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After a third launch for Yellow Mini out in Mississauga at the Playdium, I am settling back into life after launches. I have become a much more high tech person as a consequence of this latest launch because every time someone from Fitzhenry and Whiteside would take a picture they would smile and say we’ll post it to our Facebook and you can see it there and I would smile back and feel like a total idiot by admitting that I did not have a Facebook account. There comes a time, I suppose, when every writer must succumb to the imperative to go high tech.

Apparently I should also be tweeting away from the rooftops, sending out tweets to lure in potentional readers in 140 characters or less. I admit I have a Twitter account but I just cannot figure out how to use it properly. Now, between my regular email, which seems so outdated, my poor already ignored blog and my new Facebook and Twitter, I feel like I might have to give up writing altogether and devote myself full-time to keep up the technology that everyone tells me I need in order to make book sales.

Do other writers out there feel like I do? Overwhelmed by this sense that we must suddenly become techno-wizards or perish?

I set up my Facebook page, but I am having a hard time grasping the concept of the wall. I learned pretty quickly, and somewhat shockingly, that what I put on my wall gets sent to everyone I am friends with and that there is nothing private about the wall. I am glad I didn’t post anything too embarrassing before learning this. And as for Twitter, I suppose now I should try to get thousands of people to follow me in order to promote my work, but how can I do that if I am not tweeting and have no desire to tweet?

I don’t know. My 82 year old father recently said that when he looks around at everyone plugged in and connected to various technological devices, sadly ignoring one another, he feels like he is in a completely foreign and alien world, one he just cannot understand. He also added that he was glad he was on his way out. I cannot say that I share his latter sentiment, but I do kind of wish all the high tech stuff that writers now feel so compelled (and in some cases bullied) to do would have waited another 20 years until I simply could have ignored it all.

Having said that though, I just sent a message to MT Anderson, a writer I so greatly admire, through Facebook, telling him how much my students loved his book Feed, which ironically is about the end of the world through dependence on technology and its inherent connection to consumerism. Without the technology I never could have done that, although I did tell him that somewhat in person at a conference in Boston years ago where he was one of the speakers and I got to ask him a question.

Now, did my comments land on his wall, or my wall, or all my “friend’s” walls …. help. I just do not know.
Bye for now. Gotta check my email.

This past week, I had two wonderful launches for my new verse novel, Yellow Mini. The first, on October 26th, was at the college where I teach: John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. Many teaching colleagues from the college, as well as support staff from different areas (The Learning Centre, Library, Student Services), dropped by to share a glass of wine and hear me read.

I cannot express stongly enough how lucky I feel to have so much support where I work. I know that it contributes in no small measure to my successes as a writer. Just to know that so many people share in my delight when a new book comes out, and that they are genuinely interested in my work, gives me the push to keep writing. I cannot imagine doing this if I were working somewhere where I felt nothing but resistance and indifference. How awful that would be!

So … thank you wonderful people at JAC!!!!!
(You can see the gathering in the last 3 pictures above)

The second, more public launch, was the following night, October 27th, at Livres Babar Books in Pointe-Claire Village. For those of you who do not know this store, I can honestly say that it is the best children’s bookstore anywhere. It is so colourful and inviting and walking through the door it is impossible not to feel swept up into the wonderfully creative world of children’s books. Thank you to Maya and her team at Babar for yet another lovely launch.

Being the centre of attention at a book launch (or any event, I suppose), is an odd experience for someone like me, in spite of the fact that I have been a teacher for 17 years. It is not a role that comes naturally and it is one that a large part of me is uncomfortable with and almost cannot believe. And yet, every time it happens, it is so special. The enthusiasm and genuine congratulations of friends, neighbours, and fellow writers just buoys me up and makes me … eegad!… almost enjoy the spotlight.

Thank you so much to all of you who came out on what turned out to be our coldest night of the season yet.

It has been good to test run (no vehicular pun intended) reading Yellow Mini out loud and, I have to say, I think it reads well. It is poetry after all, and because it is written in so many different voices, there is a natural dramatic element to the reading. I felt myself getting slightly choked up by some of my own images.

Publishing a new book is like being at the start of a journey, one with a vague itinerary. Who know where it will lead ….

(Pictures above show that my adorable 3 grandchildren were there: Isaac, Josh and Cassidy with their handsome father, Marc; also picturered with me are fellow children’s authors Jane Barclay and Day’s Lee, owner of Babar Maya Byers, and me with my main squeeze and support, Ron Curtis.)

