I’ve known many amazing people in my life that have both been adopted, or adopted children themselves.

Jenna wrote about her family’s experiences earlier, and recently the author of Labours of Love got in touch with us to let us know about her inspiring new project.

With the publishing of Labours of Love: Canadians Talk About Adoption, I have begun a new journey in the Canadian adoption community. The numbers of children in Canada’s foster care system is about 100,000 and rising daily. Over 25,000 of these kids are currently available for adoption, ranging in ages from infants to teens. This seems so unnecessary to me, especially while the media pays an inordinate amount of attention to celebrity and international adoption.

I have decided to focus my efforts on domestic adoption in Canada , and am getting involved with the Adoption Council of Canada to assist in helping improve those statistics. It will take education, awareness, funding, and getting people who have been personally touched by adoption, and are passionate about the issue, to help us. These kids are our future, and if they are not given loving permanent homes, and families to rely on, they will ‘age out’ of the system, and thus will have less chances of a successful and happy future.

Labours of Love profiles 20 adoptive families from across the country, as well as adoption professionals, who for years have been advocating for change in Ontarios and Canadas adoption system. Their voices have lent themselves to a new report, Raising Expectations, that was released just this past August. It is the result of a year-long study ordered by the McGuinty government to study infertility and adoption ( as separate issues) in Ontario, with a view to accessibility and affordability. The 240 page document is incredibly detailed and thorough, and the recommendations on the adoption side are excellent!

It remains to be seen whether the government acts – and when.

In the meantime these kids are waiting , and we are going to act by holding the first annual 5k AdoptWalk in Port Credit, Ontario, this Sunday October 18, 2009. Going forward in 2010, this will be a national event to be held in every province on the same weekend. This year the funds raised will be divided between the Adoption Council of Canada and The Adoption Council of Ontario, all in efforts to help the adoption community and Canada’s Waiting Children .

We’d love to see you there, or have your support in donating to the walk! It will only take a little from all of us to help find these children what they desperately need – and deserve – a forever family.

Please think about it.

For more info see www.adoption.on.ca or be in touch with me at www.laboursoflove.ca

Deborah.

Do you plan on attending? Send us your photos and your own adoption stories

An aside. In retrospect, my talk to get those kids into university should have pointed out that marketing and sales presentations requires a BA and loads of fun.

My point being that travel is necessary to meet people and to learn new and interesting things. My boss, Beth Bruder, just came back from travelling to Scotland to see her grandmother’s home. She, like I learned from CBC, is one of the 1 in 10 people who is a descendant of a Home Child. Those young people came to Canada as cheap labour. You can see the whole story atcbc news It’s somewhere near the second marker. Or just read it here. If you can point out which one is Beth you might get a prize. Or not

This brings up some interesting points about history. I knew little about this, and then I thought it made an interesting parallel to my own mother’s education in one of Ontario’s residential schools, refered to by my aunts and uncles as The Mush Hole. Something, that the family almost never talks about. But books should expose our national myths and hold them to a light so that we don’t continue to make mistakes. Then we might be honest enough about our past to be honest and truthful about our shared future.Dundurn has several books on the topic of home children. They’ve educated me and I find, though I am writing on my company’s blog, that they have been honest and good books.

Notably, Mary Janeway by Mary Petit, offers a personal narrative that is vivid.

The Golden Bridge by Marjorie Kohli, is a thoroughly documented examination of the “waifs and strays” removed from the U.K. and Ireland.

The Little Immigrants by Kenneth Bagnell is a look at the 100,000 farm labours who aided Canada’s growth after Confederation.

Quarriers Story by Anna Magnuson, is about Glasgow shoemaker William Quarrier who founded an organization that offered help to the thousands of desperate, poverty-stricken children in Glasgow’s infamous slums.

These stories help define people, our Canadian history, and may help us in the future if we are smart enough to learn from them. The residential school experience is one that is not far removed. Something that Canada has not been able to talk about, but a story that may come to light one day. Many stories like it are finding places.

