Tuesday, April 17, 2012

From the Garden to the Trenches


Hi Folks,
Here's a media release from a conference in May that I'll be attending. I'm very much looking forward to spending time with my fellow Canuck writers and meeting Michael Morpurgo...
Art

Media Release
Conference Announcement
April 10, 2012 – Toronto
Title: “From the Garden to the Trenches: Childhood, Culture and the First World War”
Dates: May 10-12, 2012
Locations: Niagara and Toronto

How did children’s books prepare young people for the Great War?
How did WWI-era children’s culture reflect the experience of war?
How do children’s writers today grapple with the Great War?

Join international speakers and children’s writers in conversation about the First World War in children’s literature and culture.

Children’s writers include Michael Morpurgo on his award-winning WWI drama “War Horse”, and Deborah Ellis (The Breadwinner Trilogy) on children, war and hope. Also featuring: Linda Granfield, Sarah Ellis, Kevin Major, John Wilson, Hugh Brewster, and Art Slade.

Speakers include Paul Stevens on how Winston Churchill's boyhood reading prepared him for the trenches of Flanders; Andrea Mackenzie on L.M. Montgomery's WWI novel “Rilla of Ingleside'; Margaret Higonnet on stories of heroic girls; and Hans Heino Ewers on WWI-era novels for traumatized German children.


For more information and/or interviews contact:
Deirdre Baker
Tel: 416-927-1099
Linda Granfield
416-626-8429
Lissa Paul
Tel: 416-944-1587

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Odd Questions that Authors get...with free hilarious answers: III

AH, more questions that authors get...with perfectly rational answers.

Q: Is it okay if I come to your house and watch you write?
A: Is it okay if I give the FBI your address? By the way I've moved to Antarctica. Turn left when you see the marching penguins and you'll be there. Don't worry about dressing warm.

Q: Are you sensitive to bad reviews?
A: No. No. No. No. No. NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A: Oh, you're a writer? What do you do as a job?
Q: Writing is easy and doesn't take much time and is really more of a hobby, so I spend the rest of my hours as a serial killer. What's your address again?

Q: What is the most fun about being a writer?
A: I get to wear pajamas all day.
A: My only boss is my muse.
A: Playing jokes on people by naming characters after them. Like my friend Cheryl who complained that I never named any characters after her. So I invented Cheryl the Sasquatch for one of my books (true story).

Q: What is the worst thing about being a writer?
A: I wear pajamas all day. Even to readings.
A: My only boss is my muse but she's seven feet tall and smokes cigars and demands 20,000 words a week and bacon. How much bacon is there in the world?
A: A real Sasquatch showed up one day. Her name was Cheryl. She was not happy that I turned her into a comical character. She was very good at MMSA (Mixed Martial Sasquatch Arts). I was not.


Comically yours,
Art