About a month ago, we noticed our dishwasher wasn’t really getting the dishes that sparkly-Martha-Stewart-clean that one hopes for. Because we are responsible grown-ups who take care of our things, we did what we always do in times of crisis. We ignored it, just putting the odd soiled plate or sticky glass back in for another run. If an item didn’t sparkle after three tries through, one of us (okay, me) would break down and hand-wash it.

When everything on the top rack started coming out with an oily finish decorated with random food chunks, we looked around for a way to reboot the dishwasher. Unfortunately, holding the power button down for ten seconds just made the dishwasher start going again on its polluted cycle. Then I tried adjusting it back to its original factory settings, but couldn’t find that hole you poke a paperclip into. Finally I decided to check the manual for the magic solution. Yes, I actually have the manual, know where it is, along with the receipt for the dishwasher still attached to it (out of warranty, of course). Who said I can’t be an adult when I need to?

According to page 13 – Troubleshooting, it was probably the soap. Did you know that if dishwashing powder accumulates moisture, it will clump, causing it not to release properly and leave a filmy residue? Well, now you do.

“We need new dishwashing soap,” I told my husband. “That will fix it.”

“What’s wrong with the old stuff?” he asked.

“It’s all clumpy.”

He sifted through it with his fingers. “It doesn’t look clumpy,” he said.

“Well, it is. Just get a new box.”

“Yes, dear.” As he rode off on his bike to the store, I heard him muttering, “It’s in a plastic container with a lid. How could it absorb moisture?” Luckily, he dropped that line of thought before he got back with the new soap.

You might wonder why we didn’t call a repairman in the beginning. The thing is, a dishwasher just seems like the sort of thing you should be able to fix yourself. Especially with all those youtube videos called, “Don’t Be a Moron – Fix Your Dishwasher Yourself!” I mean, if some rube (or twelve year old kid) on youtube can fix their own dishwasher, why couldn’t we? The reason we didn’t call had nothing to do with the fact that we live on an island and just to get a repairman here means he has to take a ferry and costs $69.99 for the first ten minutes. Are you calling us cheap or something? Yeah, well….

Anyway, confident that this fresh box of soap powder would be the equivalent of an expensive repairman call-out, I got the dishwasher going. Before the dry cycle was up, I opened the door, anticipating fine results, and was met with a cloud of steam. Once that’d passed, and my pores were fully opened (bonus!), I pulled out the blistering hot rack to find…really gross, food-coated dishes and all the soap wet and clumped in the dispenser.

“See?” Victor said. “It’s not the soap.” He wasn’t that happy about being right after having to wash the dishes for the next three weeks by hand.

Finally, when the washing machine stopped draining, we decided it was time to give in and call a repairman – two for one and all that. First he started with the washing machine. It turns out if you ignore that clink-clunk-de-clank for six months because “the clothes are still getting clean” you will destroy the drain pump and he will have to order a part, and come back again. This “ignoring” thing was really paying off – for the repairman. After that, he opened up the inside of the dishwasher and found five years’ worth of food scraps that we hadn’t pre-rinsed off because it says in the manual that you don’t have to. Granted, the manual also said it was probably our clumpy soap, so I used the damn thing to start the fire in the woodstove this morning. After giving the dishwasher a good vacuum, which I videoed for my youtube channel, he put it all back together and we now have a lovely, efficient dishwasher again. And my video, “Call a Repairman You Cheapskate!” has gone viral.

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The summer before I started eighth grade, someone, most likely one of my aunts or uncles, thought it would be an excellent bonding experience for my grandparents to take all six grandchildren out for a weekend of backpacking and camping. Grandma and Grandpa were most likely caught off guard and didn’t have any excuses ready, so they agreed.

They stuffed us into their Audi station wagon, which had never seen kids nor sticky substances, and drove us way out of town. I remember it taking most of the day. I know now that it was probably a forty minute journey, but drive-times are multiplied by ten when you have three boys and three girls all under the age of fourteen packed in the back of the car.

