All around me in the room where I write are things that act as symbols for much that keeps me going when the writing gets tough: who owned my desk before me; writer-friends; illustrators whose art has perfectly extended the stories I’ve written; the determined minds and open hearts of writers and artists who’ve participated…

Short Stories Fourteen stories about the joys and anxieties of sexual anticipation Trade Anthologies “Babysitting Helen”in TakesThistledown Pressand Close UpsRed Deer Press “Norm’s Game”in Up All NightThistledown Press “The Yearbook”in The Horrors Book 1Red Deer Press “The Collapse”in The Horrors Book 2Red Deer Press High School Anthologies “Babysitting Helen”in CrossroadsGage Educationaland At Work: usH. Aschehoug &…

Hard to believe that a week from now I will be meeting with writers in Monrovia! Sponsored by CODE, “Reading Liberia” is a program through which books written by Liberian authors for Liberian children will be produced, and teachers trained how to use them in their classrooms. Thanks to IBBY-Canada who put my name forward to…

Well, it’s hard to believe that a week ago tonight I had not yet set foot in Africa, and already my bag is packed, ready for my trip back to Canada, my heart crowded with people I had not even laid eyes on a week ago. So intense has been my involvement with Liberian writers…

We did so much during the workshop hours, and yet there’s so much more that we didn’t do. I read a few responses to writing exercises while there, and more on the plane coming home – “neighbourhood” and “personal hero” pieces, and moving accounts of experiences participants had when they were five, ten, and fifteen years…

I am well and truly home. I’ve celebrated my daughter’s birthday, visited with my son and his wife, had lunch with my sister and my dad, and settled back into daily routines with my husband and my dog. On the work front, I’ve sent a writer whose manuscript I’m editing comments to congratulate her on…

On Monday I visited three schools in Monrovia, along with Wendy Saul, a professor from Missouri who has been working with teachers here, and Florence (I don’t know her last name), one of the teacher-leaders. Our purpose was to assess how well the classroom teachers we visited were applying what they’d learned about teaching reading,…

Come visit my “Reading Liberia” photo album!

Even as I anticipate heading off with Peter, imminently, on the first winter holiday either of has taken to a warm place, and returning to a basement much transformed during our time away, I feel the need to return once more to moments from my time in Liberia – for my own pleasure in reliving…

Did you know that today is “Wear red” day? And no, I didn’t make that up! Even though as author of Red is Best, maybe I should have. 🙂 Red’s not your colour, you say? You have nothing red in your closet? Why not – just for today – borrow something from your sister, your…

Home again from Liberia, I was contemplating what aspect of my week there I would blog about – what illustrators were learning and doing with Gord Pronk while I worked with writers? how a group decides which “personal heroes” qualify for inclusion in a Liberian anthology? the fun we had with an oral “dialogue” exercise?…

The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy by Jill MacLean A great companion book to The Nine Lives of Travis Keating. And I hear there’s to be a third book about this community of kids living in a Newfoundland outport. Can’t wait. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley I don’t read…

The first books for Liberian children by Liberian authors will soon be out. Imagine how exciting that will be for both the children who will hold those books that reflect their lives and for the writers and illustrators who created them! I first became involved in “Reading Liberia” two years ago, and I’m proud to…

Exciting news! The first page in the history of Liberian children’s literature has now been written! Yes, the first books written and illustrated by Liberian authors and illustrators as part of the Reading Liberia program have now arrived in Monrovia! Yvonne, one of the founders of the program, wrote: Hello Kathy, Guess what! We have…

It’s still just once a week that I login at Yoga Today for an hour of yoga practice – usually on Monday morning, before I get back into my work and think I’m too busy to fit it in. But there’s one instruction that the women leading the online classes offer that stays with me…

June 2011 presented me with the opportunity to work for a third time with Liberian writers through workshops and one-on-one meetings – thanks to CODE (Canada) and to We Care (Liberia). The president of the country, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, expressed an interest in participating in the launch of the first Liberian-authored, Liberian-illustrated children’s books. She…

If you’ve missed Parts 1 & 2 of the keynote I delivered at Packaging Your Imagination last fall, you might want to go back to my earlier posts and start reading it from the beginning. If you’re ready for Part 3, read on! That’s an as yet untitled poem by Watchen Johnson Babalola, a Liberian…

Laptops for Liberia have begun to trickle in. More are needed. Please help spread the word anywhere that a laptop of use to a writer in Liberia might be found. And don’t forget to email me if you have a laptop you’re finished using and would like to donate. Liberian illustrators are now bringing to…

I knew the first time Gii-Hne Russell read his story “A Time to Bathe” during one of the workshops I conducted in Liberia that it would one day become a book Liberian children would love to learn to read for themselves. (That’s the point of the Reading Liberia program I became involved with in 2008.…

The most recent “pin” on my “C is for Causes” Pinterest board links to the website for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. I chose as its cover image a photo from the site that I hope will entice Pinterest browsers to look into it, look around the site, and decide to spread word about the…