A Peek at 3 Pages of My 2026 Calendar

JANUARY

Many things that make my life enjoyable start up again this month, after the ‘quiet’ month of December: Just Sing choir practices, a new fitness class, and various duties as president of CANSCAIP. I plan to attend CANSCAIP’s Online Writing Retreat on the 10th and a Packaging Your Imagination conference planning meeting on the 11th, and to lead a monthly membership meeting on the 14th, and a board meeting on the 31st. I’ll also be emceeing and presenting at CANSCAIP’s Book Tastings at the OLA Super Conference on the 29th. (Thanks to the Ontario Library Association for having us back!)

The holiday I’ve taken from my writing while visiting with family and tending to house-related business has me now primed for a deep dive back into revising a picture book I’ve been working on and a collection of adult poems. I look forward to working with the helpful and encouraging feedback I’ve received from my usual writing group that consists of Nan Forler, Heather Smith and me, and a new connection I’ve made with poet Branka Petrovic.

AUGUST

Every two years IBBY (the International Board on Books for Young People) holds a conference in one of its chapter countries. Having so thoroughly enjoyed the excitement and camaraderie of the IBBY Congress in Athens in 2018, I immediately signed up when registration for the 2026 IBBY Congress in Ottawa opened up. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to be in a room full of children’s book writers and illustrators from around the world, all of us daring to believe in the capacity of children’s books to build bridges, as did IBBY’s founder.

Many stimulating sessions and informal conversations will take place in between, among speakers and attendees from across Canada and well beyond.

SEPTEMBER

Check out the Bibliography page of my website and you’ll discover that the past six years have seen the publication of seven picture books and one adult poem. One book features the woman who founded IBBY, Jella Lepman; one is about an outstanding Canadian scientist, Anne Innis Dagg, and another a world-renowned Canadian artist, Maud Lewis. CV2 will publish my second adult poem “After the Phone Call” sometime this year, in an issue yet to be determined. You might be surprised at how encouraging that one Yes — among the 50+ Nos I received in response to poetry submissions last year — has been.

Illustration by Mark Hoffman

If you were to think that by now I must be getting a bit blasé about having a new book coming out, you would be mistaken. I’m incredibly excited that Groundwood, a publisher I’ve been submitting to since the early 1980s, will, on September 1, 2026, be releasing an “Edward Lear meets Greta Thunberg” picture book. Title and cover reveal to come, closer to pub date. If you’d like to be among the first to see it, please subscribe to my blog!

Wishing you many happy moments in 2026!