Last year I had the chance to see my father’s home in St. Vincent, for the first time. I met a brother I didn’t know, my godfather, and saw the farm where my father was born. That kind of trip, a trip home, is one that we should all have the privelege of making.

Some of my favourite reviews come from kids. I love it how they whole-heartedly embrace a book and the characters within it.  This Saturday sees the release of Chris Rutkowski’s new UFO book and first children’s book  I Saw it Too! Chris received an early thumbs up from 10 year-old who lives in his neighbourhood. Here’s what she had to say:

Ben Guyatt, the author of Billy Green Saves the Day, received a very interesting email which happened to be from a descendant of Billy Green.  Here’s the lovely email.

Dear Ben,
I just finished reading “Billy Green Saves the Day” and enjoyed it very much; I felt like I was there.  I have a particular interest because I recently got involved in my family’s genealogy and the Samuel Green family from New Jersey is part of my family tree.  Both Adam and William, his brother, were Loyalists and moved away; Adam to Stoney Creek, ON and William to western Pennsylvania.  Billy was named after his Uncle William.  My great grandmother on my father’s side is descended from William Green.  I was born in Warren, PA but for the past 30+ yrs. have lived in Oshawa, ON.  Earlier this year I stopped in Stoney Creek and found the Adam Green homestead, however, no one was home at the time.  I plan to go back soon and visit some of the historic sites.
Thank you very much for that little bit of history.
Jeanne Searle

And finally over a year ago we published Don Easton’s third mystery novel featuring the rule-bending Jack Taggart. Due to unfortunate circumstances, a review for Angel in the Full Moon that was to run in the RCMP Quarterly never ran. Well, we now have it here for you.

“RCMP Cpl. Jack Taggart and the Organized Crime Unit are back in Don Easton’s latest Jack Taggart Mystery, Angel in the Full Moon.  In his first two novels Easton challenged his readers to resolve whether being on the “right” side of the law made a character “good” and likewise, if being on the “wrong” side of the law made a character “bad”; there was little room for black and white distinctions.  Unlike those first two novels, in Angel in the Full Moon there is black and white.  The bad guys are out-and-out bad and the good guys are venerable.

Partners Jack Taggart and Laura Secord set out to investigate an unknown crime based on a tip.  While they don’t know what they’re getting into, they know it is big.  The crime is human trafficking and the story heart-wrenching.  Easton sets the tone of the novel early by introducing the readers to the victims first, humanizing them and making it difficult for the reader not to be drawn in and filled with compassion.

In all Easton’s books it is difficult to determine what of his story line is based on his life experiences as an undercover RCMP, and what is fictional creation.  Angel in the Full Moon feels from the beginning too real to be a work of fiction.  Easton wrote with emotion the reader can feel emanate off the pages.  The knowledge that the story is closer to reality than fiction makes parts of it a tough story to swallow.

As with Above Ground Easton does a splendid job of intensifying his characters without taking away from the story.  His primary characters are dynamic throughout the Jack Taggart Mystery series and throughout each individual novel.  And as he did in Above Ground, Easton has escaladed some of his secondary characters to a level that makes one wonder what role they will play in the fourth novel.

Above Ground did not offer as much shock value as Loose Ends did but Angel in the Full Moon arguably offered more.  The news stories on human trafficking seem to be swept under the rug as though they are not society’s concern.  Don Easton lifts the rug and airs it out for all to see.  He reminds us that human trafficking often involves young girls, sex crimes, and crimes against human rights.  It is sickening to think that members of society support such crimes.

I commend Mr. Easton for the personal experiences he brought to this latest book.  I admire his honesty and offer my sympathy for what he has had to endure both on the job and in his personal life.  I’d like to thank Mr. Easton for sharing a part of himself with the reader as it truly made the novel meaningful for me.  As for those out there who have yet to read the novel, even if it isn’t your style or genre, read it to remind yourself of what a portion of society goes through every day.”
- Erin Chatwell

And thus ends my last blog posting. I’m saying farewell to Dundurn today.  I’ve had a lot of fun keeping you updated on our activities.  Thanks for reading about my adventures as a publicist here at Dundurn. Best wishes to you all! And make sure you keep tuning in for more updates and publishing stories from Ashleigh and Jeffrey.

