Go, Margaret, Go

Margaret Atwood and friends are taking on the Ford Brothers. Love it. Hmmm, who would I choose as a lunch partner? Hard decision. Perhaps Jeremy Tankard; he might doodle something wonderful on the napkin. More here.

Lane Anderson Award Finalists

The shortlists have been announced for the Lane Anderson Award for science writing. Congratulations to the finalists.

Jane Yolen's Tea Party

I adore Jane Yolen and her work and I find this very frightening. I guess I could laugh it all off, but something nasty, perhaps sinister?, seems afoot in our neighbour to the south and I find it deeply unsettling.

Stories in Scraps

My goodness. I hardly know what to say about these and the stories behind them, except that I want to learn more and I want to visit this place one day.

[Thanks for Wild Muse and Cafe Cartolina for their links.]

Library Love

Libraries are under attack in Toronto at the moment. (Well, they are under attack in many places, but Toronto is the latest Canadian victim that I know of.) To counter the lack of vision, we can celebrate a bit by looking at these beauties.

A New Book!

Well, sort of. Motions, Magnets and More is a compilation of the four books in my Primary Physical Sciences series that I completed a few years ago. It has been repackaged by my publisher in one handy-dandy volume and should be available asap. In the interim, I am very stoked that Kirkus Reviews has decided to take a peek. And here's what they had to say. I'll let you read the full review if you so wish, but here are my two favourite sections:

Mason has crafted what could easily be adopted by primary classrooms as their sole physical-science textbook.

Gathering in one place the physical-science concepts typically presented to primary children, this is ideal for the youngest scientists and explorers, a worthy addition to school and library collections.

Self-Promo for Writers

Today, with all of the social media options available and with marketing budgets shrinking at publishing houses, marketing is falling more and more to writers. This is likely overkill for most of us, but author Jenny Blake has shared her spreadsheet for self-promo. Almost exhausting to look at (and think about), but certainly lots of ideas and options for every writer, self-published or not.

A Random Sunday

I've been busy with several writing projects - a new children's book, the last details on the Tofino walking tour, and finally finalizing the details on a book I affectionately call The Long Suffering Beach Book, but I've been trolling the Net as per usual too, and here are a few links I've been meaning to share.

Three new takes on the alphabet book.

Recently bought to satisfy the wannabe field naturalist in my nature, at least voyeuristically.

Incredible images from plastic cups, repeated words, plastic dolls.

My absolute favourite new go to website. (With the best name.)

Another new favourite, New to Nature.

Look what you can do with 35,000 staples.

Ten things I should really try to do.

Thoughts on darkness in YA fiction from writer Jocelyn Shipley.

Canadian Children's Book Centre Shortlist Announced

Congratulations to all of those Canadian writers and illustrators on the CCBC's shortlist.

(But an especially huge whoot whoot to my friend, fellow Clayqout Sound writer and local lightkeeper (!), Caroline Woodward for her wonderful picture book, Singing Away the Dark, which is short-listed for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award.)

A New Book: 18 Meditations on Chesterman Beach

I have a new little book out. This is published through Postelsia Press and it is a beautifully hand bound chapbook of an essay on Chesterman Beach that I starting working on about four years ago.

You can find out more here.

Typewriters of the Literati

There's something about the clackity-clack of a typewriter. It's nostalgic, but I seem to recall having to really whack the keys of the old style models. It probably hurt. Good therapy perhaps?

I dropped French to take typing, so I'm a pretty good typist and know my way around the keyboard (but I really wish I knew French too), but I'm glad our current keyboards are quiet and don't require carbon copies (actual ones), White-Out, and re-typing a new version every time you make a mistake.

Here are some writers and their typewriters. I do love my grandmother's though.

Dictionaries!

I have a soft spot, not to mention a substantial section of my office library, devoted to dictionaries.



I am the sort of person that thinks giving a good dictionary as a wedding or birthday gift is a good idea. I know this skews my personality firmly towards "nerd," but I'm okay with that.

