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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.”

So, do I own the stuff in my blue box or is it fair game for anyone who happens by?

The reason I ask is because I have a neighbour who goes up and down the street on recycling day, going through everyone’s blue box and commenting on what he finds there. His excuse is that he’s grabbing wine bottles because he makes wine, but why not just ask for the wine bottles, then?

I am extremely grossed out by this behavior. Am I being overly sensitive? I don’t have the nerve to confront him. I do have the nerve to write about it on my blog though!

It’s been a full month since I last posted. Bad bad Marsha!

What excuses shall I cite? Christmas, New Year’s, Ukrainian Christmas, having my son home for the holidays.

And I ate way too much! Kept making bread and buying cake and other sweets for my son but then I would eat it. Bad bad Marsha.

So I have reformed. Or I’m trying to reform. Otherwise I’ll have to take my contact lenses out before looking in the mirror!

As part of my reformation, I was on a quest for Wishbone Salad Spritzer.

I have seen so many ads for this stuff on TV, but they don’t sell it in Canada. We were in Utah last week though, so I picked some up. In fact, all I had to declare at Customs was $18 worth of salad dressing~

Speaking of Utah — we went there for my husband to ski and for me to use the quiet hotel room to write. But we caught beginning of the Sundance Festival. Suddenly, on the Thursday, our hotel became filled with non-average people. There were very tall tanned men with obvious surgical enhancements to their faces. There were women who looked like they should be toppling over because of their improbable flotation devices. There were lots of people wanting to be served first and treated first because they were self-proclaimed VIPs. More fun to watch the people than the films, I bet.

We were in a restaurant on Thursday night and a large group of non-average people came in. The men — who were older so their surgical enhancements were starting to droop — were wearing fur jackets. I don’t mean manly fur jackets, I mean waist length orangey fur jackets that looked like they were borrowed from someone’s grandmother in the 1970s. And there was a woman wearing a Zorro hat and another with a head of hair that was so perfect it couldn’t possibly be real.

But we had a lovely time. The hotel had an outdoor heated pool and it was so refreshing to breathe icy air while basking in steam. And I got a lot of writing done!

CM online posted two reviews of Kobzar’s Children yesterday. One, by teacher-librarian Gail Hamilton, was glowing — 4 out of 4 stars. And the other, by an academic, trashed it — 2 out of 4 stars.

I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Reviews by academics — especially Ukrainian academics — are finding fault because it’s not what they expected, yet teacher-librarians and the general public are loving it because there hasn’t been a book out like this before.

My goal in putting together this anthology was to get little-known incidents of Ukrainian and Canadian-Ukrainian history into story form and into the hands of the general public. History and story are the operative words here. I didn’t want this to be an academic collection. I wanted it to be approachable by someone who had little or no prior knowledge about Ukrainian immigrants and their recent history. I wanted readers to be able to step into the shoes of these people.

The response I’ve had at readings and signings has been overwhelmingly positive. Ditto regarding the emails I’ve been getting. Most people tell me that their grandfather or their neighbour or friend is Ukrainian, and they’re thrilled that there’s a mainstream book of stories like this available. Here’s an excerpt from a recent email I got:

“I have just now.. [read Kobzar’s Children]..  and have been so very moved and educated.  I had absolutely no idea Ukrainian people had been treated so badly.  I know that ..[my new daughter-in-law]  and her siblings will also find it just so interesting and will help them understand the land and stories of their parents and ancestors.
 
I just wanted to let you know how much these books are enjoyed and appreciated.  Thank you so very much for all your research, efforts, and hard work.” 

Here’s another:

“Kobzar’s Children knocked me out. Thank you so much for being part of bringing all this to light.”

and another:

“Bravo !! You are so right. We Ukrainians have been stereotyped in the worst & negative way.”

and another:

“I just finished reading Kobzar’s Children, Well done, Humour, sadness and Ukranian history makes for a excellent read.”

I had heard that Aram’s Choice had a great review in Resource Links but didn’t see it for myself until today. Here it is.

My favourite line is this:

“Aram’s Choice is superbly written to appeal to young audiences while informing them of the history of the world in which we live.”

I stayed in Saskatoon overnight (it was minus 20C … brrrr!!!!)

The next morning I gave a writing workshop at the museum — in the Kurelek room.

You can see two of the Kurelek paintings behind me here:

After I got home, Alison F, one of the workshop participants emailed me and said:

“… your workshop was far and away the best and most informative session on writing I have ever attended! I could hardly keep up with writing down all the nuggets of useful information.”

Thanks, Alison! It was a great group!

I flew in to Saskatoon on November 24th for a book event for Kobzar’s Children that evening at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada. This was an amazing visit for so many reasons. The Ukrainian Museum of Canada is a phenomenal place. There are so many unique Canadian and Ukrainian artifacts that I could spend days there.

The museum also owns a large collection of William Kurelek original paintings and the Kobzar book event was held in the William Kurelek room. I had never seen a Kurelek up close and I was mesmerized by the minute detail. One could see the texture of every blade of grass and each wrinkle on every face. I could spend days in that room alone! William Kurelek grew up just miles from my father’s childhood home and many of his paintings remind me of my father’s stories about his childhood.

Added to this excitement was the fact that several of the anthology contributors were able to participate in the book event. Danny Evanishen came in from BC because the museum was holding a Christmas Yarmarok the same weekend. Danny has a number of Ukrainian folk tale collections through his own Ethnic Enterprises company. And his wife Jean makes beautiful Trypillian style pottery.

I had the opportunity to meet Larry Warwaruk for the first time at this event and was able to catch up with Linda Mikolayenko, who braved through a snow storm to get to Saskatoon.

Each contributor did a brief reading and gave some anecdotes about writing. Larry told a hilarious story about his first book launch. Linda was in her expressive storytelling mode and Danny was, well, Danny!

 The room was packed to capacity. There were even people listening in from the hallway. The museum sold out of all the hardcovers of Kobzar’s Children and most of the softcovers.

Here’s a photo of the contributors who participated. From left to right, Danny, Linda, Larry and me:

I got a pile of writing done while we were in Las Vegas last week. My husband had a conference there so I had the hotel room to myself for four days running. I’m up to 7000+ words and the whole chapter book can be no more than 10,000. I haven’t had a chance to work on it since we got back but am chomping to get back to it.

Why do people like Las Vegas? I don’t gamble and don’t understand the allure of gambling. I don’t smoke either, and in fact I’m allergic to tobacco. Las Vegas is so smoky and loud and overwhelming in commercial crassness. We wanted to take in some shows, so we saw Zumanity and the Blue Man Group. Zumanity is a Cirque du Soliel show and we were looking forward to breathtaking acrobatics. There was very little of that. Mostly, it was muscular guys in sequinned jock straps or merry widows and black net stockings and nearly naked women simulating sex. I don’t have a problem with nudity or sex but I do have a problem with lack of creativity and pandering to the lowest common denominator and a lack of acrobatics in a show that’s supposed to be acrobatics. If I want to see simulated sex, I’ll read my spam.

The Blue Man Group was better. Very funny and odd and smarter.