Once we’d arrived at the Salmon River, near the base of Mt. Hood, they pried us out of the car, the smashed gummy bears making a sucking sound as they stretched, my grandfather’s blood pressure rising in spite of all the “nature” around us. There was a ginormous backpack for each of us, and mine weighed about the same as I did.

The way that campground worked was you hiked through the woods on a trail that ran parallel to the river. Every quarter mile or so, there was a camping spot which consisted of some flat areas to pitch tents, and a fire pit. My grandparents had a plan – hike in about three miles so we were good and far from the road or other campers who might not “enjoy” pre-teen company, set up camp, and then…get this…go for another hike!

Instead, every quarter mile, as a new camping spot would come into view, six kids started pleading, “Is this it? Can’t we stop here? My backpack’s too heavy. I’m hungry. Are we there yet?”

I am pleased to say that we wore them down after only a mile and a half. We dropped our packs, collapsed on the ground, and wouldn’t get up until we’d been bribed with homemade fruit leather. My grandparents made their own, which we thought was something of a miraculous feat. I mean, who made fruit leather? Out of real fruit? From their own orchard? Well, they did, but no matter how much we begged when we visited their house, they rarely shared it with anyone because it was for “hiking.” Well, we were hiking now, and so we made them cough it up.

“Fruit leather, or pitch the tent yourself,” was our motto. We stuck together until it started getting dark and Grandpa told us we’d have to sleep outside with the bears if we didn’t get off our butts and help put up the tents.

Later, after a nutritious meal of hotdogs and burnt marshmallows, we were all tucked into our sleeping bags – the boys in one tent, the girls in the other. That’s when Grandpa decided to take the bear thing to the next level. Knowing the firelight would cast his shadow on the wall of our tent, he began to crawl around on all fours, bear-like. Then there was some low growling, and he nudged the tent with his “paw.”

Now, I was thirteen, and Lora was twelve, and we both knew it was Grandpa, but the thing is, grandpas are not supposed to scare you. They’re friendly, humourous men who give you gifts your parents never would – like drum sets and pocket knives. So after first taking us on a forced march carrying the kitchen sink on our backs, and now trying to frighten us with the bears, we felt like perhaps we owed him one. My cousin Shelby was only eight, so we handed her the flashlight with a few instructions. I should point out, this was back in the dark ages when they were made of real metal, not crappy plastic like today’s flashlights.

The bear moved closer, growling, pawing at the wall of the tent.

Lora and I fake-screamed.

“Grrrrrrr…”Grandpa growled.

“It’s a bear, Shelby!” I said.

“Help!” Lora pretended to cry.

THWACK! Shelby brained the bear with the flashlight just like we’d told her to do.

“OWWWW!” shouted a very human-like bear who sounded quite a lot like dear old Grandpa. Lora and I practically peed ourselves laughing. From the boys’ tent we could hear them yelling, “What happened?”

“Go to sleep,” Grandpa growled sounding more like a bear than ever.

We peeked out and saw him sitting next to the fire with Grandma checking his head for blood. “I told you not to play around, Charles,” she said.

I’m not sure if the reason they only took us that once was because of the bear attack, or the fact we made them carry all the gear back to the car for us while we moaned along behind them, comparing blisters and eating what was left of the fruit leather. Either way, the good news was we’d apparently bonded well enough that we never had to go hiking again.

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When we were kids, my brother would pick up a potato bug, watch fascinated as it rolled itself into a ball, and then promptly smoosh it between his thumb and forefinger. My dad would look at him and say, “You killed it. Now bring it back to life.” And he would cry because he couldn’t. Fast forward thirty…okay…forty years and I’m now reminded of this about fifty-eight times a day.

Fifty-eight? That’s a lot. I know, but my life has suddenly become all about an insect army, the kind who march the endless march, the persistent beyond persistent. We’re talking the ones who can move a rubber tree plant.

We’re talking ants.

