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Brantford Book Camps took place from August 21 to 25, but I am just now sufficiently dug out from under to be able to report back about them.

It was quite the juggling act, holding a writing week for 50+ kids between the ages of 10 and 12 while simultaneously holding one for 16 adults, but we did it — and did it well! In fact, I think this was Brantford’s best Book Camp week ever!

Book Camp could never happen if it wasn’t for all of our fabulous volunteers. This year we were fortunate to have four manager volunteers who came in every day of the camps —

Fleur-Ange Lamothe, for the 3rd year in a row, was our kids’ camp Manager and also Book Camp’s official photographer.
Melissa Poremba helped out Fleur-Ange this year. She looked after a myriad of minutiae — everything from nightly phone calls to Book Camp families who had no email, to keeping track of our colour coordinated buffs (this is how we code our four groups of kids) and dealing with moment by moment crises.

Sharon Brooks of Kids Can Fly also came in every day and floated as needed. Kids Can Fly is Brantford Book Camp’s sponsor. None of this would be possible without Sharon.

I managed the Adult Book Camp and Bobbie Henley was my assistant extraordinaire.

For me, Monday was the most challenging day. I opened the kids’ camp with the first keynote in the morning. The Monday morning keynote is the hardest gig because the kids are still in the throes of getting used to the writing camp experience. Many of the adult camp participants audited this first keynote, and of course, they were also just getting their feet wet. In the first hour, I talked about my own reading challenges as a kid and how Charles Dickens made me a reader and writer. During the second hour, I conducted a writing workshop. It is tough to do a hands-on writing workshop with 50+ kids plus a handful of adults, but it went over really well. The writing samples that were read aloud were spectacular.

At just the right moment, Vincent Ball from the Brantford Expositor tiptoed in. I think he was wowed by what our kids could write. He was especially wowed that they could do it in about 10 minutes flat!

In the afternoon on Monday, the Adult Book Camp participants all gathered together for the first time. I was impressed with the breadth of experience in the group. We did quick intros and a query letter exercise and then we all marched down to the reception area where we listened to a speaker phone presentation by Bill Hanna, principal literary agent with Acacia House. Immediately after that session, we trooped back upstairs for a session with Valerie Sherrard. A packed day for sure!!

After camp was over for the day, Valerie and I got together for a lovely dinner at Ged’s. We had a lovely evening with lots of laughter and good food. Too bad Valerie doesn’t live closer!

As soon as I got home, I sent out a nightly newletter to all of the children’s Book Camp families. I had made an “announce only” listserv of all the Book Camp families who had email, which comprised all but about three families. We have found that these nightly newsletters are the most efficient way of letting parents know what is happening the next day at Book Camp. We have different authors/illustrators each day and there is often an opportunity to children to get autographed copies of books. Also, some days the schedule is a bit different. The listserv is a quick and easy way to let everyone know what’s up. From the feedback we got, this service was greatly appreciated.

Bloor West Ukrainian Festival and CFRB

From August 21 to 25, I was plunged into the midst of Brantford’s 3rd annual children’s Book Camp and also our first annual adult Book Camp. By Friday, I was exhausted — in a good way. The week was an outstanding success. Our best Book Camp yet.

Instead of resting after such a busy week, on August 26th, I signed at the Bloor West Festival. I was honoured that the Festival featured Kobzar’s Children. It seemed that every 15 minutes or, the announcers broadcast the fact that Kobzar’s Children had a booth and that I was there as well as Natalia Buchok, one of the anthology contributors.

Natalia and I decided to get there together. We wanted to arrive at about noon, so I drove to Natalia’s Oakville apartment, arriving at 11am and from there we drove to the Kipling subway station. We figured there was no point in driving into Toronto, seeing as the parade was from 11am til noon and roads would be closed. Natalia brought some books with her — 35 to be exact — because the organizers only had about 100 copies and we were afraid of running out. Natalia fit her 35 copies into a rolling suitcase.

When you travel with a rolling suitcase, you find out all sorts of things about the public transit system. Like where the elevators are (and that there are elevators) and that it’s impossible to roll a suitcase through the subway turnstiles.

