Author: Marsha

The brochures for Brantford Kids’ Book Camp and Brantford’s Summer Writing Workshops were available here.

Todd Kyle, librarian extraordinaire, emailed yesterday to let me know that Aram’s Choice has been nominated for the Canadian Library Association’s 2006 Book of the Year for Children Award!!

I am thrilled to be nominated!! It is wonderful to be amid such stellar company.

My prediction is that Tim Wynne-Jones will win.

Small things make me happy.

I used to swim all the time but being allergic to chlorine had a cumulative negative impact on my enjoyment. But now that I have access to a saltwater swimming pool, I’m enjoying the sport all over again.

However, I wear contact lenses. I got myself a pair of goggles. They seemed to work well, but when I got out of the pool and looked at myself in the mirror I almost fainted. I had two bright red indentations encircling pasty puffed up skin under my eyes. I looked like a koala bear. The first time I swam with goggles in a saltwater pool, the eye enhancements were dramatically visible for about 8 hours and still noticeable by me three days later.

I tried swimming without my contact lenses but I couldn’t even see the line on the bottom of the pool, so I kept going crooked and bumped into people.

And then I discovered Seal Masks.

They look dorky, but so do goggles. And they are so crisp and clear to see through. And best yet, they don’t give me raccoon eyes. I am happy!

Why is it that when people go to the grocery store, the cashier puts practically every item in its own plastic bag? Have you ever sat and watched all the bags coming out of the grocery store in the space of five minutes? Where do those grocery bags go? My guess is mostly in the garbage. Some are used to line trash cans etc but some just get thrown into the garbage as their own trash. Then they get dumped into landfills where they never disintegrate. Or they get blown around and end up as indestructible strips of plastic that wrap around a duck’s neck or get swallowed by an animal…

I also don’t understand the concept of putting garbage in plastic bags. Most people take their little plastic bags from their various garbage cans and then throw those into a big plastic garbage bag, tie it up and take it to the street for garbage pick-up.

Why does garbage have to be that well preserved?

Here’s what I do —

I refuse plastic grocery bags. Even in a clothing store, I ask for the items bagless and un-tissue wrapped. For groceries, I use those heavy duty plastic reusable bags. You can fit a whole heck of alot more groceries into them and they stay standing in the trunk, unlike plastic bags that spew groceries all around. I used to use paper grocery bags and then recycle them to wrap packages but few stores have paper bags anymore.

As for garbage, I have two big rolling garbage cans and a garbage disposer. All the messy stuff gets ground up and goes down my sink. I must confess to using small plastic bags in my kitchen and bathroom garbage cans but I don’t put them in a big garbage bag. I simply toss them into the garbage cans. Other stuff goes into the garbage cans unbagged.

Just don’t get me started on water bottles …..

I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day who is coming into Toronto to do readings during the week of the Silver Birch/Blue Spruce etc ceremonies. She was pondering whether to come in a couple of days prior to her readings just for the hotel room. I can relate! I LOVE writing in hotel rooms. Nothing to clean up, no one to cook for, no phones ringing.

Most of my novels have been written either in a hotel room or in our cozy quiet place in ski country.

When I’m home I do the business of writing. When I’m away, I write.

What about you?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve done a whack of school readings, signings and other book events,  I’ve had the flu, did a big edit of Call Me Aram (the sequel to Aram’s Choice), broke two coffee pots and had my car rear-ended.

Last Wednesday, the Ukrainian Canadian Professional & Business Association of Toronto (commonly known as the Ps & Bs) hosted a book event for Kobzar’s Children. One of the contributors — Sonja Dunn — was able to attend the event with me.

Before the event, I picked up Sonja and we had delectable borscht and perogies at Amber European Restaurant on Bloor West, then we drove to the new Ukrainian National Federation building on Evans Ave. What a lovely building! It would be a great place to have a wedding!
Before we started, I dug out my stash of hardcover Kobzars and asked Sonja to sign them. I have been collecting the autographs of the contributors as I’m able. I have one book with most of the autographs, and Danny Evanishen has entrusted me with three of his to collect autographs in.

I love doing events with the Ps & Bs because they always do it well. Gene Yakovitch did a great introduction of me and then I introduced Sonja. I talked a little bit about how the anthology was put together and then Sonja got up and read her story, Changing Graves. And what a fabulous reading it was! Changing Graves is a funny true story with lots of black humour about a family that fulfills the deathbed wish of an aunt and has an uncle’s body exhumed and moved to a new gravesite. Sonja had her own TV show for 29 years and she’s a seasoned storyteller. Watching her tell this story was a delight. The audience was in stitches.

Kontakt television was there, and they recorded much of her storytelling.

I have deep admiration for Sonja. Not only is she a gifted writer and storyteller, but she is such a nice person and a good friend. I remember meeting her at one of the first CANSCAIP meetings I had attended way back in 1996. She came up to me immediately and introduced herself, and then took me under her wing, making sure that I was introduced to others. She had been president of CANSCAIP some years ago and is also very involved in The Writers’ Union of Canada.

It was such an honour for me to share the stage with Sonja for this book event. I hope we get lots of opportunities in the future to do this again.

Another busy day!

I autographed free copies of The Hunger at the Dundurn booth. Librarians can smell free books aisles away, so the lineup was satisfyingly long. The Hunger is my first YA novel and it was Dundurn’s flagship YA, and they didn’t know how to market them yet way back in 1999, so it’s my least-known novel.