Not the big carpentery-type who carry mini-saws around and are looking to chew my cabin into a pile of sawdust, but the normal-sized black ones who live for picnics and bring their own knives and forks. According to my builder, we probably put the cabin on top of their nest, so you know, it’s boiling down to a battle over who was here first, and technically, they’ve got me. But what they don’t know is: I AM THE INSECT WHISPERER.

That’s my super power. Insect whispering. I can coerce any insect into a glass for relocation purposes. I know some of you are thinking, “Smash ‘em. That’ll show ‘em who’s boss!” And while I can get with the simplicity of your plan, my spiritual path is based on the idea of not causing harm. There’s something about squashing the life out of something that seems…well…harmful. Also, there’s the black smudges they’d leave on the walls. No one likes to look at ant guts while they’re trying to write.

I don’t limit myself to relocating only ants, although, lately they are my main customers. I’ve also become an expert at capturing spiders without qualifying them for the Paralympics, getting moths to see the light of my ways, and convincing wasps to give up on the literal glass ceiling of our skylights. All they have to do is come down and accept a ride to freedom in my plastic tumbler.

Flies are trickier, but I’ve discovered two things ever since I stopped trying to (unsuccessfully) flatten them with a newspaper. The first is you have to talk to them, promise them the world like a man trying to get lucky, and move very, very, very slowly, like a woman trying to get said man to propose. Unlike spiders, who require you to slam the glass over them quickly before they do the fifty yard dash into a crevice you can’t get into (which is generally located right over your bed), flies have lots of eyes and you must, I repeat must, move slowly all the way to the very end. Move too quickly, flinch as you’re going in for the capture, think “Be afraid, be very afraid! Bwahahaha!” as you make your move, and flies will be laughing at you from the other side of the room before you’ve realized the glass is more than half empty. It’s totally empty.

My biggest success so far goes to relocation of the smallest insect…the fruit fly. I will admit, not all fruit flies survive the relocation process. It’s because they’re so small that I’ve had to resort to vacuuming them up with the hand vac. After collecting as many as I can by zipping them right out of the air with the nozzle designed to pick up tiny crumbs, I release them outside. Unlike the stately bumble bee that zooms away with a grateful buzzing thank you, they’re more like a couple of drunk outfielders trying to catch a fly ball, bumping into each other, and slightly brain damaged.

It’s not exactly a perfect system, occasionally, like life, there are casualties. And while I may not be able to bring the dead back, as long as my thoughts are pure, and my intentions honourable, I can almost always whisper the local insects into accepting a second chance at life.

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If you’ve followed my blog for the last seven or eight years, then you know I started out reviewing books. After everyone and their cat began knocking out online reviews, I switched to three-times-a-week blogging with updates about writing, along with lots of interviews and promotion of other writers. A couple of years ago, though, I got totally burnt out and quit blogging unless I had something important to share – like an upcoming event, or some big writing epiphany. Okay, mostly just events.

Recently, I started thinking about how it would be so much nicer if there was content with a purpose here for the six people who actually still read the blog (Hi Wanda!). Also, content that challenged me as a writer could be interesting. For as long as I can remember, I’ve written humourous essays and then mostly just stuck them in the proverbial drawer. However, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be the next Erma Bombeck – I found her book, Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession on my mum’s shelf back when I was a teen and read it over and over (and yes, I had to ask what the oldest profession was – that was a fun conversation). Jean Kerr’s Please Don’t Eat the Daisies also fell into my hands around that time.

In my early twenties, I longed to be the female version of Dave Barry with my own newspaper column and a band with Stephen King. I used to write to my pal, Dave, just so he’d know me once I was famous. Twice he wrote back, and once he even quoted me in his column.

The thing about writing comic essays as a profession is that it’s a pursuit in and of itself. I’m not saying one can’t write them and write novels, I’m just saying that I personally need to stay focused on novels if I want to make a go of it. But I still have this need to share funny stuff. What’s a girl to do?

