If you live in Canada, it’s pretty hard to imagine you’ve missed the events in Slave Lake, Alberta over the last week, but since a lot of you don’t live here, I’ll recap. To put it succinctly…forty percent of the town burned down in a forest fire on May 15th. And one of the things to go was their brand new library. It seriously gives me shivers to write that because the idea of a building full of books going up in flames is well…just heartbreaking.

My friend once told me about seeing a guitar store burn, and when I started to share her story with my musician husband, he said, “Stop! I don’t want to hear it!” He looked kind of ill at the time too. That’s pretty much how I feel about their poor library.

So…what can we do? Well, fellow Canadian author, Judith Graves, has already written a wonderful blog post with all the information on how we can help rebuild their library. If you are an author and you can donate a copy of your book, or you’re a reader and you have some new hardback books you’ve read and want to send on, she’s got all the information for you. Actually, while her post is definitely worth reading, I think I will just go lift the pertinent information so I have it here on my site too. Thanks, Judith! Here you go:

Donations of new or nearly new books (no more than two years old) can be shipped to Peace Library System headquarters where they will be catalogued, processed and stored until a temporary library opens in Slave Lake. Please ship prepaid to:

Peace Library System
8301 – 110 Street
Grande Prairie, AB T8W 6T2

ATTN: Books for Slave Lake Library

Cash donations can be made by going to the library’s web page at www.slavelakelibrary.ab.ca and clicking on the “Make a Donation” link.

The Slave Lake Library and Peace Library System thank all who make a contribution to rebuilding the library.

For additional information, please contact Carol Downing, Assistant Director, at cdowning@peacelibrarysystem.ab.ca.

Monitary donations can be sent to the Red Cross to assist the town in general.  Here is more information.

You can be sure Restoring Harmony will be on its way today. Along with a copy of Suzanne Selfor’s Mad Love, which I have on hand and have already read. What are you sending?