It was such a pleasure to speak with 6th grade students from Saint Vincent Elementary School in Concord PQ! Such thought-provoking questions about the Holodomor and Winterkill but also about the process of writing and how I feel about the books that I wrote ages ago — would I like to go back and change them? I particularly appreciated the question about why an author like me would get hate mail and death threats for writing about the Holodomor. It provided the opportunity to describe intimidation tactics used by oppressive regimes to control information and to deny history. It’s not just politicians and protesters who are treated this way. Writers and journalists are key targets too.
