Q&Q Writer Series featuring Rachna Gilmore

Hmmm, wondering what can I say about this latest guest on my blog which will adequately describe her warm, witty, intelligent, talented, fun-loving personality?

I give up. I think you better read it in her own words. Here is Rachna Gilmore, who has written everything from picture books to adult fiction. One of my favourites from her repertoire is A Screaming Kind of Day, the GG award winner in 1999!

Though I had been corresponding with Rachna for many months, I first met her in January this year when she attended OLA to promote her new book, That Boy Red. It was like discovering a kindred spirit. Here's a little bit about the book that is already garnering great reviews...

First came Anne Shirley–now meet Red MacRae


Eleven-year-old Roderick "Red" MacRae never has much spare time. It is the Depression and times are hard. When he isn’t at school, he’s helping Pa with chores on their P.E.I. farm or being nagged to do his homework by his older sister Ellen, who is also his teacher. Red tries to be responsible and help his family, but all too often he gives in to impulse – and lands himself in the midst of some hair-raising and hilarious misadventures involving runaway horses, cow dung, lost sisters, outhouses and even aeroplanes. But when Pa is seriously injured, Red must step up to the challenge to finish the tobacco caddies his father makes for credit at the local store. An episodic novel THAT BOY RED traces the coming of age of a resourceful, pig-headed young lad during a particularly difficult year, while celebrating the strength and spirit of a large, lively Canadian family living through the Depression.

And while you're browsing around, be sure to check out her blog; My Writerly Plarks. It's fun!
1) In one word, how would you describe your personality
One word? You ask a writer to restrict herself to one word? Besides, personality is contingent on circumstance, and weather...
Okay. Ahem.
Exuberant. That’s one word. But I have to say in February, when the light deprivation sets in, it’s more like Saggy. Or Trying, as in not-the-easiest-person-to-live-with and also trying hard not to be S. Otherwise, I’d also say Enthusiastic. Some would say annoyingly so. But what do they know?

2) What is your deepest desire?
Again, do I have to stick to one? Simply put, to be happy and centred, in the best sense possible. Which is a conglomeration of many factors. But one part of that is writing – writing from the place inside me that wants to create story, and not being caught up or distracted by the outcomes. Just being centred in the delight of story. In the white heat of that flow where time stands still. Oh, and to have a place by the ocean so I can write in-between long walks on the beach. Ahhh!
And then, having limitless chocolate to eat -- say a landscape of chocolate, or chocolate trees, or rivers of chocolate -- and no worries about weight gain would be pretty darn great, too.


3) Your greatest fear?
Being off centre and caught up in the illusions of life and the frenzy of life. Caught up in wasting more energy than I already do fantasizing about best sellers (mine!) etc. Snarled and knotted with needless worry. (Why bother, when there’s chocolate at hand?)

4) Your favourite colour?
Red. Not fire-engine red, but a deep, mellow red. Used to be blue. Oh, and on walls, yellow. Not shrieking, burn-your-eyes-right-outta-your-head yellow, but mellow yellow. Green’s pretty good too, in the garden...

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"The hiiiiillllsss are aliiiiiiveeeee weeeth the sound of musiiiiiiick! WAH, wah, wah wahhhhhhh!"


6) A movie that made you cry?
Mmm. BEACHES. It’s sappy, manipulative, but the minute they start up with "Wind beneath my wings" I’m gone.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. Read it squillions of time as a kid, when I lived in India, and got to know P.E.I. and love it. That book was one of the reasons I came to Canada and even lived in P.E.I.


8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Come on. That’s like asking which of my kids is my favourite. Although, currently, perhaps Dilly. From THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY. Only because I’m not done writing about her. But I am, as we speak, plotting new stories with other kids, who will fill the slot of fave until they are pushed out of the nest as books.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
The biz side of things. The endless erosion of quiet writing time. The increasing frenzy and pressure put upon writers to promote themselves. I’m a writer, for gawdsakes. I’d rather leave the publicity to the pros, but no, I guess I have to do my share. It’s distracting. It eats up slices of my brain that would be better off dreaming up stories. On the other hand, I’m trying to see this part of the biz as creative too. Still working at it. Oh, and I also hate making squat-all.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
(Panic! Do I give away something AWFUL? Oh my gawd! Gleep.)
Ahem. How about: I love to garden? I’m indecisive?
No?
Okay, I confess. I AM AN ALEEEEANNNN from OUTER SPACE!!!!!!!!