I decided recently…actually about five minutes ago…to give myself a new challenge and write one humourous essay a week for this blog. So starting next Wednesday, tune in for the first installment of hilariousosity.* It may or may not be funny. Heck, it might not even be pretty, but I’m going to give it a try. So if you’re one of the six still hanging in there, now’s the time to cancel your RSS feed if you’re going to.

*Microsoft Word 2013 (which I don’t recommend you upgrade to) does not think hilarousosity is a real word, but if you put an * next to it, it accepts it. Kind of the same way a person can act like a total ass, but if they’re a celebrity, everyone just smiles and wants to be their friend.

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As is my tradition, in no particular order, the things I’m thankful for on my birthday…one for each year!

1. Getting older – more things to be thankful for each year.

2. My wonderful husband.

3. Mum, Dad, Ashly, Erik & the rest of my family.

4. Avocados (I said this was in no particular order)

5. My wonderful sweetie kitty, Marley.

6. Nicole

7. Woodstoves

8. My agent, the fabulous Michael Bourret

9. Being a published author.

10. The Brouhahas & Wanda!

11. Eileen & Bob Cook

12. Handmade quilts

13. That I finally got over being snooty about reading romances and now I enjoy them (well, some of them).

14. Twitter – yep, time waster that you are, you’ve given me a lot, too.

15. David’s Tea

16. Good health

17. A husband who loves to drive, so I don’t have to.

18. My favourite number.

19. Readers, all of you, whether you read me or not. Yay, readers!

20. And books, while we’re at it.

21. Janet Reid

22. Smoothies

23. The Enchanted Forest

24. Snail mail (especially yours, Mimi!)

25. My husband’s incredible music.

26. My husband’s equally incredible photographs.

27. My husband (hey, you can never be too thankful, he deserves to be on here at least twice).

28. My lovely writing cabin.

29. The faith in my writing career so many people seem to have.

30. Roller skating.

31. Those crazy Cubs.

32. Theatre & the Slings & Arrows TV series

33. Red wine

34. Basil

35. A stocked pantry

36. Stacking firewood & chopping kindling – being able to do it, that is.

39. My neighbours and friends here on the island.

40. The fact I will become a Canadian citizen this year.

41. The opportunity to teach writing to kids.

42. Memories of the ones I love who’ve moved on.

43. The Big Blue Reading Chair.

44. Health Care

45. The fact that I could’ve just kept going with this list for a really long time…Thank you!

Feel free to add what you’re thankful for in the comments!

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I’m very excited to announce that I have two events coming up, and I hope if you’re in Victoria, BC, you’ll try to come to one of them!

First off, I’ll be at the Victoria Children’s Literature Roundtable meeting on Monday, 15 April at 7pm. Click here for more information.

On Tuesday morning, I’ll be at the Sanich Centennial Branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library to give a talk and answer questions. Here‘s the info for that. And thank you to the Writer’s Union of Canada for making my visit possible.

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One question you get asked a lot when you write YA is, “Why do you write for teens?” My standard answer is, “Because that’s what I like to read.” And until recently, that has been true.

Looking over the list of books I’ve read in the last couple of years, it’s surprising how little YA there is on it. Shocking, really. Especially after I did my designed reading program (three years of reading only MG and YA – about 400 books in all). I’ve been pondering the reason, and it’s actually quite simple. I can’t really find anything I want to read.

Give me contemporary, realistic, heartfelt, sometimes humourous stories that aren’t too dark or gut-wrenching sad, and I’m a fan for life. I used to go to the library and just scoop up the books – ten at a time, sometimes more. But not any longer. I spent fifteen minutes going up and down the YA section yesterday and came away with exactly nothing. Why? Because the shelves are full of fantasy, very dark fantasy, dystopian*, dark contemporary YA (murder, rape, abuse, drugs), and series about rich girls. Where is Sarah Dessen? How come Rachel Vail isn’t taking up space? But more importantly, where are the other contemporary YA authors who write like the handful we know very well, but are waiting for us to discover them? As far as I can tell, they’ve been squeezed out.