This semester, I had the privilege of teaching a group of 40 talented students in my Creative Writing for Children class at John Abbott College. These young adults displayed an incredible amount of hard work and commitment to creating picture books, and first chapters of both junior and young adult novels.

Yesterday, we had our end of year party and reading, to showcase some of the best of the stories. I say “some of” because, with more time, many more studens would have been asked to read. This was a first public reading for most of these students and they did so well. It’s not easy to share your work out loud with the world. It can make you feel quite vulnerable, actually. But writing is meant to be shared and, as I told my students many times, a writer does need to develop thick skin (still working on that myself!).

I love teaching this course. I love giving young people the opportunity to tap into their creativity. Our school system forefronts the maths and sciences so much; many of these students had not done any creative writing since elementary school. LIke Picasso said, everyone is born an artist (of some sort). But if that artist is not nurtured … I would also argue that I do more toward teaching kids to write well through creative work than through academic essays. They really become aware of the importance of choosing words carefully, of nuance, of imagery and metaphor, and of pacing. And they learn that a manuscript has to be grammar and punctuation perfect in order for an editor to take it seriously.

Anyhow, I have no doubt that if some of these young people were to continue to write, their stories will one day be published. That’s how good they were. Above are some pictures of the readers, and of me praising them and thanking them for a wonderful semester.

I have just returned from participating in the 20th annual MASC conference for students in grades 4 - 8 at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa. What a wonderful experience.

Each morning, seven other authors or illustrators and I would sit up on the auditorium stage and look out on a sea of 200 smiling and, in some cases, ecstatic young faces. Pens already in hand, book pages flapping like birds’ wings in front of their faces, they were pumped and ready to get down to the business of creating. Some came from as far away as Wolf Island, which meant they had already taken a ferry and a bus to be there, yet they still looked fresh and ready to go. I guess that’s what it’s like to still be 10 or 12!

The kids in my workshop learned about the importance of using all five senses to build detail into a story and bring it to life for the reader. They learned to remember to use all of the ingredients of prose: exposition, description, dialogue, thought and action. To practise, they were given a bare-bones Aesop fable as a prompt and then they wrote the story from the points of view of the two characters. Halfway through, in order to get into the second character and stretch and rekindle the creative juices, we walked around the class. Kids were invited to heehaw like a donkey, buzz like a cicada, or crawl like a turtle and some really got into character.

Their stories were marvelous. They read to each other and then, at the end, to the entire class. I was truly impressed by what they came up with in two hours. The stories and original fable were glued into a booklet and the kids then decorated and drew with equal vigour. As teacher, I can say that all six groups were my dream class!

At the end of the day, the 8 artists sat at tables scattered around the auditorium and the kids had the chance to seek autographs, either in our books (sold at a table outside the auditorium - what a good idea) or in their notebooks, or, in one case, on a banana peel! In those 45 minutes I truly felt like a rockstar. It is not every day that I get to look right into the faces of the kids who read my books, so this is always a treat. It is also super encouraging to know that so many young people do love books. They devour them. They sparkle when they are touching them. Who says that love of reading is dead? It was alive and kicking at MASC, that is for sure.

I have to send out some cudos to the two main organizers of the event, Diane Walker and Janet Sullivan. They are part of the team at MASC, an organization that provides the school and community with artistic experiences. In this day and age of budget cuts to the arts, and with arts constantly taking a pedagogical backseat to the sciences, MASC is a vital organization for the Ottawa area. You can learn more about them at www.masconline.ca

Finally, one of the best parts of the whole experience was meeting my talented and entertaining fellow presenters. As writers, we often create in isolation, so meeting other writers who share some of the same challenges is always a thrill, especially when they are as nice as the ones I had breakfast with each morning at the Best Western: Linda Granfield (my hallway mate and history buff), Roslyn Schwartz (creator of the charming Mole Sisters), Helene Boudreau (who taught me some Acadian French), and Stefan Czernecki (who let the kids breakdance). Others who didn’t break fast with me but were equally inspirational: Brian Doyle, Adrianne Steele-Card and Tom Henighan.

That you to MASC for inviting me and a big thank you to all the wonderful kids who created such wonderful stories and then shared them with me. It was such a treat to meet you.

I don’t know where you live (dear reader), but here where I live, in Montreal, we are having the most beautiful white Christmas. Snow has been falling almost daily through December and it is already knee deep in our yard, just the way I like it. The tall pine trees that dot my neighbourhood have blankets of white wrapped around them and the hockey rink in the park is full of skaters sporting the red white and blue of the Montreal Canadiens jersey. There is something about looking out at that scene that makes me feel so Canadian. I am writing this on Christmas morning, with a pink sunrise coming over lac St. Louis while the rest of my family sleeps.

