My house has turned into a staging area for the big HallowEEN party this Friday. We can’t move for prizes, treats, and—most recently—the bottles of Eenberry bevies crowding our table.
Do you realize how difficult it is to procure Eenberry nectar these days?
For those of you who just can’t hold out until the official release party of Kendra Kandlestar and the Crack in Kazah (it’s THIS Friday, October 28th), then you can check out the video preview for the book, freshly posted on youtube. Just click here and enjoy!
There’s a story somewhere in this photo. I’m just not sure what it is yet. Maybe YOU can come up with it.
We spent Sunday in the pumpkin patch and the corn maze. It was good ol’ hillbilly fun—just like when I grew up. Well, except we didn’t have to butcher anything on Sunday (well, to be honest, when I was kid I always conveniently avoided “chicken-chop” day).
We solved the corn maze all too easily, but were able to pick out some gorgeous pumpkins. And I did my best to avoid the pumpkin and corn mascots. Talking and dancing food. I just don’t get. (Yes, I know I have talking pumpkins in Kendra Kandlestar, but they were never meant to be eaten, whereas these mascots are basically advertising how delicious they will be. STRANGE).
Yes, we geeked it up in my CWC class yesterday, playing “I am Jedi.” It’s a roleplaying game where each student creates a Jedi character who has crash-landed onto a mysterious planet while trying to escape Order 66. Our game included plenty of costumes and lightsabers, R2D2 himself, and, of course, Star Wars theme music.
After the activity, each student writes a stories from his or her perspective. Check out the photos, and the cool Jedi identities my students created . . .
Bustling around this morning preparing for a full day of creative writing classes, I turned around at one point to see what had become of our kitchen table. It looked so amusing, I had to take this photo:
I guess most people’s tables look a little less cluttered and eclectic. Then again, most people don’t spend their Saturdays teaching classes such as “Just Like Leo” (a class on the creativity of Leonardo da Vinci), “I am Jedi” (a roleplaying game to inspire a writing activity) or “Seeing Green.”
This last class is one Marcie invented to teach to the kids in her acting class based on The Wizard of Oz. They will be making some pretty cool emerald-coloured spectacles (you can spot a prototype in the photo).
Last week I did a school tour of the schools in the south Okanagan along with fellow authors kc dyer, James McCann and Kallie George. It was all part of a great program sponsored by Raise-A-Reader, in which authors are sponsored to go into the schools, deliver a presentation, and leave behind a copy of one of their books for each and every kid.
That meant over 2,000 kids ended up with their very own autographed book. The days were frantic, going from class to class and signing all those books, but it was so great to see each of these kids with their very own book. Of course, it meant something special to them, since they had just met the author of said book. And I can prove it was special, because in one of the classrooms, I happened upon this illustration:
I’m sure Kallie or James or kc inspired the students to become great novelists. I, on the other hand, inspired the children to draw me be attacked by a variety of chicken creatures.
A big THANK YOU to Yasmin John-Thorpe who helped arrange this tour (and an additional thank you to her because she gave me this bottle of home-made Caribbean sauce that is so hot that it requires you to put a piece of cling film between it and the metal lid—otherwise the sauce eats through it). Boy do I love my hot sauce (see kids, there’s something I DO love).
No, this isn’t the Land of Een. This was the scene outside my window seat at Starbucks this morning. Yes. The rabbit was with the dog. I’m not sure who was the boss, but the dog was the one on the leash. Maybe Planet of the Apes got it wrong and it’s not the monkeys we have to worry about.
But origami is not:
Today I had the wonderful experience of having breakfast with my podcast partner James McCann and Tom Angleberger, the author of The Origami Yoda books.
Tom is in my backyard to celebrate his new book Darth Paper Strikes Back and since we’ve previously connected with Tom to interview him for Authors Like Us, we seized the opportunity to geek it up over pancakes and bacon.
Little did I know that the wise and all-knowing Tom was going to put us to work, teaching James and I how to construct our very own origami Darth Papers. Tom is so effervescent that he actually soon had the waitress and the patrons in the neigbouring booth clamoring to see what was going on.
I have to say that my Darth Paper looks more like he lost a fight with a paper towel. But on the plus side, I was able to make the folds without lighting the restaurant on fire (yes, I am that clumsy; it could happen).
Here’s a photo of the three of us. Look closely and you will see the groovy retro Star Wars record tote box that Tom uses to house all of his origami supplies.
Look, there’s no two ways about it. If you ever get a chance to attend one of Tom’s events—then do it! He’s a wonderful person and his love for origami (and Star Wars) simply oozes out of him.
He’s appearing TODAY for Kidsbooks in Vancouver. Snap up those last tickets and go. And may the Force be with you. Always.
Between the Cracks of Here and There 