Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve loved reading books for longer than I can remember. As an adult I started to wonder if I would like writing books too. I wondered if I could write something that people who didn’t know me would enjoy reading. (I was almost 30 when I decided to give it a try. That was a long time and many books ago!

Not especially. I wrote stories in school, but not after school or on weekends, like some kids do. And I certainly didn’t think about being a writer when I grew up. But I did love to read, and I think all the books I was reading over many years were turning me into a writer, long before I knew it.

Stories about families, about real people, or at least people that felt real to me reading about them. Some of the books I loved are:

• the books about Beezus and Henry and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
• the Little House on the Prairie series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• the books about the Moffatt family by Eleanor Estes
• the Swallows & Amazons books by Arthur Ransome.

In grade four, I liked doing novel studies of Junket, The Family Under the Bridge, The Cave, and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

One of my all time favourite children’s books was, and still is Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey.

The first book I took ever took out of the public library with my very first library card was Saturday Walk by Ethel Wright.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, most girls were looking at pretty limited options: nurse, teacher, or secretary. I liked school, so I wanted to be a teacher.

I taught elementary school in Etobicoke (as far west as you can go in Toronto before you hit Mississauga) for five years.

I also wanted to be a mom and was lucky enough to have two wonderful kids (who are now so grown up they are almost older than I am).

I do my best to write full-time, but it’s not easy to make a living in Canada by writing alone. I’ve been lucky to be able to do things related to writing to make up what I need. I’ve worked as an editor, led writing workshops for adults and for children, conducted author visits at schools and libraries, spoken at conferences, taught writing classes, served as Writer-in-Residence for public libraries in East York, Toronto, Kitchener, Vaughan, and Wellington County, and was a Writer-In-Electronic-Residence for a while too. I still enjoy doing some of these things, but I’m also always happy to get back to my writing!

Meeting and hanging out with other authors is one of the great pleasures of being one. I’ve hiked up a mountain in B.C. with Ainslie Manson and walked a beach in Connecticut with Lena Coakley. I’ve done a crossword puzzle in Toronto with Julie Lawson and a jigsaw puzzle with Ting Xing Ye in Prince Edward Island. I’ve swum in Georgian Bay with Marie-Louise Gay and cross-country skied along the Humber River with Anne Laurel Carter.

I’ve enjoyed coffee with Robert Munsch and Bev Brenna in Toronto. I’ve had breakfast and sung silly songs with New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy at a conference in the States, traded books and had lunch with Budge Wilson on the south shore of Nova Scotia, and enjoyed dinner and conversation with Philip Pullman at his home in Oxford, England. I’ve partied with Sharon Jennings, Claire Mackay, Hadley Dyer, Kevin Major, and Barbara Reid. I’ve met lots of other Canadian authors at CANSCAIP meetings and at readings and conferences across the country.

A long time ago, when I was practically a new author, I travelled to England with Jean Little, Monica Hughes, and Camilla Gryski. The Canadian Children's Book Centre sent us there as part of an exchange of Canadian and British authors. (American writer, Katherine Paterson, came with us, too, as Jean Little’s “guide dog”.)  When the British authors came to Canada, they had dinner at my house. Imagine – Phillipa Pearce, Jan Mark, Jill Paton Walsh, and John Rowe Townsend all in my living room at the same time!

Years later, I met Peter Gzowski, a famous Canadian broadcaster and an author of books and articles for adults, at the Stratford Book Festival. He was a strong supporter of literacy programs for adults, so I gave him a copy of my book, King of the Castle, about a school caretaker learning to read. He phoned me a month or two later, then wrote a column about our meeting in what was to be his final ‘Gzowski’s People’ column for the Globe & Mail.

The most famous writer I ever met? J.K Rowling. I didn't actually meet her face-to-face, but we had lunch in the same room at an event organized by the Toronto Public Library.

I’ll let you figure it out. Matthew (inspiration for Big Or Little?) was born in 1975. Kelly (inspiration for Red Is Best and “Babysitting Helen” was born in 1978.

I also have two stepdaughters born in 1967 and 1968 and six grandchildren born in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2002, 2003 and 2012.

Old enough that in 2017 I officially became a “senior citizen”!

Yes. I have a golden doodle named Georgia. She inspired The Dog Who Wanted To Fly.

No. I’m lucky to have a sister who creates websites as part of her business. I write what goes on it but she and her team do the rest of what’s needed to maintain it and keep it up-to-date.

Am I luckier to have Janet Barclay as a sister or as a web designer? Hard to say! But I’d recommend her highly for either position! 😉

Somewhere quiet. No music. The rhythm interferes with my ability to hear the rhythm of my sentences. No voices except the voices of my characters.