I have ignored this blog for long enough and feel I owe it to all the wonderful young writers I met this fall to say a few words. I ran a series of creative writing workshops at three local libraries: Pointe-Claire, Beaconsfield and Dollard-des-Ormeaux. We looked at all the major components of fiction: plot/confict, character, setting, dialogue, symbolism (my favourite). In each library I met kids with so much passion for books and writing, it buoyed my creative spirit. There was so much talent and I was amazed at what kids could write on the spot. It’s not easy to create a compelling character and give her 1) a tell-tale gesture 2) meaningful piece of clothing 3) an odd mannerism of speech 4) a favourite object all in one hour but these kid came up with some gems. It just encourages me as a writer to know that there is still a strong love of books and stories out there. It’s not all video games!!!

I also visited Melinda Cochrane’s grade 9 classes at Beaconsfield High School. They had read If You Live Like Me so I was thrilled to be able to show my slides of Newfoundland and talk about why I love that province. Ms. Cochrane, who is obviously much loved by her students, gave me a bag of Purity hard tack which sent me reeling back 20 years to the now burned down Dominion on Parade Street in St. John’s. Being newcomers to the province back then, my husband and I had bought a bag thinking they might make nice crackers or teething biscuits for our then baby daughter. Ha! Those things could be mortared together to build a house if you could be sure no rain would ever fall.

The Beaconsfield students had wonderful questions for me and I sensed they had really engaged with Cheryl, the protagonist who is forced to move to Newfoundland against her will. When they asked why I chose Newfoundland, I was happy to tell them what I love most about it: the fact that material goods are not valued as much as friendship. At least that was once true and I hope it remains true even with the new prosperity oil is brining. Not that I am glorifying poverty. We all need some material comfort, that is for sure. But human relations have to come first. The kids’ eyes really lit up when I told them not to fall for what the commercials tell them: that buying the latest gadgets will make them happy. Your connections to other people are what make you happy. I felt like they instinctively know this but aren’t sure if they should believe it. It’s not the strongest message their consumer culture is giving them.

Finally, I taught my new young adult ficiton course at John Abbott College where I work. The students read 5 novels and, for many of them, this was more reading than they had done in a life-time. My main goal as a teacher is to get them to see reading as pleasure. Some were sceptical at first, but I feel there were many converts by the end. Who could not be seduced by Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, MT Anderson’s Feed, Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty and Virginia Ewer Wolff’s True Believer? They all read a 5th book chosen from a list of ten stellar titles. I was excited and I can’t wait to teach the course again.

I have lots of fun writing activities on the table for the new year and will blog about them later. For now, I am going to watch the snow fall. Happy 2011 everyone!

Hello
Anyone who knows me or who has read my last book, If You Live Like Me, knows that I am fond of Newfoundland. That is NO secret. I was lucky to travel there twice in one year, in March to take my daughter to her audition at M.U.N. and again in August to help her move there because she was accepted in the Music Program. In March I visited schools and gave interviews and readings, but this trip was all pleasure. Not that leaving my only child behind was pleasure, but I was happy to see her so happy.

I am sharing some pictures of the trip, just in case my book did not convince you that the province is extraordinarily beautiful. The whale in the water is an Orca, a very rare sighting. We saw it in Pouch Cove (pronounced Pooch).
Lori

Greetings Readers
I have been shamefully neglectful of my poor little blog, but that is because I have been busy getting back into a new semester and also giving lots of creative writing workshops around the West Island (part of Montreal). I have met many new young writers hoping to learn a thing or two about good writing. What can I say that I have not already said about writing: except maybe this - it involves lots of sweat. But that sweat can pay off. I may have some good news to report very soon on a new book and I finished another manuscript that I am really happy about. No heads up yet because that would be premature.

Someone asked if I am getting more blaze about publishing now that I am moving into book number six. My answer is not really. The rush of excitement is still there when an editor calls to say she loved your book and wants it. Who doesn’t want to be wanted? But perhaps I am not jumping and gushing quite as much as with the first, because that was the FIRST - the oh my god, I am a writer book.

But I am still happy, believe me. All that sweat paid off. I attach a picture of my muse - my silly cat (well, one of two).

More news soon I hope.

