I confess I feel a little conflicted celebrating the sesquicentennial of Canada! I’ve been reading a graphic novel about Louis Riel, and I think all Canadians can put away any smugness we might feel about being ‘kinder’ to the native Americans. We weren’t. And a hundred and fifty years later, we have a handsome charismatic […]

I recently got back from my first Highlights Foundation workshop. Highlights Foundation is located on a family homestead in eastern Pennsylvania, a small town called Honesdale. For years they’ve been running writing workshops, retreats, that are lauded as some of the best writing intensives around. They’re affiliated with Boyds Mills Press, a publisher that has […]

It’s so funny that my last blog post was wondering about direction! Yesterday I returned from the Highlights Foundation workshop on Graphic Novels. It was their first workshop on the genre and it was absolutely amazing! The Highlights Foundation is the same that has been putting out Highlights Magazine for more than forty years! The […]

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 […]