>Miscellania and other destinations

>Well, not exactly physical destinations. More just destinations of the mind. I was just thinking about re-writing (I'm going over my next book for the billionth time). Cutting is still the hardest thing to do. I have a way to get across that psychological barrier of amputating your prose. I open another file, which I usually title "extra stuff" or something clever like that. Then anything I cut, I just paste it into that file. That way I don't really feel like I'm throwing it away. When I get "done" the book (okay, perhaps I should say "sick of the book") I go through the file. By that time I find I've lost my emotional connection with the items I've cut. Most of them, anyway. The good ones I sneak back in.

Totally different topic, last Monday I went to John Paul II School in North Battleford to booktalk Megiddo's Shadow to a parent/offspring book club. There were about twenty people there, adults and their daughters or sons, ranging from grade 8-12 or so. There's something exhilirating about seeing both generations together talking about a book. I could go to one of these events every night. Especially because they had cookies!

The Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz award was awarded yesterday. Sadly the $5000.00 prize didn't go to Megiddo's Shadow. I feel sorry for my book. It's seems to be always a bridesmaid, but never the bride. : ) The award did go to Deborah Ellis's I Am A Taxi. She's a marvelous writer, I highly recommend her work. Now I'll have to go out and pick up this book of hers! Check out the announcement. The children’s picture book prize was awarded to Scaredy Squirrel (Kids Can Press) written and illustrated by Montréal author Mélanie Watt.

Finally, I've joined both Facebook and Jacketflap.com recently. It's interesting the people you meet in these places. Facebook is particularly addicting. Of course it's good for writing to communicate with people, right? Right? Wait, I better go update my site to "Arthur is working on his blog right now."

Ciao for now,
Art

>IQ Launch 2

>I now know the secret to getting people out to book launches. Nanaimo bars! Yes, offer them free Nanaimo bars and they will arrive at your launch in droves. Droves! Here I am launching Invasion of the IQ Snatchers at Mcnally Robinsons in Saskatoon. Yes, me talking.

How boring, you think. Well...yes. But not with Nanaimo bars. They make everything (even me) interesting. Guaranteed! Look at the rapt audience.

Be sure to give the audience the Nanaimo bars after you're done reading. Otherwise they might leave early. It was amazing! It was wonderful! It was!!!! Can you tell I've had too many Nanaimo bars? I think I'm coming down from the sugar high. Uh...oh.

Art

>Red Maple Award screaming!!

>
This is what it sounded like being outside the stadium as they announced the beginning of the awards ceremony to the crowd. We wondered if we were going to be fed to lions or something...it was sooooo loud.

Art

>Tree Awards

>I'm just back from Toronto where the Forest of Reading awards were held. Imagine 4000 young readers, about 30 authors, a posse of volunteers, and a passle of organizers all packed into Harbourfront. It was quite the event! Each of the "Tree" awards was represented (these are reader's choice awards for the province of Ontario--schools sent participating students to the ceremony). Megiddo's Shadow was up for the Red Maple Award (for grade 7 and 8 readers). I met thousands of readers and other authors including Gayle Friesen and Clem Martini.

And Sheree Fitch and Marsha Skrypuch.

We then were led to our "signing stations" where we authors sat and signed books for our fans for over an hour. I wrote my name about a billion times. Well, that's what it felt like. And here's Hadley Dyer and Clem, as we waited to go to the outdoor stage for the ceremony

It was like waiting for a concert. We could hear the crowd roaring and roaring and roaring. I did take time to take a snap of Eric Walters. This pic proves that he's not quite as tall as the CN tower. Though, he did leap it twice that day just for a warm up.

And here's the inimitable and unstoppable John Wilson.

They put our names on placards and led us to the waiting crowd.

And what a crowd! Here they are all saying cheese!

It was a rush to hear all their cheering. Eric Walters' book We all Fall Down was the winner (Megiddo was the runner up). But as Eric said, there were no losers that day because everyone was reading. Plus we all got free lunch. Really, what could be better?

Cheers,
Art

>Launch of IQ!

>On May the 2nd we launched The Invasion of the IQ Snatchers into the stratosphere! The launch was held at the Vancouver Island Harbourfront Library in Nanaimo. By my count there was a room full of humans and several aliens in invisible suits. Here's a pic of me talking (note the sci-fi audio visual production, very ultra geeky).

Oh and there I am talking again. It looks more like I'm doing Hamlet, doesn't it?

I was actually talking to the aliens floating in the corner of the room.
Oh and it's me talking for a third time. By this time everyone was asleep.

There was some lovely food provided by the friends of the library, including, of course, Nanaimo Bars!

Books were sold and signed.

It was particularly fun to be reading from a book about aliens taking over Nanaimo to Nanaimoites! My thanks to both my publisher and the generous folks at the Harbourfront library.

Cheers,
Art

>Banff the final days

>Yep, I missed a few days. Such an incredibly busy time I just didn't get a chance to post. So many things happened during this week, the most amazing was I actually said something almost pithy. Of course I waited until the final party (last night). We were talking about revising and how our natural instinct is to fight against cutting or changing our story. My sense is that behind that defensiveness is sometimes a fear that you won't be able to create something better than what you've already written. And part of that whole act of cutting and letting parts of stories go, is having the faith that something better will replace that original draft or idea. We just have to learn that creativity is an endless well. Wow, only took a whole week!

Here's my class, my very own group of seven. All brilliant and talented and we became a team.


There's me, Sondra, Harriet, Alissa, Brenda, Laurel, Antje, and Lynn. Watch for them. They're going to set the children's lit world on fire (in a good way). It was a real honour working with them.

As one of our class excursions we walked down to the book store in Banff. I was hoping to show them one of my books on the shelf of the store. It was that whole "some day you, too, will have a book on these shelves" lesson. Except the bookstore had none of my books. Instead the lesson was my students got to watch the humble author introduce himself to the staff and suggest they should order his book so that he can feed his wife and child and his cookie habit.

Here's an obligatory shot of a mountain.

Taken from the top of Lloyd Hall.

There were so many positive elements to take away from this experience. We had our last supper, our last party, and, just a few minutes ago, the last breakfast. Now all my students are gone and I'm just finishing this up before my airporter bus arrives. And, to cap the whole week off, it's snowing.

It's actually the perfect way for things to end. Snow to cover up our tracks and let the next class make new ones. Goodbye class, goodbye Banff.

Hello, real world.

Art