Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s writers! Today’s guest: Medea Kalantar. Take it away, Medea! I was born in Georgia, USSR and immigrated to Canada when I was four years old. I lived in Toronto, Ontario for the most part of my life. I’ve been married to my husband Esfandiar for over 28 years and we have two grown children, Shanaz and Jean-Diar who are both married now. Aside…

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Announcements! Happy World Environment Day! Do something good for planet today – just remember to wash you hands and wear your mask. The giveaway ends in ONE WEEK. Get those entries in! And if you’d like a signed bookplate for your copy of The Boreal Forest, make sure to contact me by June 12. A Boreal Bouquet of Conservation Organizations Last week we talked about some of the reasons that the boreal forest matters –…

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Announcements! Reminder that both the giveaway and the free signed bookplate offer expire June 12, so if you haven’t taken advantage of those yet, make sure you do. And now, on to this week’s instalment of Forest Friday! What is a Forest For? When I was writing The Boreal Forest, one of my goals was to shine some light on ecological processes – by showing how a forest works, I could hopefully show what a…

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Welcome to Teach Write! This column draws on my 20 years’ experience teaching writing to kids, university students, and adult learners. It includes ideas and exercises that teachers and students can use in the classroom, and creative writers can use to level up their process. For the last few months, we’ve been talking about the first two things we must do before we sit down to write: Identify our audience Who are we writing for?…

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I was supposed to be prepping for the Nova Scotia leg of my book tour this week, but, well, that’s not happening. And that’s OK, because quite frankly, the idea of traveling right now is just a little too scary. Possibly because Tech Support (who has an essential medical job that requires him to travel) recently returned from Nova Scotia and between the apocalyptic emptiness of the airport and the fact that it was basically…

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Welcome to STEMinism Sunday! As a former woman in science, I have a deep and enduring interest in the experiences and representation of women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). This series will be an opportunity for me – and you – to learn more about these intellectual badasses. A special treat today: an interview with illustrator June Steube! June’s specialty is science and nature illustration, and she’s worked for clients as diverse…

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Announcements! Have you entered the Rafflecopter giveaway for your chance to win the boreal forest prize pack? If not, scroll down to do so, and for a peak at the prizes. Got a copy of The Boreal Forest and wish you could have it autographed? Well, you can, in a totally contact-and-COVID-free way. Drop me a note and I will mail you a free autographed bookplate for every copy of the book you purchase before June…

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Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s writers! Today’s guest: Farida Mizra. Take it away, Farida! My memories of growing up in pre-digital South East Asia are rich with images of living in extended families, sharing lives and loves with relatives, friends and neighbours and enjoying lifestyles not driven by speed and material wants, but of leisure and simplicity. There are also cringing memories involving injustices born out of prioritizing…

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Today, on Forest Friday, we’re going to take a deeper dive behind the scenes into the process of revision. I’m going to share every draft of the first scene in The Boreal Forest (pages 8-9), and explain how the scene evolved from draft to draft. Since we’re looking at the critical thinking and analysis that goes into writing, this post will be helpful for teachers, as well as my fellow writers. It should also give…

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Welcome to Mad Science Mondays, where we talk about depictions of science in movies, TV shows, books, and the media. We dissect the good, the bad, the comical and the outright irresponsible. Who says learning about science can’t be fun? Happy Star Wars Day, and welcome to my post about the science of this iconic series. Because my scientific expertise is strictly terrestrial, and because I am one of about three people on this planet…

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