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I am your local author.

 

To celebrate Family Literacy Day 0n Saturday January 24, 10:30 to 11:30 I will read from my some of my favourite picture books at Tansley Woods Library, 1996 Itabashi Way in Burlington.

When I first began writing middle grade and young adult novels, I dreaded being labeled with those words. I wanted to be a best selling international writer not the one that needed the neighbor’s pity purchase. Hard to be avoided though, every time a reporter said something about me in the Burlington Post or the Hamilton Spectator, the header included those two words, Local Author.

 

At least reporters said things about me and that ground roots support cleared bookshelves at the local stores.

 

My last novel Dying to Go Viral, sold close to 50,000 copies in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany. In Canada it sold,1,200. Maybe they were all to my neighbors, who knows. Still maybe I am less of that local hero than I used to be.

 

But now, older and wiser, I cherish a sense of community. That is why I will be reading to a young audience who have nothing to do with what I write. I won’t wear a t-shirt with the covers of my book on, which I used to do at the beginning of my career. I certainly won’t bring books to sell, show or tell about.

 

I  will just curl up in a chair at my favourite library and read the picture books I love to the children who live in my neighborhood.

 

Spoiler alert,at the top are my glowing grandchildren who hold the books I will read : Linda Bailey’s Stanley at Sea, Rebecca Bender’s Giraffe and Bird, and Patricia Storm’s The Pirate and the Penguin.  Rebecca lives in Burlington, Patricia used to live here and Linda lives in Vancouver which is just a short flight away.  Amazing fresh and local talent.

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