Awards

I'm an Oscar junkie. I love this time of year when the Oscars are announced. Okay, so I'm a bit of an award junkie. I also love reading about all the book awards when they come out too. I will admit this. This year when the Oscar's were announced I was excited that there was an 82-year-old up for a supporting actor award. I thought to myself, maybe I'll win an award with one of my books when I'm 82. I still have lots and lots of time to write lots and lots more books. (Well, not that much but quite a few years.) I'm determined to still be writing in my eighties. There are so many awards in the Children's literature categories. Silver Birch, Red Maple, TD Children's Literature Award, Norma Fleck Award and then there is the one I was nominated for (my only nomination to date), the Golden Eagle Award in Alberta. The list does go on. When I got my nomination I immediately thought, they only picked my book to have a book that the boys can read. Talk about confidence. And there are all the awards for mystery novels. I only have one mystery novel out and, like Angelina Jolie this year, it's not award material. The Crime Writers of Canada has the Arthur Ellis awards and they will be announced in the spring. I put my book in for first novel but it wasn't nominated and rightly so.
I always wonder how the people who win the "big" award right away, after the first book or the first big movie feel. Probably a bit overwhelmed. I saw the young girl, Ellen, from Nova Scotia who played in the movie Juno on Oprah--she was humble and honoured and did look like stunned that she was up for an Oscar. My editor--who actually quit her job at Lorimer to write full-time, wrote her first book Johnny Kellock Died Today and it was up for numerous awards, including the coveted TD Children's Literature Award. I was proud of her. She's a great editor and great writer. I know she felt honoured too.
Awards are something our society loves.
Maybe I will win one before I'm 82.
I'll keep writing!!!!

Raincoast closing doors to publishing

Hello, It's been a long time but one of my New Year's Resolutions is to blog more. And write more. Even though the publishing business is slow. I heard last night that Raincoast has decided to stop publishing and focus on just distribution. My initial thoughts were--where are all the Raincoast authors going to go. Where are all the Raincoast editors going to go? Well, the authors will be trying to find homes elsewhere which will make it all the more difficult to get published in Canada. More authors fighting for the same amount of spots. My agent has some books of mine and she's having a difficult time selling them. Just before Christmas she said the business is "slow." I guess some of this 'slowness' has to do with our dollar rising. Funny how that works. The prices have to be adjusted and Canadian prices might be forced to go down to meet with the American prices. We have to meet somewhere in the middle I guess. I'm not sure about any of this, I don't have a business degree, I'm just speculating. I did a book signing at Christmas and on the back of one of my books was, Can $8.95, US $5.50. Yes, there does need to be some adjustment there.
Before I found about Raincoast, I was hashing out my career and wondering why I only seemed to get contracts to write about hockey. I've written other stuff. Really I have. I have a mystery novel out with publishing houses and my agent has a YA historical novel, a first-grade dance novel and a volleyball book. (Still sport but at least a different sport.) Yet, I just agreed to write two more books for Lorimers Recordbook series--yes, both are hockey. One is the 2002 Women's Olympic story and the other is the 2006 Paralympic Men's story. I'm excited to write both for sure but I keep thinking, I do have other interests, I can write about other things too. (Plus I'm talking to Fenn about another hockey book with them as well.) And I thought to myself hockey, hockey. Then I heard about Raincoast and I thought I was blessed to even have two books pending and a third maybe. I once heard where Agatha Christie really wanted to write either historical fiction or historical non-fiction, I can't remember which one but one of those. On a lark, she sent off a mystery novel to a publisher and...well, we all know the success of Agatha Christie.
So, I'll count my lucky stars to quote a bad cliche, and feel blessed just to be alive in this crazy business called publishing.
By the way, my latest hockey book Pink Power is available--published by James Lorimer-- and I'm quite proud of the story. It's about the first ever women's world hockey championships when Canada dressed their women in PINK.
And I helped Cassie Campbell write her book HEART. It's also available--published by Fenn. It's a fantastic book with great hockey stories and tips for being successful.
Oh yeah, and I just finished an edit on Holding, my eighth book in my sports series. It will be out in the spring and will wrap up that series.
Did I tell you, I've got other works about other things that haven't sold yet.
Oh yeah, I did tell you.