early so I could sit in and watch the students do their book battling. Very interesting! They all had to be familair with so many books. A number of times I had to restrain myself from waving my hand and saying, “Me, me! I know the answer!”

Doing a talk to a group of bookaholics is about the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon. These kids were keen. And they asked such good questions. After my talk, many of the students crowded around and we continued to talk books and reading. It was great.

I must say that the librarians at Oakville Public Library are fantastic organizers.

The Kobzar Literary Award Foundation announces:

Scholarships and Workshops

Scholarship and Faculty position at Humber School for Writers in Toronto

In a partnership between Shevchenko Foundation and Humber College in Toronto, Humber’s annual “Writer’s Workshop” in July 14-20, 2007  offers  the Kobzar Writers Scholarship and welcomes Marsha Skrypuch as a faculty member in a week long writers workshop.

The Kobzar Writer’s Scholarship is a full scholarship which covers registration, accommodation and some travel. This scholarship is offered to a writer anywhere in Canada who has an “advanced manuscript” on a Ukrainian Canadian theme. This scholarship is intended to assist in preparing the manuscript for publication. The manuscript may be submitted in any of several categories; poetry, fiction, non-fiction, plays, musicals and young people’s literature.

For information regarding applications to the summer program and the scholarship, please contact   www.humber.ca and continue with creative&performingarts,humbercollege.ca/writers/summerworkshops
or merely search “Kobzar scholarship” on the web.