Rachna, your answers were a hoot! Best wishes with your writing and thanks for dropping by.
PS: I looove Aliens!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Lizann Flatt

So, back from Mumbai, a little tired but nevertheless ecstatic to have been back, and reconnected with family, friends and old haunts. Check out all my pictures on facebook.

But now to introduce the next writer in my Q&Q series, Lizann Flatt. She has written two fantastic books.

Bedtime Teeth appeared in Switching on the Moon, a poetry anthology by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, published by Candlewick Press in September 2010.

Let's  Go! The Story of getting from There to Here was chosen as the TD Grade One Giveaway book for 2009.

She also voluteers as a regional adviser for the Canada East Chapter of SCBWI.  That takes a lot of committment and time!

Friends, here's Lizann Flatt...

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Reserved

2) What is your deepest desire?
Um.... (See above.)

3) Your greatest fear?
That would be ditto the above. I find it impossible to distill my thoughts and feelings into anything resembling a coherent answer for this type of question. But I could quip: liver.

4) Your favourite colour?
Yellow...usually.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"It's My Life." Mostly the Talk Talk version but I also like the one by No Doubt.

6) A movie that made you cry?
Almost all of them make me cry. Seriously. It's pathetic.

7) A book you have read more than five times?
Too many books I want to read to have read any one of them 5 times, but books I've read several times include the Lord of the Rings trilogy, most of L.M. Montgomery's books, Holes by Louis Sachar, and Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Let's Go! The Story of Getting from There to Here.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
The vast and ever-changing unknown of it all.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I would rather ask the questions than answer them. And my snack habits went to hell once Miss Vickie stopped using peanut oil.

Currently, Lizann is working on manuscripts on the War of 1812, the Islamic Empire, and a picture book involving nature and numbers. If all goes well they'll be books sometime in 2012.

Lizann, it was wonderful  reading your answers. Thank you for stopping by and  good luck!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring The Maestro

Ever since I read THE MAESTRO I've always wanted to meet the author, Tim Wynne-Jones. He has written over thirty books and they are all fantastic, compelling and worthy of very close study. Tim was also my mentor at the Humber School for Writers in 2008 and I had the pleasure of working with him for six months. It was a difficult time because Tim does not mince words, but I learned more about writing in those few months than I did on my own in four years.

Wise, witty, excruciatingly funny and above all, very supportive of emerging writers, his autobiographical sketch is a must read for all TWJ fans. It starts with "When I was three, I ran away from home with a tea cosy on my head..." How can you not read on after that opening line! All his books start with the same wonderful promise and never fail to deliver.

Tim is also a faculty member of the Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults)

Among the lovable characters he's created over the years are Rex Zero in his trilogy by the same name, Mimi Shapiro in The Uninvited, and of course, Burl Crow in the Maestro. The list of awards is too long to mention but check it out here.

Tim's latest novel, BLINK AND CAUTION, is out on March 8, 2011 and has already garnered great reviews. I can't wait to get my own copy!

Here is Tim; the maestro, my mentor and friend;

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?

Surprised.

2) What is your deepest desire?
To walk around the coast of England with the ocean always on my left.

3) Your greatest fear?
Anything bad happening to my children.

4) Your favourite colour?
Teal, on Wednesdays and Fridays; whatever colour turmeric is, on Sundays; and Burgundy for about an hour on Monday morning.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
Too many to mention. I grew up in a Welsh family and we all sing all the time. Right this minute I'm singing Stephen Sondheim's Finishing the Hat, but I'm only hearing it in my head.

6) A movie that made you cry?
Truly, Madly, Deeply.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
So many...but I'd have to say The House at Pooh Corner.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
Impossible to say: I might be pushed into acknowledging my three favourites: Zoom at Sea, Some of the Kinder Planets, and Rex Zero and the End of the World.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
First drafts.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I'm still hoping to write one really good book.

Thank you for everything, Tim. And I have to disagree with you on answer ten!

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Monica Kulling

I met Monica Kulling at OLA 2010 and it was friendship at first sight! She was signing copies of All Aboard, Elijah McCoy's Steam Engine. An excellent book which I heard Monica read at Word on The Street Toronto last fall, bells, whistles and all.