With successes like Twilight and the Hunger Games, publishers have obviously decided that’s what teens want – escapism and a rollicking story or romance. I get that. I really do. But I also think we’re missing something fundamental by not also having the school stories, the friendship stories, the relationship stories, the family stories. Yes, Sara Zarr has a new book coming out. And I have Ask the Passengers by A.S. King in my very short TBR pile, but they can only write one book a year (if we’re lucky). Last year, the only new YA author I discovered and loved was Emily Danforth who wrote The Miseducation of Cameron Post.

Teens need escapism as much as the rest of us, possibly more (remember high school?!), but these other stories like Jandy Nelson‘s The Sky is Everywhere , The Year My Sister Got Lucky by Aimee Friedman and Cecil Castellucci‘s Beige provide teen readers with something they can identify with, something they can apply to their own lives. I’ve heard a rumour that publishers are making a shift, more editors are looking for contemporary, realistic YA. All I can say is I hope so. I really, really hope so.

*Yes, I know Restoring Harmony was labeled a dystopian, but I never set out to write a dystopian and I still don’t think of it as one.

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I was looking over my Goodreads entries for the last two years, and there is a lot of FLUFF. I mean, it’s seriously startling how many romance and chicklit novels I’ve read considering that until a couple of years ago, I’d never read a romance. Not even one! And while I’ve found the lighter chicklit okay for a bath with a glass of wine after a long week of writing, mostly I’ve stuck to cozies when I needed a mindless read. But lately, and I know this sounds hilarious considering they’re murder mysteries, I’ve gotten tired of all the killing!

It’s pretty easy for me to see what happened last year, why I chose these lighter books that moved away from violence and deep emotion…my best friend died suddenly, and I needed escapism. The equivalent of TV, but in books. And while I’m certainly not over her death 18 months later, I’m not choosing these books to escape anymore. I think that I’ve actually been searching for humour. The truth is, what I’d love to read is really well-written humour. Like Lisa Lutz’s The Spellman Files. Or The Clueless Girl’s Guide to Being a Genius (MG).  I don’t care if it’s for teens or adult.

But you know, it’s not that easy to find humour in fiction. At least, I haven’t had much luck. Yes, there are the books that have won humour awards, or been nominated, but somehow, they don’t always seem that funny to me. I think I have a very odd sense of humour. I like wacky and outrageous, not necessarily dry intellectual humour (and yes, I get it, I just don’t love it). The thing about the the light romances…they’re often laugh out-loud funny. I can honestly say that I find the sex scenes kind of unbearable…they’re almost ludicrous in their heat and warmth and smoldering touch. You know? Okay, not almost, they are. I usually read those parts really fast and wonder if I should just skip them altogether and go get another cup of tea.

However, I’ve found a few writers who have concentrated on the funny, with the sex scenes being more of the “fade-to-black” type, and those I really enjoyed. One was Sophie Kinsella’s I’ve Got Your Number, and another was A Little Ray of Sunshine by Lani Diane Rich (her first book was good too, but they’re essentially the same book, if you ask me).

Anyway, if any of you know of any really funny stuff I should be reading, leave suggestions in the comments. I’d love to find some MG and YA that’s not necessarily “boy” humour, too. And of course, I love things like Jeeves and Wooster. I mean, who doesn’t?

Lastly, I want to say that I actually considered deleting my Goodreads account because what does it say about me to have all these light and fluffy books on my list? Will anyone really take me seriously as an author? Aren’t I supposed to be reading “important” books, or the classics or at least the award winners? But then I decided, I am who I am, and maybe that is a silly romantic who likes to laugh. I mean, I used to make my living doing comedy (improvisation & theatre). And if I could write a book as funny as Lisa Lutz’s I’d be a happy, happy girl. So whattaya got to make me laugh?