It was great to chat during the signing with lots of librarians. One teacher librarian came up to me and thanked me for writing The Hunger. “We use it extensively in our school,” he said. “There are so many teaching opportunities.”

I asked him if he had Hope’s War, my personal favourite of all my YAs. “Yes!” he replied. “We have a class set and our grade 8 teacher does a whole unit on it.”

Wow! Comments like that make my day!

Others came up and said they love Nobody’s Child because it dispells the whole idea of “us vs them”. One of the funniest moments was when one teacher librarian turned to my editor, who was standing behind me and said, “Marsha’s a gem, be sure to keep her!” Barry replied, “We share her with several other publishers.”

After the Dundurn signing, I raced over to the Tundra booth and begged (and got) one of their awesome book bags and then raced to my room in the adjoining hotel and grabbed my luggage, then checked out. I carted the luggage up a flight of steps and a ramp in the parking garage and dumped it into my car, then raced back down to the conference just in time for my signing at the Forest of Stories booth for Aram’s Choice.

Again, it was so nice to chat with educators and librarians who had encouraging things to say about my books. One librarian told me that Aram’s Choice is so popular in her school that the boys have all decided the order that it’s taken out of the library. When one checks it back in, the next one is standing right there, waiting to check it back out. I am so pleased that this book has been so well-received. I have always wanted to write a boy historical, but “wisdom” has it that boys read fantasy and girls read historicals.

After the Silver Birch Express signing, I went over to the poster session for the Books and Writers Community. Many private kidcritters helped to put this session together: Marina Cohen, Martha Martin, Hélène Boudreau, Helaine Becker and myself. Not all who helped put it together were able to be there on the Friday, but their work was much appreciated.

And we had material about many of the published and soon to be published writers who have gone through private kidcrit: Pat Bow, James Bow, Valerie Sherrard, Anita Daher, Lynne Supeene, Linda Gerber and kc dyer, to name a few.

Martha says that poster sessions are not always well attended, but ours was hopping! It was great to chat with so many people about this fabulous online critique group for published and aspiring children’s writers.

While the poster session was going on, the CANSCAIP mass book launch was also in progress right beside it. I presented Kobzar’s Children at that, then skedaddled back to the poster session. And then at 2:10, Helaine Becker, myself and TL Sharon Armstrong presented a session on Advocating for School Libraries.

A busy time indeed!!

On the Thursday of Superconference, I was a co-presenter for two sessions. In the morning, I presented “An Adult Writing Camp for your community? You can do it too!”

Sharon Brooks of Kids Can Fly was the co-presenter, and Marina Cohen, one of our adult camp participants from last year, was on hand to answer questions.

It was a lively session with lots of questions. We’re running an adult writing camp again this summer from August 12 to 17 in Brantford. In addition to Kids Can Fly, Laurier Brantford is a co-sponsor. My goal is to get the schedule for these sessions finalized this week. We already have a list of 10 people who want to attend.

After that session, I autographed copies of Kobzar’s Children at the Fitzhenry & Whiteside booth, then met with one of the publicists for one of my upcoming novels. And then Valerie Sherrard and I did a presentation on the Do’s and Don’ts of Author Visits.

We had 100 people signed up for this session and it was very lively. To spice it up, Valerie and I begged some review copies of our own books from our publishers, plus we got a couple of Helaine Becker’s books from the Scholastic booth and coupons for Marina Cohen’s upcoming novel from Vanwell. During our session, we asked the audience questions and whoever got the answer first won an autographed book. It made for lots of interaction and loads of fun.

One thing I must say though is Valerie wouldn’t let me have the microphone very often. (Just kidding, Valerie!!)

I am finally digging out from the OLA Superconference. What a wonderful three days I had!

Wednesday was the official launch of the Forest of Stories reading program. Thirteen hundred students were invited to this celebration and many of the nominated authors and illustrators attended.

As a Silver Birch Express nominee, I lined up with Nancy Belgue, Ken Roberts and Hazel Hutchins. As we walked in, the students were chanting and waving their arms. The town crier dressed in sumptuous red and gold announced each of us, and he even pronounced my name correctly.

As each of us walked off the stage and down the aisle to where we would be signing, kids stuck out their hands to touch us. It was so cute!

After everyone in each reading program was introduced and everyone was at their signing table, we all signed furiously for about an hour. Fitzhenry & Whiteside had made up about 500 small posters for Aram’s Choice for me. I went through those fairly quickly. I had also brought my own postcards and went through about 1000 of those. Some teachers asked for extras for other classes and I gladly signed them and gave those out too.

I was thrilled with the comments kids made about my book. Before everyone came out of the assembly room, one boy snuck out early and came up to my table. “I love your Aram book,” he said. “But I have a few questions.”

“Thanks!” I replied. “What would you like to know?”

“Why was it that the chaperone was being sent back but the kids got to stay?”

Very good question! I explained to him that Canada was not accepting any Armenian men as immigrants at the time. The reason the Armenian children were allowed in was because this was a relief effort — in fact it was the first time Canada ever saved “non-white” children from disaster. The irony of course is that Armenians are white. The other irony is that this first international relief effort (ie the rescuing of 50 Armenian orphaned boys from Corfu in 1923) was called “Canada’s Noble Experiment.”