Superconference Friday

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!!

Author: Marsha

I write historical fiction, mostly from the perspective of young people who are thrust in the midst of war. View all posts by Marsha