A greeting From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors…
Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you are enjoying it as much as me.
Thankful for…
We’ve already celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada, but I want to wish our southern neighbours a safe and happy holiday. I am thankful to live in a country that supports art and culture. I hope that all my friends and family in America are able to say the same.
And on that note, my congratulations to all the winners and nominees of this years Canadian Children’s Literature Awards. And thank you to the Grand Forks Library for hosting my presentation on “Getting Published”. I’m looking forward to meeting you all next week.
From award winning, published authors to the those participating in NaNoWriMo – I applaud you all and I’m honoured to be part of your community. On both sides of the boarder.
Guest Author at Trail Summer Reading Program
![[Summer Reading Club 2012]](http://www.traillibrary.com/newimages/srclogo2012.gif)
On August 14th at 2:30 I will be a guest author at the Trail Library as part of the “Strange… But True” summer reading program. As part of the theme, “Trick or Truth” I will be reading a chapter from Trouble in the Trees and organizing a game of You Can’t Do That Bingo! If you can’t be at the library, check out this online Fact or Fiction quiz. There’s lot of other great stuff on their website too, so be prepared to spend some time there!
The Woolwhich Observer
Thank you, Colin Dewar, for this great article about Road Block in the Woolwich Observer.
Author Visits by Skype
I’ve been researching Skype as a way of visiting more classrooms now that I live in a relatively isolated area of Canada. This is a natural fit for me, given my previous work experience which included providing counselling to rural communities via tele-health.
Since becoming a mom, I’ve also become quite familiar with Skype as a way of keeping my kids in touch with their grandparents.
For authors connecting to the classroom, Skype is rapidly becoming an acceptable option to time-consuming and expensive in person visits. I’ve recently added my name to the list of Authors who Skype, hosted by Kate Messner and joined the Skype and Author network, sponsored by author Mona Kerby and library media specialist Sarah Chauncey.
If your class or book club is interested in a free 20-minute question and answer author visit via skype, please email me at yolanda_ridge@yahoo.ca. I am also available to present my No More Rules! and How to get Published workshops. The cost of longer virtual visits will be determined based on your requirements. See my Arrange a Visit page for more information.
I look forward to connecting with you!
Martha Weston Grant
Today I found out that I am this year’s recipient of the Martha Weston Grant! Which means I will be attending the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators) conference this August in LA! Read the news release here. My congratulations to the runner up, Janet Lawler, and all the other applicants. I look forward to meeting you at the conference!
The Martha Weston Grant is awarded to an SCBWI writer or illustrator who has previously been published and would like to work in a different genre of children’s literature. So this is my official declaration that I intend to write non-fiction books for children, specifically related to science. It’s time to put all that education to work again. And this means I can multi-task while reading all those science books with Oliver!
My sincere thanks to the selection committee and most of all to The Hairston Family for honouring the memory of Martha Weston, the author and illustrator of over 60 books for children including picture books, easy readers, and a middle grade novel. Read more about her amazing career here.
Thank you Rossland!
The community of Rossland has been so supportive of my Road Block launch – thank you!
Thanks to Adrian Barnes for his great article in the Rossland Telegraph.
And thanks to Monika Smutny for covering the event for the Rossland News and to Tatyanna for the wonderful review of Road Block. It was great to see the smiling faces of those who attended the book launch at Cafe Books on the front page of the May 10th paper.
It is amazing to live in a city that is so supportive of it’s artists!
