Publication date of my forthcoming book Shelter - Homelessness in our Community edges ever closer (Oct 12, 2021, co-oinciding with the Oct 11 World Homelessness Day). I was thrilled to learn recently that it is a Junior LIbrary Guild Selection - and was ordered in bulk by that organzation in order to distribute to patricipating schools and libraries.
I have also been invited by The Vancouver Writer's Fest to participate in their Writers in the Schools program during the Oct 2021 festival, where I expect to be talking about the book.
Other events in the works - but not yet fully confirmed - around the book's publication include:
- a book launch jointly sponsored by Orca Book Publishers, The Nanaimo Unitarian Shelter (which receives 25% of my royaties of this book) and local bookseller Windowseat Books. Whether it's an in-person or virtual event, time will tell.
- a library presentation 'Talking to Children About Homelessness', where I hope to be joined by the shelter's ED - I hope, they're just in the process of hiring a new one - and a local family counsellor. Details TBD.
- a shared Zoom presentation with author Jacquie Pearce whose book in the same Orca Think! series WHAT ANIMALS WANT launches on the same day.
- A 'blog tour' during which my book will be featured and/or I will be interviewed on various kidlit book blogs during the week of Oct 10-16.
Check the next issue for more information.
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It does look like we'll be confined to barracks a little longer. Even if health officials deem it a little safer to congregate at a distance now the vaccine program is well under way, I won't be comfortable until everyone who needs one has their second shot.
But Zoom continues to allow us opportunitites to get together in ways we had not previously imagined.
I will be teaching the following six-session courses through Vancouver Island University's Elder College in late-fall/early winter 2021-2022, all via Zoom. Anyone from anywhere can sign up as there's no requirement for membership.
Writer's Toolbox: November 2021
Writing From Life: January 2022
Down the Rabbit Hole - Writing for Children May 2022
If you sign up on the Elder College page, you will receive the session calendar with all details.
WRITES OF SUMMER - fiction workshops
Under the auspices of my company LPwordsolutions, I am presenting a three-workshop series in July and August.
Peopling the Page - Characterization. Wed. July 7 2:30-5pm PDT
StoryCraft - Story, Plot and Theme. Wed. July 14, 2:30-5pm PDT
Say What? - Dialogue. Wed. Aug 4, 2:30-5pm PDT
Cost: $25.00 each, or $60.00 for all three.
Payment by eTransfer... or check with me for other payment options and more information about this series. loispeterson@hotmail.com.
Once you have registered, there are no refunds. But you can transfer your registration to another person if you're unable to attend.
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DAY BY DAY - KEEPING A WRITER'S JOURNAL
In my youth and young adulthood, I journalled. Then in my late-twenties, a particularly unhappy point in my life, I went through each one page by page, and burned them. The entries were either a study in self-involvement, self-delusion or pure wishful thinking.
I stayed clear of journalling for years, but have taken it up again recently. But now I only record ideas and thoughts related to my life as a writer. I document struggles I am having with current work, ideas for new projects, insights I've gained from other writers, courses and workshops. And all the other etceteras associated with writing and reading.
I no longer seem to be able to keep track of random notes, so I to keep everything in one place. But I can never hope to replicate my father's 'commonplace' books, of which I inherited 17 of the 43 he'd accumulated by the time he died.
Just a few of my father's notebooks
His includes skillful sketches, translations to and from any of the eleven languages he spoke and read - and wrote to some degree, reviews of books, quotes, observations of the human nature on show around him, and even in some earlier ones, guest lists and lists of alcohol brought for parties he and my mother hosted while they were living in the ex-pat community in Iraq in the 1950s and '60s. For years he even kept a record of letters he had written home to England to his mother, brother and three children in boarding school.
I work on my writing six mornings a week (usually taking Saturday off), and begin most days with a bowl of oatmeal and my notebook. I use the left-hand pages of a plain coil-bound 9-1/2" x 7" Mead Cambridge notebook for the narative form of my writing journal, with the right-hand side pages for everything else - which might include character notes, lists of books read or to read, notes from workshops or online presentations, outlines for courses or workshops I am presenting, notes about work I am critiquing for others.
Steinbeck did something similiar when he was working on East Of Eden and published the book as Journal of Novel.
If you've a mind to give keeping a writer's notebook a try, this article by Nicole Bianchi has some useful tips.
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Every season brings a new load of books I might never get the chance to read. But some get my attention as soon as they come off the press.
Anything by BC writer Iain Lawrence is a must-read for me - his characters are compelling, his stories reveting and his style reminsicent of two of my favourite British kidlit authors David Almond and Frank Cottrell-Boyce. And like theirs, even if his books are considered juvenile fiction, Lawrence's books are always an engaging reads for adults, too.
DEADMAN'S CASTLE is no exception, and while I often pass on books that I have particularly enjoyed to other readers, this one is staying on my shelf.
In adult reading I got my hands on the library ebook of NOMADLAND - SURVIVING AMERICA IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY - expecting a much longer wait for it - and am deep into the lives of the vandwellers of the US, so wonderfully conveyed by Jessica Bruder, and whose lives and strugggles are such a far cry from the tame few-day camping trips I do for sheer pleasure and respite in my '91 VW van!
This is the season when award winners are announced and nominations for next year's awards are publicized. My friend and critique partner Gina McMurchy-Barber's midgrade novel THE JIGSAW PUZZLE KING recently won the OLA Forest Of Reading Silver Birch Award and has been nominated for the 2022 Rocky Mountain Book Awards (Alberta’s Reader’s Choice Award) and along with the 2022 Saskatchewan Young Readers' Choice Awards Diamond Willow Award.
Congratulations to Gina and all the other 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 award winners and nominees!
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END NOTES
Thank you for reading this issue of the newsletter.
Published about quarterly by Lois Peterson / LPwordsolutions
website | email
If you got this far, I invite you to drop me a note to let me know what you have found most useful and/or what you might like to see in future issues.
And/or... send me a picture of where YOU write.
This is Cristy Watson's workspace in her home.
Cristy is the author of compelling hi-lo fiction for youth.
Check out her website and blog.
Next issue: September
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