This month’s photo, like last month’s, was taken in Nova Scotia – this time on the beach at the Kejimkukik Seaside Adjunct. We’ve taken our Seaside Writing Workshop Retreat participants there each year, and hope to again this year, but in this photo it’s my lovely daughter enjoying the enormous sky and exploring one of the the massive rocky outcrops there.
I love taking pictures. Last summer someone complimented me on my eye and even said she’d like to hang some of my work in her gallery. I haven’t done anything about that yet, but her encouragement gave me the idea of sharing some of my photos on my blog.
I hope that what I pull from my files will give you some sense of a sight that has given me pleasure – and I hope it will give you pleasure, too.
For this wintry month (albeit not as wintry as some Januarys), I chose a what I believe is a Michaelmas Daisy. I took this picture in a Nova Scotia meadow early one September morning in 2010.
I wanted a website that would help promote me and my books, but I had no idea about how to set one up, and wasn’t willing to take time away from my writing to learn. Luckily for me, my sister knew how to do it. Creating websites is part of her business.
Since setting up the site (many years ago now and it’s been through many changes), Janet and her husband Scott have done a great job of maintaining it and keeping it up-to-date.
Am I luckier to have Janet as a sister or as a virtual assistant? Hard to say! But I’d recommend her highly for either position!
I sure have!
Click to enlarge
Most of the people in the photo here are authors. A few are illustrators. How many can you identify? Can you find me in there? All but one of the authors lives in Canada. Can you find her? She’s really famous!
Meeting and hanging out with other authors is one of the great pleasures of being one. I’ve hiked up a mountain in B.C. with Ainslie Manson and walked a beach in Connecticut with Lena Coakley. I’ve done a crossword puzzle in Toronto with Julie Lawson and a jigsaw puzzle with Ting Xing Ye in Prince Edward Island. I’ve swum in Georgian Bay with Marie-Louise Gay and cross-country skied along the Humber River with Anne Laurel Carter. I’ve enjoyed coffee with Robert Munsch and Allen Morgan and wine with Ted Staunton and Budge Wilson. I’ve partied with Sharon Jennings, Claire Mackay, Hadley Dyer, Kevin Major, Barbara Reid, and many others.
I’ve met lots of other Canadian authors at CANSCAIP meetings and at readings and conferences across the country. I’ve also had breakfast and sung silly songs with my favourite New Zealand writer, Margaret Mahy, at a conference in the States, and enjoyed dinner and conversation with Philip Pullman at his home in Oxford, England.
A long time ago, when I was practically a new author, I travelled to England with Jean Little, Monica Hughes, and Camilla Gryski. The Canadian Children’s Book Centre sent us there as part of an exchange of Canadian and British authors. (American writer, Katherine Paterson, came with us, too, as Jean Little’s “guide dog”.) When the British authors came to Canada, they had dinner at my house. Imagine - Phillipa Pearce, Jan Mark, Jill Paton Walsh, and John Rowe Townsend all in my living room at the same time!
Years later, when I was one of the authors speaking at the first Stratford Book Festival, I met Peter Gzowski, a famous Canadian broadcaster and an author of books and articles for adults, who was also speaking there. I gave him a copy of my book, King of the Castle, because it’s about a caretaker learning to read, and Peter Gzowski was a strong supporter of literacy programs for adults. He phoned me a month or two later, then wrote a column about our meeting in what was to be his final ‘Gzowski’s People’ column for the Globe & Mail. You can read about it in Rae Fleming’s biography of Peter. Yes, I met Rae Fleming too. 
Not especially. I wrote stories in school, but not after school or on weekends, like some kids do. And I certainly didn’t think about being a writer when I grew up. But I did love to read, and I think that all the books I was reading over many years were turning me into a writer, long before I knew it.
I do my best to write full-time, but I don’t earn enough money from book sales to make a full income, so I do other things – related to writing – to make up what I need.
I work as an editor.
I lead writing workshops for adults and for children.
I speak at conferences.
I do author visits at schools and libraries.
I also teach writing classes and have worked as a Writer in Residence for public libraries in East York, Toronto, Kitchener and Vaughan, and for the Writer In Electronic Residence program which linked me via computer to student and professional writers all across Canada.
Now you know why I say I ‘do my best’ to write full-time. It’s not easy to make a living by writing alone!
Yes!
Keisha is a golden doodle. She’s practically famous because the illustrator of A Pocket Can Have A Treasure In It used Keisha as a model for the puppy in the story.
Never heard of a golden doodle?
Check out www.goldendoodles.com for more info and pictures of lots more doodles.
I’m going to let you figure that out. Matthew (inspiration for Big Or Little?) was born in 1975 and Kelly (inspiration for Red Is Best and “Babysitting Helen“) was born in 1978.
This picture of my kids was taken at Matt’s wedding in 2001.
I also have two stepdaughters born in 1967 and 1968 and five grandchildren born in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2002, and 2003.
When I was growing up in the 1960s, most girls were looking at pretty limited options: nurse, teacher, or secretary. I liked school, so I wanted to be a teacher.
I taught elementary school in Etobicoke (as far west as you can go in Toronto before you hit Mississauga) for five years.
I also wanted to be a mom and was lucky enough to have two wonderful kids (who are now so grown up they are almost older than I am).