For two weeks in June, my writer friend Jane Barclay (Btw: recent winner of the Ruth Schwartz Children’s Book Award) and I rented a lovely cottage in Hunt’s Point, Nova Scotia, for the primary purpose of doing some serious work on our young adult novels. It was a road trip with a literary mission: to seclude ourselves from family, friends, and even technology and produce some good writing. In the last picture above you can see us waiting for the ferry in St. John, New Brunswick, on a sunny Friday morning, full of excitement.

Upon arrival at the cottage, the owner, Shelley Thompson, showed us a robin’s nest on the front porch, inside which lay a handful of tiny blue eggs. Shelley had blocked off that staircase, to give Mama Robin some peace and quiet. It became a focal point of our week to check on the progress of those chicks and I’ll tell you: Jane and I never did encounter a more determined mother. She would shoot us quite a dirty look whenever we peeked out the kitchen window. Being literary souls, we also began to see Mama Robin as a symbol of what we had left behind: our own chicks, older now but fending for themselves and most probably turning our nests into the sort of pig-sties that young people seem most comfortable in. (See Mama Robin above)

This is the way our writing days went: we woke up, made tea or coffee, and got straight to work in our separate corners of the house, doing steady writing for 3 - 4 hours. OK - the odd scrap of conversation, or groans, passed between us, but basically we wrote, wrote, wrote with NO interruptions. Then, near noon, we would walk down the road to climb out on the rocks at the wharf and stare out at that amazingly powerful ocean, then to stroll along Hunt’s Point beach. One day we found a full skeleton of some animal, probably a dog, deer, or coyote (Help - where is CSI Hunt’s Point?). If Jane were writing this blog she would no doubt point out my pathological fear of being mauled by a coyote or other large animal. Hey, I am a city gal and I have already confessed to a fear of squirrels in previous posts, so ….

After lunch, Jane and I explored the many treasures of the South Shore: Summerville Beach, Carter’s Beach (picture above), Kejimakujik Seaside Park, where we saw seals on a rock, so carefully camouflaged we almost missed them (see above), Thomas Raddall Provincial Park (very deserted - my fear of animal attack unusually high in the woods there).

Late afternoon, we had a cold beer, some quiet time leading to dinner. Two meals were eaten at the Quartdeck Grill (picture above), a charming restaurant that overlooks the water in the most spectacular way. Jane had a long and protracted “moment” there, sinking into an almost trancelike groove where she felt all her senses in a heightened and happy way. OK - I am not given to such moments, but I do take it ALL in. My moments are more fleeting and internal, I suppose. Mostly though, we cooked at home.

Now, back to the writing: in the evening, we did something so helpful I wish it could continue forever: we read to each other what we had written in the morning and gave one another a solid, sometimes hour-long critique. It provided focus and inspiration for what to work on next day and it was so effective.

I strongly recommend a retreat like this to all writers, but make sure you are going with someone you get along well with and share the same goals with, like Jane and I. Not that we are not very different people, because we are. She likes to iron wrinkles out of her clothes and I could not care less, for example, but basically we were on the same page. And I love her book. I know it is going to be a smash when she gets that plot together. It’s funny, but for her book we ended up talking mostly plot and for mine it was mostly voice.

Oh yeah - about the robin. In the second week, after Jane had gone home and my husband had taken her place, the chicks were born (see photo). It was a thrill. I’d stand at the window and watch for those enormous and desperate beaks to pop up. A funny anecdote though: Papa bird, who we discovered is very much involved in this whole process, took a strong dislike to our blue Mazda and would jump up and down on it and leave so much poo the car became striped. Ron spent much of that week washing our car, something he never does himself at home! (See him - the robin, not my husband)on our mirror above.) We finally discovered Papa was seeing himself in the side mirrors and metallic shine and thought a rival robin was coming for his wife and babies. Once we tied plastic bags around the mirrors, he calmed down.

I am now back home and trying to continue the book, but it sure was easier away. Oh well - we all write when we can and how we can, right?

Faretheewell Nova Scotia and thanks for the inspiration.

I am sneaking in two extra photos: one of my handsome husband Ron, pretending to be a fisherman. Our friends, Doug & Nelly, who joined us for two nights, eating with us at the Quartdeck. That’s the big picture and I am too dumb to know how to go back in and make it small. However, it’s such a great picture I am glad it is a big one. Don’t we all look happy and the men are ecstatic because they just ate lobster.

Last weekend I participated in a panel discussion on young adult literature as part of the Imagine a Story Conference. This was a first ever conference organized by Yesouicanscaip, the Quebec branch of Canscaip.