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I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in February. I know if I really want to become a Canadian, I should spell it “travelling” but that double L is the one Canadian spelling I can’t make myself do. The thing is, if I spell the word color with a “u”, everyone just thinks I’m cool knows that’s the Canadian spelling. But when I use the double L, all my American friends undoubtedly think I let someone else do my sixth grade spelling homework. Which, actually, I did (thanks, Darci!). But that’s irelevent because I do know how to spell now.

In my books, I use the American spelling, but for everything else, I’ve adopted the rules of my new country. However, I’m always flummoxed when it comes to spelling words like marvellous and jewellery because I really hate the idea that half of you think I don’t realize I’ve spelled something wrong.

Anyway, I digress.

Because of all the traveling travellingI’m feeling the need to hunker down in my cabin. Do some writing…definitely read some great books from my mile high TBR pile, maybe do some art. Drink a lot of tea. Wait out the spring rains. So if you don’t see me here much, that’s why.

Happy March, everyone! Summer’s just around the corner. Ahhhh….

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As I point out in the video below, I am a trained actress with very little Shakespeare training, which just makes me dangerous. But oh, that language! So when Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda Lab offered up a chance to win free books by simply making a video of yourself reading something from Hamlet, I couldn’t resist. There’s still lots of time to enter, so make your own video!

I just hope our local thespian, Antony Holland, doesn’t see this. He’s already pretty much told me to stick to comedy, and he never misses a chance to rib me. As you can see from his picture below, he’s earned the right, not only by his tremendous acting chops, but just by sheer age (he’ll be 93 next month and he’s out on tour with his one-man Shakespeare show that he put together himself). He still gets the young, hot chicks with all that Shakespeare talk, too.

Antony Holland copyright Victor Anthony 2010

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I had an excellent trip to Whistler, BC this week, where I got to meet with some young writers at their high school, and then do an event for the public. So much fun! And boy do they treat you well there. Great events, nice hotel, excellent food. And for the photographer husband, a zillion picture opps. Thanks to Libby at the Whistler Public Library and the Canada Writer’s Union for making it happen!

Here’s where we went afterward…D’arcy, BC. The road literally ends at Nequatque Lake (aka Anderson Lake).

“Author Faces Publishing” – Daunting yet beautiful says Publisher’s Weekly (if they reviewed author pics)

How are these for new author pictures?

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On Tuesday, 12 February, I’ll be at the Whistler Public Library doing an author talk from 4-5pm. Here’s all the info from their site. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there! Isn’t it a great looking building?!

Galiano Literary Festival

Friday, 22 February @ 11am-12pm: Workshop “Creating Memorable Characters” To register, or for more information, please visit the festival’s homepage. http://galianoliteraryfestival.com/

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They are doing the greatest thing at my local library. The librarian, Suzanne, heard about it from a librarian in the US and I want to give her credit, but I’ve forgotten her blog, so if any of you know, be sure to leave it in the comments or email me.

See this book? I checked it out at my library, but I don’t know what it is! What’s going on is the librarians at my branch have picked a whole bunch of books, wrapped them up in fancy paper, put a sticker on them that tells you a bit about the genre or book, but not the title. Patrons can pick one that looks like it might be their cup of tea, and take it home with them, and then on Valentine’s Day, they unwrap it and start reading! It’s called Blind Date With a Book. Don’t you love it?

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In 2012, I read 130 books. I also started a dozen or so that I gave up on. Here are my favourite fifteen of 2012. What are yours?

In a random order:

Not Much Just Chillin’: The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers

Perlstein, Linda

Seriously…I’m Kidding

DeGeneres, Ellen

Marcelo in the Real World

Stork, Francisco X. *

Ginger Snaps

Cassidy, Cathy *

Trail of the Spellmans (The Spellmans, #5)

Lutz, Lisa *

The Fault in Our Stars

Green, John

One in Every Crowd

Coyote, Ivan E.

The Cardturner: A Novel about a King, a Queen, and a Joker

Sachar, Louis

Brooklyn, Burning

Brezenoff, Steve

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Danforth, Emily M. *

Liar & Spy

Stead, Rebecca

Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1)

Winspear, Jacqueline

Scrawl

Shulman, Mark *

The Sweetheart of Prosper County

Alexander, Jill S.

