Why is it so difficult to put a price tag on your attendance at an event? I remember a while ago, I got an email from a school in northern Pakistan asking for a skype visit. There was no mention of money, so I assumed, quite correctly that this school expected me to just do […]

It’s always such a blessing to usher in this incredibly special month. What a year it’s been since last Ramadan. Last year I was feeling so shaken with regards to my writing craft and skills, but not my faith, and this year I’ve managed to slough a lot of that trepidation off. I feel more […]

I just finished a mini-tour of four rural schools about an hour outside of Ottawa. Sometimes I think I must look like some sort of exotic iguana rolling my presentation case up to the venerable doors of these tiny schools. I guess if I thought much about it, I’d get nervous, but you get a […]

I think I’ve basically become a bit of an arts educator. It’s not a role I thought would come with the territory of published author and storyteller, but it’s kind of morphed that way and I think I’m good at it. I had developed a program I called Universality in Folktales years ago. I first […]

It is always such an honor to be invited to judge a storytelling festival! This was my second stint as judge at the Kanoon festival and I can’t believe how different an experience it was from the first time! One person came up to me, I think it was an Iranian administrator or something, and […]

Children’s literature is an interesting field! There’s a whole canon of academia that wrangles over the minutiae of an author’s choices. It’s quite fascinating to watch them wrangling actually. I went to the IRSCL conference over the last few days, it began with its opening keynote on Saturday evening and then wrapped up on Wednesday […]

I’m so honored to be presenting at the International Research into Children’s Literature conference this year! The venue for this international academically oriented conference changes every two years. This year it’s in Toronto and they invited me to be on a panel with some other authors. The thing is, even though it’s tempting to just […]

It happened again. The freeze! I was giving the keynote at the SCBWI Canada east conference in Montreal and the audience was completely motionless, completely silent, and it was unnerving a bit. It’s ideal, don’t get me wrong. It means they’re intently listening, but it’s kind of weird. Again I had that feeling that I […]

I’m giving a keynote address this Saturday at the SCBWI Canada east conference in Montreal, and my topic is creativity and the creative process, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Whenever I am to do something like this, I always think of the audience. What do they need to hear? What would I […]

Just got back from three days presenting in Kingston, Ontario, and I’m feeling a good kind of tired. It’s the kind of tired when you know you’ve given it your all, and you have high hopes that you changed a few minds and did some good. I visited six schools, in three days, did eight […]