Happy Reading!

Ours is intended to be a “trade” book, written for a popular audience. Therefore, we assume the reader is interested in, but knows almost nothing about caribou in the first few pages. But it isn’t long before we’re into the thick of it, so that if you stay with us to the very end, you will know a lot.

We thought about the book quite a bit before we put pen to paper, but the actual writing took less that six months—based on personal experience and published literature, reports etc. We also invited a number of northerners in particular to contribute written pieces that we cited but did not simply edit or reprint verbatim. A final section does include edited pieces by some of the leading North American caribou experts regarding migratory tundra, boreal forest, and mountain caribou.

The main body of our book, however, is not a dispassionate scientific account, but enjoys a first-person “voice” with a point of view, namely the combined voice of Justina and me. Therefore, even though we parceled out the writing according to our respective areas of expertise, this was a true “collaboration,” where both of us had to agree with everything that was said. I was elected to provide the overall editorial style and tone, I knew more about migratory tundra caribou and the Aboriginal situation north of sixty, while Justina knew more about boreal forest caribou and brought most of the science to the project. She also headed up the considerable work on forty or so maps.

This was the first book I’ve written “on a computer,” which was challenging for me. I learned a lot, especially from my wife Sherry, who is much more comfortable with the technology than I am. I write well at home or in any isolated situation, and when I focus, I really focus—literally nothing can distract me from the task at hand. I also write quite quickly compared to other authors I know, but I need to edit and re-edit many times for improvement, so the editing process takes me about twice as long as drafting the original text.

The best advice I’ve received regarding writing came from Abraham Lincoln, who apologized to a friend for such a long letter because Abe didn’t take the time to write a short one. I like clear, short, expressive sentences, and can’t stand formal, long-winded, or self-important modes of expression riddled with jargon. Aldo Leopold is my hero of compelling writing, for both style and content. His Sand County Almanac (1949) still stands today as the most influential conservation book ever written, and my copy is literally falling apart from many, many readings. I also love Shakespeare, and had read everything he wrote, including the Sonnets, by the time I was sixteen.

 My books are always inspired by a deep personal commitment to the natural world, especially by places, animals, and people I have experienced first hand. I’m always interested in criticism, and usually take it quite seriously (I write “please improve” on everything I circulate for comment). However, I do find general levels of literacy, especially regarding basic grammar and spelling even among those with stellar university educations, to be depressing. I’m a very expensive copy-editor, but I continue to involuntarily serve that purpose, because I just can’t stand to watch sloppy writing glide by out into the public sphere. Text messaging, with all those cutesy symbols and illiterate abbreviations, drives me nuts.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no time for discretionary reading at work, and can’t manage even a small fraction of the “business-oriented’ material put in front of me everyday. Get it on one page, with bold sub-headings and bullet points, or I’m not likely to read it at all. As I get older, however, my discretionary, before-sleep reading has become more and more eclectic, as I desperately try to read anything but conservation books. Sherry puts me on to things I never would have read without her recommendation.

 I was determined that Wintergreen (1999) would be my last book, and it is still the one I enjoyed writing most. Writing Caribou and the North was a personal commitment I made to a long-time friend, Glen Davis, who died while we were writing it, so there was extra inspiration to get it done… for Glen. Right now, I’m not sure I have another book in me, but I’ve said that before!

Bicycling to work is exhilariting and frightening. And unfortunately, the narrow path along Church, with its rush hour traffic, is extremely dangerous. But every morning I’ll bike to work and hear the bells on my late days. And, on Monday I was greeted with the familiar site of a brand new reading bench. I can only ascertain that maybe the bench was taken away over the busker weekend to avoid unruly mimes hanging out in front of our respectable building.

It was great because I had a lot thinking to do. Like the hour and a half it took me to write a 30 word advertisement about our soon to be released book, The Reluctant Twitcher. My first ad copy had a glaring mistake. You know what, I’ll share it.