Monica has published over 26 fiction and non-fiction titles for children which includes picture books, poetry and biographies. You can read about it on her website.

Her latest book, Merci Mr. Dash from Tundra received a great review from the CM Mag.

A gifted writer with two dogs and four cats who lives in TO. Need I say more...read on!

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?

Fun-loving.

2) What is your deepest desire?
To live pain free.

3) Your greatest fear?
Public speaking.

4) Your favourite colour?
Moss-green.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
I’ve always loved to sing. I used to play guitar and even entertained the thought of writing songs and following Joni Mitchell on her world tours. Oh the foolishness of youth! These days I sing whenever I hear a great oldie. Yesterday it was These Eyes by the Guess Who.

6) A movie that made you cry?
Schindler’s List.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
I was not a reader as a child, or even as an adult in my thirties. Consequently, I’m packing in a lot of reading now, but have yet to read one particular book five times. The writer who has influenced me the most is Virginia Woolf. Her daring and her skill always encourage me. She truly is a writer’s writer.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
It’s true that the story one has just finished writing shines as the most perfect thing you’ve ever written, until it becomes a book. Don’t know why that is nor how that gorgeous piece of writing morphs into something completely ordinary. So I have two favorites: the story I finished last week about a grumpy girl who finds her smile, and It’s A Snap! George Eastman’s First Photograph because I love photography.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Not making a living salary.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I’m a fan of slapstick. I know … childish. But if you’re going to slip on a banana peel or walk face-first into a clean pane of glass, what am I to do? Or course, in real life, not REEL life, I’d help you out. But watching it on film cracks me up. Every time.

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Shane Peacock

I had the pleasure of meeting with the creator of The Boy Sherlock Holmes, Shane Peacock, at the TD Book Awards a couple of years ago. At the time I had not read any of Shane's work. All I knew was that he was a fellow nominee for the OLA Silver Birch Award.

Once I read Eye of the Crow, I was hooked by this brilliantly written novel. The action is immediate, the plot and pacing, superb and the denouement, heartbreaking. Since then, The Boy Sherlock Holmes has solved three more cases: Death in the Air, Vanishing Girl and the most recent, The Secret Fiend. Shane is the winner of numerous awards, all of which are listed on his website.

Shane is passionate about his writing and each word, line and paragraph contains that passion. Never a dull moment! In person, he is charming, warm and very generous with his time and advice.

Here is a glimpse into the mind of this exciting writer and creator of one of my favourite characters:

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Relentless.

2) What is your deepest desire?
To create great art and be a good father and husband at the same time.

3) Your greatest fear?
The death of one of my children or my wife.

4) Your favourite colour?
Red.

5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."

6) A movie that made you cry?
Dead Poets Society (though I dispute this!)
7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
Oliver Twist.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
"Eye of the Crow," the first of The Boy Sherlock Holmes series, about racism, prejudice and justice.
9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Editing.

10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I like malls.

Thank you, Shane! Am thoroughly enjoying THE SECRET FIEND and look forward Sherlock's next case.

Q&Q Writer Series featuring Helaine Becker

Hello World...Happy New Year!

I'd like to start 2011 with the interview of a writer who is the epitome of quirky. She is also fun, vivacious, generous and a wonderful friend!

Here is Helaine Becker, a prolific writer who has won numerous awards and written a poem about panties :) I was almost ROFLMAO at one of her presentations when she recited it. Another masterpiece is called "Sleepwalker's Dilemma" from Mama Likes to Mambo. This poem is the first one I heard from her repetoire and remains my absolute favourite!

A few notable mentions within her oeuvre are the Looney Bay series, Are you Psychic, Boredom Blasters and Secret Agent Y.O.U. The last two are winners of the OLA Awards. Amazing books by an amazing writer. You can check out Helaine's blog too; informative and good for a giggle.

Friends, here she is;

1) In one word, how would you describe your personality?
Passionate. Or loud. You can choose.


2) What is your deepest desire?
You mean only one???? Ok, my deepest desire is to help make the world a better place. And to have a school named after me, like Jean Little. Wouldn’t that be awesome????

3) Your greatest fear?
Being stranded on a desert island without chocolate.

4) Your favourite colour?
Pink. Preferably mixed with every other color in the rainbow, ala tie dye. I am also very partial to turquoise, the color of the Caribbean sea.