So we got there. Our booth was supposed to be at the corner of Bloor and Glendowynne Streets. We got there just before noon. We saw a booth, but it was abandoned. We also noticed that the Festival stopped at Kennedy — a full block east of where we were supposed to be.

So, with rolling suitcase in hand, we fought our way through the crowds, looking for someone (anyone!) identified as a Festival volunteer. We got to almost what we thought was the end of the festival before finally landing upon the Festival volunteer booth. There we met Natalia Wilson, volunteer extraordinaire. She explained to us that she was not happy with the placement of our booth and was waiting for a new booth location. No sooner had I used the portapotty and Natalia had purchased a plate of perogies than Natalia W and another volunteer led us down the street to the new location. I felt sorry for the other volunteer. He had a cart filled with boxes of books (and also Natalia B’s rolling luggage) and he had to maneuvre it through dense crowds and heaving sidewalks. He valiantly pushed forward until Natalia Wilson found the ideal spot — at Durie and Bloor, immediately to the east of the children’s midway and close to the centre of the whole festival!

I stood there with the boxes and Natalia B’s suitcase (Natalia was still struggling down the street, perogies in hand) while Natalia W went to find a table and accoutrements for our booth. In the meantime, I stood there with the boxes, feeling like a street hawker. I did get some interesting stares, so I took out one copy of Kobzar’s Children and held it in front of me, smiling like an idiot.

Once the table arrived, in a flash, Natalia W got the tablecloth on, the display up and books spread. Within moments, clusters of people arrived. We had a steady cluster til after 4. In fact, neither Natalia B nor I even got a chance to sit down for the whole four hours because it was so busy!

In the midst of our signings, Melanie Melnyk fetched us to be interviewed at the CFRB booth with Ted Woloshyn. What a lovely man! Natalia B had never done live radio before and he put her immediately at ease. He asked intelligent and perceptive questions about the anthology and commented on the fact that such a collection was needed. And then Natalia had an opportunity to talk about her story contribution, based on her father’s experience in a DP camp after World War II.

Natalia’s story is fabulous. It’s called A Bar Of Chocolate and is about a Ukrainian teen in a DP camp who dresses as a girl and goes on a date with an American soldier in order to get some chocolate. Not only is the story true, but it’s hilarious.

Many people came to our booth and many had already read Kobzar’s Children. Those people had lots of enthusiastic good things to say about the collection. This was Natalia’s first signing experience, so I was glad that it was such a positive one. We also sold every book in Natalia’s suitcase and almost all of the others on hand.

One problem we had was that both Natalia and I wanted to sign our names plus “Enjoy!” so we had a bit of a contest to see who could grab the book and sign first. Whoever got it second signed “best wishes”.

On the Sunday, Connie Bilinsky and Sonja Dunn signed. I heard that their signing was also very well received.

Wow! Private kidcritters are just hopping! Three kidcritters have been offered contracts in the last week or so.

Hélène has been offered two picture book contracts, James Bow has his second novel coming out next spring, and kc dyer has her fourth coming out this coming spring. Well deserved, all!!!

If you are within driving distance to Toronto, come on down to the Bloor West Ukrainian Festival next weekend.

New for this year is a Literary Pavilion and Kobzar’s Children will be featured there. Several of the anthology contributors will be dropping by throughout the weekend to autograph copies of Kobzar’s Children and to chat about the stories. I’ll be at the booth on Saturday from noon til about 4. Sonja Dunn will be there on Sunday for an hour or so, starting at noon. I am hoping that both Natalia Buchok and Cornelia Bilinsky will also be able to make an appearance.

Hope to see you there!

Brantford Book Camp is starting on Monday! I am getting really excited about this. Our adult writing camp filled almost immediately, but applications for the kids’ camp trickled in right to the very end. “Full” for kids’ Book Camp is 48, but we take up to 56 kids. We reached 48 a month ago, and I believe we just had number 56 come in on Wednesday.

We have a lovely new building this year. Laurier Brantford is one of our sponsors and they have been wonderfully accomodating. Book Camp is being held at the newly built Laurier Brantford Student Centre. The facilities are state of the art. Lots of tall windows, comfy chairs and great A/V equipment. I also like the fact that the kids are being patterned into attending a university facility.