The photo above isn't showing all of them. I have my beloved COD and a whomping huge old copy of The Concise English Dictionary right beside my desk, ready to access at all times. I have two dictionaries for children, which helps at the magazine when I am trying to simply explain terms for young people. They are also great for phonetics.

I use the science dictionaries all the time, and the etymology dictionary, too. I picked up the Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms in university; it's essential reading for any biologist, especially students trying to remember all those phyla. If you understand what echinoderm breaks down to, it's much easier to file it away forever.

Some are just quirky. Gould's Pocket Pronouncing Medical Dictionary? Because you never know when you need to define edeoptosis (a prolapse of the genitals). Wet Coast Words? Because nothing says British Columbian by understanding the origin of skookum. (And nothing says Islander, than using "up island.")

You never know where these dictionaries will lead. The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics, helped me craft this.

When I troll the second-hand stores, I am always looking out for unusual dictionaries. I picked up four new ones this past week.



I'm not sure quite why I got this one, but it did come in handy as I was reading The Hare with the Amber Eyes, the latest choice of our book club, with its netsuke, vitrines, and bibelots. (It's a great read, by the way.)




And this find was perfect because I've decided that I am going to try and wade through The Bible. My understanding of religion is, frankly, pathetic, and I'm going to try and rectify that over the next while. A conversion is not imminent, however. This dictionary was immediately useful as I tried to figure out what an "unclean animal" was and why only one male and one female of the unclean animals were allowed on the ark, while seven of each "clean" animal were permitted passage.



I don't see any immediate use for this, but for $2 it can take up space on the shelf for awhile.


And then I found this little gem.



I couldn't resist. It is totally falling apart and someone has attempted to stitch the linen covers together. Plus it is the size of about 3 1/2 matchboxes and cost me a loonie.



So what is your favourite dictionary?

My First Published Work

Although I am trying to reform, I am a bit of a pack rat. But, in my defense, I think I come by that honestly. My father is an archivist and my mother, well, she keeps the best things. I was just home for a few days and I promised my soon-to-graduate daughter, A, that I would find my high school grad photos. Well, lo and behold, I also found two of my first attempts at writing, which were published in the Doncaster Gazette (or something like that; I can't find the original student publication although I'm sure it's stored away somewhere). So here, for your reading pleasure (or not), is my first story, The Story of a Elephant and a Canary.



As you can probably tell, we must have been studying Aesop's Fables in my grade one class (with my beloved Miss Little and her beautiful mini beehive). I think this must have been a riff on Androcles and the Lion (or maybe it was The Lion and the Mouse?)You can see how I sort of forget half way through and change the elephant to a lion? Where was the editor? Anyhow, this cracks me up every time I read it.

Here is Miss Little and her circa mid-1960s not-quite-as-much-as-a-beehive-as-I-thought:


And here is moi in the same era:

Atwood on Librarians

In this blog I often go on about librarians and how integral they are to schools and communities. Today, I'll let Margaret Atwood have her say.

Kwisitis Interpretive Centre

Over the past few years I've had the pleasure of doing some writing, research and editing work for the newly redesigned interpretive centre for Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. The Wickaninnish Interpretive Centre is being re-named and has re-opened as the Kwisitis Interpretive Centre. The overall design of the centre was done by Donald Gunn, along with park staff of course, and the panels were designed "in house" at Parks Canada by Shouresh Jalili and Guy Parsons. Here are a few of the panels I worked on. This was a great project to work on and the first one that was trilingual — English, French, and Nuu-chah-nulth.

I will post some more photos of the exhibits after the grand opening, which will happen in a few weeks. For now, here is a brief blurb about re-design.

Canadian Science Writers Unite!

A group of science writers who write for children have joined together to start a blog. You can find it here. I did my first post today. Hope you enjoy it and keep checking back. There is a slew of writers in the line up, getting ready to post.

Letter to the Tooth Fairy

Once upon a time, I wrote the tooth fairy and she answered.



It is very faded, so this is what it says (with spelling intact):

Dear fairy cod
you draw a Picture
of yourself and
your name.
From Adrienne

your name [The tooth fairy wrote "Twinkle" in this space.]

picture [with arrow pointing down]

The tooth fairy drew a self-portrait in red crayon.