5) A song you can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?
I am a notorious singer alonger. My favorite for this purpose might be, Build Me Up Buttercup. Or anything by the Ramones. I love the Ramones. RAMONES!!!! That’s me screaming from the back of the bar, everytime.

6) A movie that made you cry?
The Blind Side. And the Bridge to Terabithia – I wept like a baby for hours after that one. And Up. And Toy Story 3, which I found totally absorbing and scary – I was instantly three again, while I was watching it, but then, watching the boy pack up for college? Well, my guy was leaving for his first year a few weeks later. I bawled like an idiot. My younger son, who I saw the movie with, had to keep patting me on the shoulder and telling me it would be all right.

7) A book you have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the most?
People who know me well know I am obsessive about To Kill A Mockingbird. I also read all the Narnia books about a gazillion times when I was a kid, along with A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy, Are You there God? It’s Me Margaret, all the books by Edward Eager. I read tons as a kid, I loved reading more than just about anything back then, and still do. I guess that’s why I grew up to be a kids book writer – kids books are what I always loved best. Oh! And From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basi E. Frankweiler. I LOVE that book.

8) From your own oeuvre: your favorite child?
You mean in one of my books? Reese McSkittles, from the Looney Bay All Stars series. He’s based on my son Andrew. Here’s another one: Porcupine. He’s not a kid, but I’m also really crazy about the porcupine in my new picture book A Porcupine in a Pine Tree. Werner Zimmerman drew him, and gosh is he ever the cutest critter ever! I’m thinking of getting mugs made for my family with his picture on it as Xmas presents. I’ve also written a character called Dakota in my current WIP, Trouble in the Hills. He’s a really obnoxious bad boy teenager, and I really really like him. He’s got a mouth the size of Manitoba, and a foot to fit in it that’s nearly as big.

9) One thing you hate about being a writer?
Having to write. It’s hard. I like coming up with the ideas, figuring it all out. But then the hard slog of sitting down and putting fingers to the keyboard. Argh! Sometimes the words come out fast and easy, but mostly it’s a struggle. And it interferes with my time to get together and talk about books with my friends.


10) One thing no one knows about you (and now will)?
I am nervous around grownups.

Thank you, Helaine!

Q&Q Writer Series : Featuring Helene Boudreau

I had the pleasure of interviewing my good friend and fellow writer Helene Boudreau recently. She has a number of fiction and non-fiction books in her repertoire which include her first one ACADIAN STAR and KEEP OUT! Her most recent one; REAL MERMAIDS DON'T WEAR TOERINGS has just been released by Sourcebooks and has garnered great reviews, which are all up on her blog.

A delightful picture book, I DARE YOU NOT TO YAWN, is also slated for publication in 2013 by Candlewick. Cannot wait to read it! 

I met Helene in Kidcrit, a writer's group I joined in 2006. At the time we were both unpublished, but here we are now, a scant five years later, with many successes under our belts. Among the many things I admire about Helene, the most endearing is her desire to help others to the best of her ability. This could be invaluable advice in writing a synopsis, advice on how to get an agent or just a "hang in there" email when someone in the group has received bad news!

Here is a more personal glimpse of this warm and wonderful writer...

1) In one word, how would you describe your  personality?

Enthusiastic!

2) What is your  deepest desire?

A  healthy, fulfilling life surrounded by those I  love.

 3) Your  greatest fear?

Every  mom probably has the same answer to this one.

 4) Your  favourite colour?

Red!

 5) A song you  can't help singing along with, every time you hear it?

Chumbawumba: Tubthumping  (I get knocked down...) 

 
6) A movie that  made you cry?

 La vita è bella/ Life is  Beautiful 

 7) A book you  have read more than five times? Or a book that influenced you the  most?

 I  rarely read books more than once but I love, love, love anything by  Katherine Paterson, Kate DiCamillo or Tim Wynne-Jones.  

 8) From your  own oeuvre: your favorite child?Whatever  I'm working on at the moment. Right now? Jade from REAL MERMAIDS DON'T WEAR  TOE RINGS 

 
9) One thing  you hate about being a writer?
  The  First Draft 15™ 
 
10) One thing  no one knows about you (and now will)?

 I  eat sardines over the kitchen sink, straight out of the can. Don't  you?

Thank you, Helene and wish you continued success in your career!