Writer Time: Kicking Off My Term as the Capital City Press Featured Writer

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My morning TV news swag

 

Every time I have a book published, I find it’s harder than the last time for the book (or me) to get noticed. This is contemporary publishing. There are so many compelling new books each season, so many talented and interesting writers, that it can take some special magic to stand out. So of course, I was thrilled something was sparking when an email arrived last fall from the Edmonton Public Library’s Capital City Press program offering me a term as their featured writer. It’s a chance to hold some workshops, and use their platforms and resources to meet with local writer and reader communities. The past year has been high on studies and sickness, low on the writer’s life–whatever that might be. Not this morning, when I was out talking on TV about being, above all other occupations, a writer for at least the next few months.

I got to choose the workshops I’d like to run while in this position and I chose one on Fan Fiction (for writers, readers, and the curious–I’m looking at you, parents) and one on building a writing career within a busy household full of little dependent peoples.

Watch the website for details, read my guest blog posts, and show up to celebrate writing with me. Find it here.

Writing in and about Edmonton: Capital City Press Book Festival with Edmonton Public Library

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This weekend the whole fam will be participating in our city’s annual food drive.

Next weekend I’ll be at two separate, very different writing events.

The first is an event at the University of Alberta where I’ll be sharing some translation I’ve done of Lu Xun’s early modern Chinese writing. Yeah, it’s not everyone’s idea of a fun Friday night.

However, the second event of the weekend is a panel at the Capital City Press Book Festival with the Edmonton Public Library. The library’s downtown branch plays a part in the story and the sense of my latest novel so I’m very excited to be working with them in real life. Always wanted to write something set in an unusual city? Come let a panel of authors, including me, talk you into it.

Details here

The 2016 Alberta Readers’ Choice Awards Long-List

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Libraries are good for books and authors. Not only do they buy, circulate, and promote our work, they’re involved in the ever-more delicate process of cultivating readers so the pursuit of professional writing can continue to mean something. In my area, libraries also trouble themselves to run the annual Alberta Readers’ Choice Awards. Our Sistering has been included on this year’s ARC long-list. I am delighted.

Thanks again, libraries.

Love and the Library

My husband got me chocolates just like I ordered for Valentines Day today. And, by playing muse to my novel’s “Brigs,” he also indirectly got me this: a recommendation from the Edmonton Public Library’s “Great Stuff” curator, Diego Ibarra. See?

Really needed that today.  Thanks, fellas.