“Richard Pope, a relatively normal bird watcher, morphs into a ‘twitcher’ in his attempt to record 300 birds in Ontario in a calendar year; supported by an array of exceptional colour illustrations.”

Although wary of superlatives, I like them in advertising. And I had to laugh at that ad because I don’t think Mr. Pope is supported by illustrations, even if I haven’t met him. He probably stands well on his own.

Also, I was feeling a bit glum because as a new employee you’re always trying to find a task that makes you indespensible. I hope other new employees and fans of publishing read this because I know a lot of new employees feel that way. Most of my tasks are helping out marketing and publicity.

Did you know we put out over 90 books in the last year? So, I do a bit of publicity, marketing details, and mailings. That’s great for a new employee because I’d rather do a lot of many things than a little of one thing. But then again there is no one thing that I can spend a lot of time on. And that is publishing as I’m quickly learning. So, I’m left searching for the one thing that I excel in – like vlookup in excel – and juggling a lot of different details.

This week’s funday was a little research on special sales for Wolfe Island and publicity for Ghosts. Ghosts by Palmisano is a real life investigation into a haunted mansion in Mississauga. Palmisano also happens to be a real cool guy. He came in and was happy to talk about some of his interesting investigations. But that publicity research led me to some interesting paranormal sites, like:

www.ghostvillage.com - They ran an excerpt on our title The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories

www.hpiparnormal.net – Colombo and Molto, I believe, are part of this group

www.anomalist.com – Where a Yeti was filmed in Poland!

and an interesting paranormal writer, chasing after an acid spewing Mongolian death worm, Paul Roberts at www.sacramentopress.com/user/PaulDaleRoberts

Have a great long weekend!

Alan Butcher, author of Unlikely Paradise

When I was on holiday I visited Frances Gage, an accomplished Canadian sculptor and the subject of a new biography Unlikely Paradise: The Life of Frances Gage by Alan Butcher. Alan astutely knew when he met Frances some years ago that her life and works needed to be recorded. He had the foresight but also the talent to make this biography a reality. According to both Frances and Alan the process was a long one but ultimately led to a wonderful book.

I was honoured to be invited into her studio and have just a tiny glimpse of Frances the sculptor. A friend of Frances Loring and Florence Wylie she had an even greater connection with the Group of Seven and carved reliefs of both F.H. Varley and A.Y. Jackson while she worked and lived in Tom Thomson’s shack. An artist when women were not considered serious artists she fought many battles to be able to continue to pursue her art. Check out some of her work by clicking here.

Work in progress. Eventually it will be a man's head. At the moment it is an upright, and a couple of thick wires with some tissue stuck in the middle.

This one, a girl's head, is in the plasticine stage. This morning Frances was very excited. The head, she felt, had begun to take over, much as a secondary character in a novel might, independent of the novelist's plans, assume greater importance and choose its own direction.

Frances Gage in her workshop

The artist at work

Frances has a natural curiosity and drive that has not dissipated with time. She showed me her new electric scooter –not a Vespa but one you push along with your foot and then hop on! I wouldn’t try it but she loves it! She also showed me the two commissioned busts she is sculpting-this is a rich life.

There is currently a show of her work at the Northumberland Art Gallery in Cobourg; and if you would like to meet Frances in person there will be a launch for Unlikely Paradise and an 85^th birthday celebration for Frances at the gallery on August 22 at 2:00 p.m.

I have a reading spot for quick breaks. It’s an old, iron wrought bench that sits in front of the office, there’s another one around the corner, but this bench is placed in the sunniest spot on the right days. If I have a press release to do I like to grab the book and peruse it on breaks. I’ve got a lot reading done this summer on that bench.

This morning the bench was taken up by a family. I decided they must be tourists: the mother had a Nikon around her neck with a thick black strap, her two children beside her were eating apples, and her husband was having a bottle of water. So, it’s more than just a reading bench, or a thinking bench, it’s a bench to eat and meet together kind of bench.

But this afternoon that bench disappeared. I’m pretty sure it was bolted tightly into the ground. I was grabbing a sandwich and noticed, not on my way out but on my way back, when I wanted to eat on that eating bench, that it was gone. All that was left were the bolt marks in the ground where it had once been.

