On Becoming Ruby
Over the course of the summer of 1967, 15-year-old Ruby Nan Larkin is changing. It may have something to do with Daniel. Or is it her feelings about her mother? In Kathy Stinson's novel Becoming Ruby we meet a girl struggling to come into her own — in body, mind and spirit. Read an exclusive interview with Kathy below...
Q: Nan's relationship with her mother is highly charged. At times her mother appears cold and critical, while at other moments Nan and her mother share laughter and intimacy. Do you think the mother-daughter tension in Becoming Ruby is typical or is Nan's mother especially troubled as a parent?
On 101 Ways to Dance
What inspired you to write these stories?
Teaching writing, I often suggested to students that they mine their own experiences for story ideas. One day I realized I wasn’t doing this myself, so I began remembering incidents from my own teen years and started to use them to create fiction.
Profile by Dave Jenkinson for Canadian Materials
It's been more than 20 years since I interviewed Kathy Stinson for my "Portraits" column in Emergency Librarian [Vol. 14 (5), 52-56] while Kathy was on her first "Book Week" tour with the Canadian Children's Book Centre. Since 2007 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Red Is Best, a picture book that has become a modern Canadian classic, I thought it an appropriate time to revisit Kathy.