Forest of Reading + Arthur Slade and Susan Juby

So since I'm new to blogging I have a lot to say right now! This past Monday (while I was still in Toronto for the IFOA) I found out that "Word Nerd" was nominated for the Red Maple Award and the Golden Oak Award, which are both part of A Forest of Reading. Now, this is very cool, because KIDS will be the judges. Kids from different schools (I think this is just in Ontario) will have a chance to read all the titles (in my case, the Red Maple is for grades 7/8) and vote. That's right, the readers pick the winners. Pretty cool.

And also nominated for different Forest of Reading Awards are my friends (I hope they won't mind that I call them that) Arthur Slade and Susan Juby. Arthur is up for the Silver Birch Award for his book, "Jolted," and Susan is up for the White Pine for "Getting the Girl."

A little history: Arthur and I met last year at Winnipeg's Thin Air Festival. I wish I had a photo of Arthur and me. It was the first time I'd ever done a reading at a festival (because "Word Nerd" is my first young adult novel) but Arthur's an old hand (he's not old. Just experienced. Really, he's very youthful. Very handsome. Debonair, even). This is a GG Winner for heaven's sake! (he won for his excellent young adult novel, "Dust"). Anyhoo, we read twice together on stage, and Arthur was so wonderful. He put me at ease and treated me better than I deserved. He made a friend and fan for life, whether he wanted it or not.

Now, Susan Juby - I met her in a whole nother way. See, Susan wrote the fantastically funny trilogy, "Alice, I Think." If you haven't read these books, you should. In my "other life" as a TV writer, I was approached to adapt them for television. I could not turn down this opportunity, even though it was very daunting. That's how I got to meet Susan - who is not only immensely talented and generous, she's also gorgeous!

See - there we are - Susan Juby on the left, reading one of my scripts, me on the right, reading one of her books. No, this photo wasn't staged. Not at all.

Best of all, I think she liked a lot of what we did with the series, which sadly only lasted one season. I don't have a photo of Susan and me together, but I do have a few photos from the TV version of "Alice, I Think."

This is Carly McKillip, the wonderful actress who played Alice. Poor thing, she had to wear this ghastly wig in the first couple of episodes.


And here are Michael Eklund (Marcus), Haig Sutherland (Finn) and Dan Payne (John)

International Festival of Authors, Part 2

But back to the IFOA. Here are a few more images from the day of the reading and the panel.

Signing books


Holding up my first "published" book - written when I was 11. Okay, it was self-published.

So, all in all, a very fine day. On Sunday I drove to Stratford with my lovely mom and we saw West Side Story, my all-time favorite musical, and it was the best production ever (I'm embarrassed to say I have seen it many, many times). That evening I took Mom to an author reception/dinner at Jamie Kennedy's restaurant at the Gardiner Museum. It was quite the scene, seeing people like Roddy Doyle and Paul Quarrington wandering about. But the best moment came when I turned my back on my 71-year-old mother for one moment - and turned back to see her with her arm around this gentleman (and his arm around her, too, I might add).

Especially if you're a kid you may not recognize this man (the woman is my Mam). But he is one of our most famous novelists, Michael Ondaatje. They had a nice chat, Mike and my mom. He made her evening (and mine). What a nice fella.

International Festival of Authors

Okay, this is my first blog post ever because I'm a terrible Luddite. But I felt inspired to finally start this as I just returned from my first ever appearance (and I hope not my last) at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto. I was invited because my first young adult novel, "Word Nerd," was nominated for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award. All of the nominees - me, Shane Peacock, Alma Fullerton, Nicola Campbell and her illustrator Kim LaFave, Cary Fagan (his illustrator, Nicola Debon, didn't attend as he lives in France) - were brought in to do two sessions on Saturday, October 24.

I wish I had photos of my fellow nominees, but I do not. However I really enjoyed meeting them. It's always fun to meet other people who do what you do (and they were all much more experienced than me). Our reading and panel went well, despite low attendance (it's the first year they've brought in the nominees, and it wasn't well-advertised - however we were all delighted to be the guinea pigs!). In fact a large part of the audience was comprised of my family and friends. I used to live in Toronto, and toss a divorce and some remarriages into the mix and I have LOTS of family!

That's me in the middle, with my mom, stepsister, stepsister-in-law, and three of my five beautiful nieces.