Canadian Books For International Women's Day

A belated post, but every day can be International Women's Day can't it? I asked some of my writing colleagues for their recommendations of books written by Canadian authors that feature strong female characters. Here are some of their responses with links.

Sydell Waxman has two titles for young reachers: Changing the Pattern: The Story of Emily Stowe
(Illustrated by Linda Potts).
When Emily Stowe was born in 1831, every girl's future was limited to housework and child care. Women were not allowed into universities. They were not allowed to vote. Yet, Emily Stowe became Canada's first woman school principal, the first woman to practise medicine in Canada and a fighter for women's rights. How did she do it? Recommended for grades 4-8.

and

Believing in Books: The Story of Lillian Helena Smith
Every time you walk into the children's section of your local library, you should be thanking Lillian H. Smith. When Lillian was young, libraries had reading rooms with signs that often said, "No children or dogs allowed." Yet, Lillian H. Smith became Canada's first children's librarian and set up one the best collections of fine children's books in our country. How did she convince people that children's books matter? How did she choose "good" children's books? Recommended for grades 4-8.

The Trouble with Dilly by Rachna Gilmore (Grades 3 and up).
Dilly is strong, feisty, scatty and wildly imaginative, and plays hockey in a mixed team. Here's a review from CM.

And here's a picture book from Rachna: Catching Time.
When Sara's family can't find time to take her to the park, she sets about trying to catch some time for them all.

Marthe Jocelyn's Scribbling Women: True Tales from Astonishing Lives. Here is a blurb from Gillian O'Reilly, a fan of this title: "It's about women who were writers but not the ones we usually think about. It includes a woman transported to Australia in the early 1800s, a wonderful African explorer (you should see the photo of her in her bonnet), the 10th century Japanese courtier Sei Shonagon, a crusading American journalist who disguised herself as a mentally ill patient to expose New York treatments in the early 1900s, and Ada Blackjack, an Inuit woman who was part of a polar expedition. And more... It's a great read"

From Margriet Ruurs there is a novel, Me & Martha Black. Protagonist Melanie wanders through the history of the Yukon, with Martha Black - who became the second woman in Parliament - as her guide.

lian goodall's Singing Towards the Future: The Story of Portia White, tells the story of this Nova Scotian contralto.
(ages 11 and up)

From editors, Jocelyn Shipley and Deb Loughead, Cleavage: Breakaway Fiction for Real Girls, a book of stories about teens and their moms and body images issues. This title made the ALA's 2010 Amelia Bloomer Project List.

For an emotionally strong character that must overcome incredible personal challenges, look to Cheryl Rainfield's Scars. "Kendra must face her past and stop hurting herself--before it's too late...." Scars was a finalist for the Governor General Literary Award.

And here are two titles from Frieda Wishinsky:

Make It Fair!, which is #15 in the Canadian Flyer Adventure Series. This title features a great Canadian female: Nellie McClung. "Can Emily and Matt help suffragette Nellie McClung in the fight for women's rights? In Make It Fair! Emily and Matt land in Premier Rodmond Roblin's office in Winnipeg in 1914 and discover Nellie McClung confronting the Manitoban politician on the issue of women's rights.

Manya's Dream: A Story Of Marie Curie introduces the life of this two-time Nobel Prize winner (for physics and chemistry, no less) to younger readers. Here's a review.

And, finally*, I'd like to mention Elizabeth MacLeod, who has written a number of biographies about inspiring women, including Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Marie Curie. And, of course, she also wrote, The Kids Book of Great Canadian Women!


*Finally for now. Please send along any other titles you'd like to suggest.

BC Book Prizes Announced

Congratulations to all those BC writers nominated for BC Book Prizes, but especially to Deborah Hodge, John Vaillant and Maggie deVries, who is nominated twice!

How to Yarn Bomb a House

Sadly, I had to miss the yarn bombing event at Joy Kogawa House, but writer Jacquie Pearce was there. Here's her recap of the day.