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom

Healy, Christopher *

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I like this picture because I’m basking in the winter sunshine…a rare thing in these parts. It reminds me to live in the moment.

You might not actually see me online much in the coming year. As far as I know, I don’t have a book coming out in 2013, so I’m not sure what I would talk about here on my blog. Plus I expect to be writing at least one new book, probably two, as I have multiple ideas. And hopefully editing two others for release beyond 2013.

Instead of making resolutions, I usually set a couple of professional goals and a couple of personal ones, and I will do that for 2013, but I don’t worry too much about it if they change or don’t go according to plan. I write a synopsis for every book I write, and once I’ve completed the novel, the two things barely resemble each other. Life is like that. I’ve found the best laid plans are actually fluid and flexible.

My friend Eileen Cook has chosen three words to live by in the coming year. I liked that idea a lot, and have chosen three for myself. They are Friendship, because I hope to make some new ones, Canada because this is the year I become a Canadian, and Conversation, because I’d like to have more of it…in real time…face to face…perhaps new Canadian friends!

However you choose to approach the new year, I hope you find health, happiness, and lots of books. Thanks for hanging out with me this year!

Happy 2013!

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Yes, it’s true. Santa brought me a rock. No, not a pet rock, a garlic rock. Carefully selected from the beach, this rock will sit in my kitchen, handy for pounding garlic. Thanks, Santa, you rock!

As for Marley, she’s happy with the wrapping paper.

 Sophie? Did you get catnip in your stocking?

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My husband’s childhood tree that his parents used to set up in his bedroom.

And the lovely ornament my dear friend Alexa gave me in 2010.

 Happy Holidays to all!

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…or possibly reading. Could be napping. But let’s go with “writer at work.”

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Congratulations to my lovely friend, the wonderful writer, Eileen Cook on the release of her latest fabulous YA novel, The Almost Truth. I have read them all, and this is her best one yet, so make sure you get your copy ASAP. You’ll love it. And don’t just take my word for it, listen to this excellent review on All Points West by Nikki Tate.

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When I was in Cincinnati last October for the Teen on the Same Page Festival which featured my first book, Restoring Harmony, we made some videos. I’m very excited to share them with you here. In addition to the web, Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Libraries are making them available to teachers to share in the classroom to supplement the reading of Restoring Harmony. How cool is that? Very cool!

There are five in all, and I don’t expect anyone to watch them all except maybe my parents and my husband. The rest of you are off the hook. But if you read RH and liked it, you might want to watch some of them to learn more about the book and the process of writing it.

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I’ve been offline for a month except for the occasional blog post (no Twitter/FB). But I decided to allow myself a splurge over American Thankgiving weekend and have been tweeting to all my writer pals that I’ve missed. Also, because I wanted to post some thank yous here!

Thank you so much to Deb Marshall for nominating THE RIGHT & THE REAL for a Cybil Award. That was a nice surprise, which I found out about after getting a cryptic message from Heather Brewer telling me “Congratulations on being nominated for a YA award.” That was the first I heard of it, which sent me Googling and I discovered the Cybil nomination.

But, it turns out, that’s not what Heather was referring to! She had seen a tweet online from Lauren Abramo at my agency congratulating me on being on a nominee on the Young Adult Library Services Associations’ BFYA list! I think that stands for Best Fiction Young Adult, but I couldn’t really find that anywhere.

I have to say that I’m very grateful to YALSA for putting me on this list (again! Restoring Harmony was also on it in 2010). I truly believe that one of the best ways for kids to find out about books is through librarians (and indie booksellers! Oh, and crazy writers in chain stores – see post below this one).  And we all know that librarians can’t read everything. So by creating this fabulous list, it helps all of us writers, but especially those of us who have “smaller” book releases, and not trilogies with huge publicity budgets behind them. So thank you to ALA & YALSA, and all you wonderful librarians who are out there championing the books you love. I’m very grateful.

