and I’m ready to get back to labouring! I think I’ll cook some nice healthy vegetables! They were in short supply on Saturday. Somehow, in planning the menu for our Eid party I had forgotten a salad. One of my daughters scolded me for it. I told her there was spinach curry and banjaan (an […]

A few years ago when Jon Stewart was hosting the Academy awards, the African American group that won for best song/score started jumping around at the announcement. Up till that point, Jon was uncharacteristically subdued and not his usual irreverent self. But at this show of raw emotion, he perked up and said something about how […]

When the animated movie Despicable Me came out, I watched it on a teeny tiny video screen on the back of an airplane seat and still absolutely loved it. The premise is about an evil genius who becomes good and voiced by Steve Carell, it’s really worth watching! The funny thing was that when the […]

There’s only been one other time that I’ve been as nervous as I was before the Golden Kite speech, and that was just before giving the plenary speech at the Danish IBBY Congress. Actually, that moment was more intense–at least this time I wasn’t going to say anything controversial. (I’d already done that on Friday.) […]

I only had to do one ‘presentation’ at the conference and it was last Friday. Nevertheless, I was pretty nervous. Writing about other cultures is a pretty contentious issue, especially with my approach to it. It was funny, because as I was preparing for the trip on Wednesday evening (I had to leave at 6 […]

It feels like a big fluffy blanket of serenity has drifted down on me and my household. This seems to happen every Ramadan and the problem with that is that it really makes it hard to take anything else, world squabbles over a debt crisis, and attending an impending SCBWI convention, very seriously. In the […]

The SCBWI convention is coming up! In a little more than a week I’ll be on my way to Los Angeles to what could arguably be one of the biggest opportunities of my career. But then with the exception of Susan Boyle, I don’t actually think you have only one chance to impress. And in […]

Today I didn’t feel like doing anything. So I didn’t. Except for working on the sequel–yeah! It’s coming along! And I emptied the dishwasher. And I’m making some supper–chicken chow mein. And later I’ll probably water the garden since it’s the hottest day of the year. Oh… And blog. Believe it or not, that’s actually […]

At the Saskatchewan Festival of Words, we were being housed at Temple Mineral Spa which had renowned healing waters. They told us to bring our bathing suits. Yeah right! But the lady I was corresponding with was adamant. ‘Bring your bathing suit, you’ll want to partake in the healing waters!’ So I packed a spare […]

I knew a guy once who worked years to get his first book published in the children’s market. He was on a board I frequented. The first school visit he did, I think he showed up in jeans and bragged to the kids that he could work in his pyjamas. I think he only ever […]