I am also excited about our new addition — Adult Book Camp. We decided to offer this due to popular demand and it is shaping up to be spectacular. We have a number of surprise guests dropping by and we will even be having  a phone-in workshop with a literary agent!

The adult writing camp participants are themselves pretty impressive. Several have received book contracts already and many are already published. This week will keep me hopping!

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted here! My husband and I decided on the spur of the moment to take a holiday. We went to the Galapagos Islands. Fabulous trip! We met some wonderful people and we saw amazing landscapes and bizarre animals. Truly a trip of a lifetime.

While we were gone, our house was struck by lightning. Not much damage — thank goodness — but our internet was wiped out. We just got back online on Thursday evening. Right now I am tackling my bursting inbox.

I had a neat email from Rumi Musha in Japan. We have been corresponding for a number of years. She and her husband run a translation school and they have used portions of my various books in their teaching. Her husband just read Aram’s Choice and loved it. He wrote about it on his blog. How awesome is that?

Sounds kind of strange, this urban poling stuff but I tried it this morning and it’s great. It doesn’t feel substantially different in terms of energy expenditure than plain fast walking, yet it burns more calories and exercises the upper body. Neat.

Kobzar’s Children has barely hit the shelves, but there’s already a lovely reader response up on Amazon.com.

Marsha Skrypuch, Carl Georgian and Muriel Wood at the Freckled Lion Bookstore in Georgetown Ontario at the book launch for Aram’s Choice. Photo taken by Ted Brown of the Georgetown Independent Free Press.

Muriel is illustrator extraordinaire and Carl is the son of a Georgetown Boy. Aram’s Choice is dedicated to him because it was his father’s story that initially spurred me on to write all of my Armenian novels.

Muriel Wood and I had a wonderful launch at Freckled Lion Bookstore in Georgetown on Thursday for Aram’s Choice.

There were two signing times — from 1 til 2 and from 7 til 8.

I met Muriel and her husband David at the former site of the Georgetown Boys’ Farm just before 11:30am so that Bonnie, the superintendant of Cedarvale Community Centre and park, could show us around. Bonnie was so very gracious. She let us wander around inside the building that used to be the Boys’ living area. We went through the top floor which was the dormitory, the kitchen, the former classrooms, everything. And then she kindly took us through her own home, which used to be where the housekeeper of the Georgetown Boys’ Farm lived. We got lots of photos. Muriel is in the process of doing the illustrations for Call Me Aram, which is the sequel to Aram’s Choice.

I got to Freckled Lion at about 12:30am and downed a protein bar for lunch. People began to arrive at around 12:45 and we had a steady stream until about 3! All of the Georgetown Boys themselves have died, but many family members came. Also, a number of my writer friends came, including Gillian Chan and her son Theo, as well as Elizabeth from the Books and Writers Forum, and Marina and Hélène from private kidcrit. Also, lian from TWUC and her mother Helen, who has written about one Georgetown Boy herself.

Many many Armenians came, including Carl Georgian, whose father’s story is the seed for all of my Armenian novels. Also Arsho Zakarian, who has helped both Muriel and myself in a thousand research ways. For the families of the Georgetown Boys, this signing was like a reunion. We heard many stories and shared laughter and tears.

We also found out where Stop 69 was! That was the radial railway stop for Georgetown and where the Boys got off the train. Muriel and I had guesstimated that it was about a mile from where it really was.

Sylvia Lesak, F&W publicist, was also there and she stayed until the evening. Then Tracey Dettman, marketing rep came and Sylvia left for home. We had lots of people come for the evening signing too, so we ended up staying until past 9pm.

Kate of Freckled Lion did a wonderful job of hosting this event. She had a huge tub of ice that was filled with all sorts of flavoured waters, and there was iced tea and hot coffee and all sorts of cookies and there were strawberries (not the saniflush kind!).

Georgetown itself is a nice place. It has a thriving downtown, friendly people and a country feel about it. And as for Freckled Lion, all I can say is I wish we had a bookstore like that in Brantford!