The entire day was a roaring success, especially since this was an inaugural event. The group really didn’t know what to expect, since the anglophone community in Montreal is so much smaller than in Toronto - obviously - which is where the big annual Canscaip conference takes place. But I was certainly pleasantly surprised by the great turnout. It reminded me once again that so many people are passionate about writing for children. Honestly, the best books I’ve read in the past few months have been children’s and YA:

Top 5 you ask: OK

1) The Underneath by Kathi Appelt (mesmerizing and seductive)
2) What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
3) Looking for Alaska by John Green
4) The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
5) A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

And that is just from April to now. Why do I love good YA. I love the focus on storytelling. I love that the writing, when it is well done, is clear and crisp and uncluttered by long introspective and self-indulgent passages that feel as though they were designed to impress. Like look at me: I am so witty! Phlip Pullman once said (and I paraphrase) that there are some stories that are too big to be told by anyone other than a children’s author. And he goes on to say that that is because a children’s author is sure to deliver the STORY - focus on character and plot, and not try to dazzle the reader with style.

Now, don’t get me wrong. A good YA novel can have style and plenty of it - just read any of the above. But the style (the voice, the imagery, the symbolism) is never there for its own Artisic sake - it is there to further the story.

On the panel, the six Montreal writers all talked about how they write and whey they write for teens. We decided we all share in common the fact that those teen years were very heady, very meaty and that, in some respects, we kind of got pyschologically stuck there. Although some of us kind of FELL into it, willy nilly, myself included. But, as in the case of Alice, it was a fruitful fall. We all had such different styles of working on a book, but the common factor was that we all agreed it was HARD work, no matter how we do it. Our reading tastes also differ vastly, from barely reading YA at all to loving the Gossip Girls.

In the morning, I had listened to Shelley Tanaka, editor at Groundwood Books, speak. It always amazes me that there is more to learn: not learn exactly, because I can’t say I didn’t already know what she talked about, but more to reabsorb, to confirm. As I listened to her talk about how many authors cannot answer basic questions about their new books, I realized I need to answer them myself for my new book I am working on. The questions are:
Who is the story about?
What does she want?
What is stopping her from getting it?
What is the crisis point?
How does the character change?

I took mental notes (and was happy to later hear Tanaka say that more writers should write more in their heads) about how I needed to reinforce the conflict more, since this is a more reflective book.

I also liked how Tanaka reminded us that we are not our characters’ mothers! Good advice. So, stop spanking (metaphorically) that kid, open the doors, let him out, throw caution to the wind, let her eat nothing but chocolate, forget about poisonous snakes and pedophiles - let her live! See where she takes you.

OKay, all for now. Thank you Carol-Ann Hoyte and Allister Thorne for all your hard work on this conference. I hope there are many more.

Greetings All

I have just finished team teaching (along with fellow writer Monique Polak) another Teen Talk: Writing Young Adult Fiction class for the Quebec Writers’ Federation. Once again, we worked with such a talented group of people. I certainly hope to and expect to see their names in print in the future.

So many good questions came up during the course of the 8 weeks, questions that made me think hard and reflect on this difficult business of writing a good book. There is so much to take into account, to think about, and yet, if a book is going well, it hardly feels like thinking at all.

We spent much time talking about the process and I said that there is no single way to write a book: there are as many ways to write a book as there are writers. Today, writing what might very well be one of the most important scenes in my new book, I became super aware of my own process.

It went like this: write a paragraph, get up make coffee. Write a few sentences: get up fluff pillows still dented with frustration marks of last night’s hockey game (Montreal beaten by Washington 6-3); write another paragraph, get up make second coffee; write a few more sentences, get up brush teeth to get rid of yucky coffee taste; write a bit more, get up to get banana; write more, stop and reread all and feel terribly smart because I like it.

OK - you get the pictures. It’s not always like this but on this particular day it was. I am no longer fighting this new book. At first, it was like that guest that you welcomed at first but now refuses to leave; then it was more like a crabby roommate that you try to only deal with when you have to; now though, it is something I wake up and think about right and get to right away.

I’m still not totally sure if it will come together, but I know through lots of hard work and revision I will make it work. How many years will that take? Who knows.

Writing a good book with some depth is hard work. I think all the people in the class were feeling that. The ones who are willing to go through the process and do a ton of rewriting will be the ones who will be published one day.

There are no short-cuts. Sorry.

Now, I have to go pack lunches, feed the cats - life beckons. I will pack my book away like a sleeping child, and, like a mother watching her sleeping child I will feel both glad of the break and like I can’t wait until she wakes up again.

Bye for now.