Time for a Novel Round-up!

maryloudriedger

Jul 3

This lovely photo of my novel appeared on the Library of A Misfit Instagram page

I'm hoping summer will provide a bit of a break from the busyness of the author part of my life.

But I find if I wait too long to do updates about what's going on with my novels I forget things. Collecting information in a post like this is helpful.

So here's what's new as of July 3.

Photo by Aaron Epp for The Canadian Mennonite

I was very pleased when Aaron Epp who is a writer for The Canadian Mennonite Magazine called and said he would like to do a story about my new book Sixties Girl.

Aaron was so easy to talk to. He asked me about many of my other writing endeavours besides my novels and wrote a great article.

Thanks so much, Aaron. You can read the article Aaron wrote here.

Photo by Arlene Braun

People are sending me all these great photos of Sixties Girl.

My friend Arlene took this one at her cottage. She said there was a hummingbird who kept coming to the feeder and looking down at my novel as it drank from it. She tried to get a photo of the bird but of course, it would always flit off just as she snapped the picture.

My brother-in-law Harvey posed for this photo outside the public library in the James Bay area of Victoria just to show me my book was on the shelves there.

I also got a message from a friend that she had taken Sixties Girl out of the Ottawa library.

When I looked this morning all the copies of Sixties Girl had been checked out of the Winnipeg Public Library.

I found a website that shows you where your books are in different libraries in North America and right now Lost on the Prairie is in 68 libraries across Canada and the United States.

Lost on the Prairie is the last book listed

I had to smile when I went to visit my aunt in her Lindenwoods Seniors Home and stepped on the elevator there and saw that Grant Thiessen who is the librarian for the apartment block had featured Lost on the Prairie on a list of recommended books.

I am very grateful to all the libraries that are making my novels available to the reading public.

Look at this Little Free Library that is a replica of the house behind it.

My brother Ken bought copies of Sixties Girl and distributed them to Little Free Libraries all over James Bay in Victoria. My brother-in-law Harvey made a video of Ken 'launching' my book in his little corner of the world.

Image from the Book Cover Lover on Instagram

I LOVE getting photos of my novels with people who are reading them or places they are being read.

Last Saturday I did an author event at The Public in Steinbach with my friends and fellow authors Mitch Toews and Andrew Unger. There was a great turnout and people asked interesting questions about our theme of writing with Steinbach as a setting in our books.

One woman came up and had a list of things she had written down that she wanted to ask me about my novels. Loved that!

I really enjoyed my May visits to three different school classes that had read Lost on the Prairie. I was especially delighted with all the wonderful artwork Kristy DeFehr's class at the Winnipeg Mennonite Elementary School's Bedson Campus had done.

I put out a June issue of my author newsletter and you can read it here. I talk about the lovely review Betty Koop did of Sixties Girl in the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society newspaper Heritage Posting and the beautiful piece of art my friend Debbie Jackson created for the novel.

I've written before about the Steinbach literary tour I took with Andrew Unger.

I was thrilled he included me on the list of Steinbach authors he included on the tour. He chose to stop at this waterway to talk about my books. Steinbach is the German translation of Stoney Brook the name of this waterway. I call the town in my book Rocky Creek a fictional version of Steinbach.

Art piece my friend Debbie Jackson did about Sixties Girl

Thanks for following along as I keep a record of what's happening with my novels. It gets a little overwhelming sometimes and sitting down and organizing and writing about it here helps me focus on all the good things that are happening and worry less about how sales are going or all the things I'll need to do going forward to make sure my publishers' confidence in me is rewarded.

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