And congratulations to my bestest pal, Eileen Cook, who is also on the BFYA list for Unraveling Isobel!

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Even though I’m technically on a blogging break, it’s the weekend, and I wanted to share, so here I am. I just had to tell you some book related things that have made me happy lately.

Last week, I started my Writer in Residency at the school. I was terribly excited to see so many of my new students had fantastic books sitting around on their desks. I spotted some I didn’t know, as well as one of my favourites: THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST. Perhaps a bit old for a Grade 6/7 student, but I heard that particular girl “reads up” and I know her older sister is a great reader, too. That’s one of my faves of the year, so far.

Then, yesterday, my husband and I were walking together at the Village and we had to jump out of the way to avoid being run down by a ten year old who was reading as he was walking. It made us both grin to see it.

Today, I had to go abroad (take the ferry from our small island to Vancouver Island) to run some errands. One of them included a trip to Chapters, a Canadian book chain. They’ve always been good to me, carrying my books in their brick and mortar stores, not just online, so whenever I’m in town, I stop by to see if they need me to sign any stock. It was a cold, dreary, rainy day and when I walked in, I stopped and just started laughing. In that bright, cheerful store of books were so many people! Just tons of people, browsing, buying, drinking lattes, laughing, chatting, and they were there for BOOKS! It warmed the cockles of my heart, I’ll tell you!

They had a copy of The Right & the Real. I spotted a clerk trying to help a teen and her mother find her some books, and while I waited, I heard the clerk say, “Honestly, I don’t work in this section and I don’t think there’s anyone here who reads teen books right now.”

Naturally, I had to jump in! After signing my book, I spent the next fifteen minutes going through the whole section with mom and daughter. The girl was about sixteen and had read the Twilight series and Shades of Grey (!), and wanted a new series. I tried to recommend based on what I’ve read, what my critique group has read, and what I’ve heard good buzz about, but also limiting it to what was on the shelf.

In the end, she walked away with Brodi Ashton’s EVERNEATH (which I enjoyed), and I think John Green’s THE FAULT IN OUR STARS…although, she might’ve chosen BEAUTIFUL CREATURES instead. There was some debate going on between mum and daughter. As we perused the shelves together, I managed to get plugs in for books I love, books I don’t love so much, but others do, books I like, but don’t love, and yeah…a few friends! I told her Eileen Cook is one of my best friends sheerly for the prestige!

Here’s who/what I remember telling her about:

Brodi Ashton

Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls

John Green

Beautiful Creatures books

Maggie Stiefvater (in particular THE SCORPIO RACES because my critique group members LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that book)

Eileen Cook (Canadian!)

Stacey Jay

Courtney Summers (Canadian!)

A.S. King

Sara Zarr

Heather Brewer – The Slayer Chronicles in particular

Oh, and so much more. It was really fun. I think the girl and her mum thought I was a bit nutso, but they bought books, so who cares? I did give her one of my Don’t Bug Me I’m Reading door hangers, so she’ll be able to tell her friends, “If you see her in the store, run away!”

And the latest thing to make me happy? After purchasing some books for myself, I walked by the front counter and there was my book, The Right & the Real, on display with a “Local Author” sticker and a “Signed” sticker. Yay! Thanks, Chapters! You rock!

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I’m still “gone writing” and staying dark in regards to the internet and social networking, and it’s great! However, I did want to share this link from one of the schools I visited in Ohio. Thanks for a great visit,  Delhi Middle School!

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I’m taking some time away from the distractions of the web and social media to clear my head like this room and hopefully let my new book take root. And then I intend to write it. I may be gone a few months, or it may be a year. Only time will tell (and the date on this post). You can still email me, of course, but if it takes me a while to respond, it might be because you’re getting a real letter back. Perhaps you will choose to include your street address if you do email me and see what happens. Or not. Your choice. Either way, stay well.

Love, write, read, and enjoy life. That’s what I intend to do.

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