Book Launch Love

It's been a busy month, kicked off with a visit to two schools during their fabulous Readers' Retreat event. What's that, you ask? Well, the gist of it is that participating students spend most of the day hanging out together in the library, reading. There's more to it—the librarian may invite a guest author (like moi) to speak, or schedule some other activity—but basically it's a day of free reading. How great is that??

So thanks very much to the students of East Northumberland District High School and Campbellford District High School (and their teacher-librarians!) for taking time out of their busy reading schedule to listen to me yammer on, for their interesting and intelligent questions and comments, and for sharing some of their favourite authors with me. So many books, so little time...

Hard on the heels of the Readers' Retreats was my book launch, which was turned out to be a lovely party disguised as a book reading. I did read, of course, and sell books until my signature turned into a barely legible scrawl, but having some live music (thank you, Chester Babcock!!) made all the difference. (That's me taking a break from signing—looks like two books to go. And yes, since you ask, I did make that sweater myself!) I was really touched by the people who trekked down from out of town, especially my husband's cousin Ruth, who I had never met. Add to that the news that our new local indie bookstore now has a distributor who can stock in Drawn Away, and a couple more nice reviews, and I feel this new book is off to a good start!

Now I have a Limelights title to shepherd through the publishing cycle; I received Orca's author questionnaire last week and realized I had all but forgotten that there is another book in the works. So next up: My Big Break.

-photo credit: Jill Walker