Now, I’ve got to write my advertising and press releases without my bench. I’ll find out where it went. Jennifer suggested I consult the Sherlock Holmes handbook (second edition) for an idea on how to handle this situation. I might also consult our other book, How to Be a Spy, if this requires some undercover work. Mark Strange or John Moss would know what to do. Rest assured, I’ll get to the bottom of that bench.

We’ve been to places like Toronto, Denver, Vancouver, Portland, Minneapolis, etc. In each city, high on our list of things to do is always poking around bookstores in search of a few tomes which we absolutely must have for the continuation of life itself.

(Yes, it’s a sickness, but a very inspiring and fulfilling one.)

Our favourite so far was a small used book store in Penticton, British Columbia that we visited a few years ago. It was completely organized into specific categories, was huge in size and had so many titles at very reasonable prices that we nearly blew our entire trip money there before making it to our destination on the ocean. Powell’s in Portland is nice, Tattered Covers in Denver is alright, McNally in Winnipeg is grand, but The Book Shop in Penticton is wonderful.

We went to Denver a few weeks ago to attend the MUFON UFO Conference, the largest “serious” UFO convention in North America. I was giving a talk there, so took the opportunity to have Dundurn ship several boxes of a few of my titles there. The vendors’ room at the conference was respectable, and there were many authors selling books.

This particular conference doesn’t attract as many “far out” attendees as other conferences, as the approach tends to be very scientific in nature. Nevertheless, there was one booth where someone was taking pictures of your aura, and there were some tables of “channelled” information from the “Space Brothers.” By and large, though, the fare was mostly tame.

(Not that it would matter; our collection of UFO literature and science fiction includes many obscure titles that are definitely far-out.)

We did visit Tattered Covers, but were generally disappointed. It was large, but not much more so than McNally’s main store, and it was in a part of Denver not that easy to get to without a car. It carried only new books, but did have a meagre “bargain” section. We picked up only a few titles there. There was a nice reprint of the first Doc Savage pulp in book form, and there was a tiny volume about crop circles by Carolyn North on sale that I picked up because she was helped by Ruben Uriarte, who was at the MUFON conference.

While waiting for the bus from there to the hotel, we saw that next door was an odd store called Twist and Shout that seemed to have books as well. We popped inside and were pleasantly surprised to find it was a huge pop culture store that carried CDs, DVDs, clothes and memorabilia. It was a mistake; we came out of there with armloads of stuff.

My best score there were some DVDs. First, a nice copy of Plan 9 From Outer Space, the worst movie ever made but one in which flying saucers (pie plates on strings) play a big part.  I also got a copy of Points on a Space Age, a documentary about the Sun Ra Arkestra, a jazz group whose leader Sun Ra was convinced he was from Saturn. Finally, I found a DVD copy of Chalkdust Memories, a collection of ancient school films including the legendary Duck and Cover!

I also picked up some music CDs: a Sun Ra CD titled Sleeping Beauty (I had never seen such a big bin of Sun Ra titles before) and a collection of Bob Wills’ Texas swing.

(At this same store we bought a Remote Control Zombie.)

Most of our book purchases on this trip, however, were from the vendors at the conference. Kathleen Marden, the neice of Betty Hill (of the couple who were the best-known UFO abductees from the 1960s), was selling her book on her aunt’s experience (which we had already) but also her aunt’s own book, A Common Sense Approach to UFOs, a rare title but reprinted in a nice edition.

I picked up a copy of The Energy Grid by Bruce Cathie, a collection of his two best-known previous works in which he lays out his theory that the Earth is covered in “energy lines.” MUFON was giving away copies of Fate Magazine with UFO content, so I had to have those, and I bid on a silent auction for Let the Evidence Speak for Itself, a rare title by conspiracy wtiter Clifford Stone, and won it.

Peter Robbins spoke at the conference on government disclosure of UFO information (or the lack thereof) and was selling a revised edition of his book Left at East Gate (co-authored with Larry Warren) about a remarkable UFO case in Rendlesham Forest in England. He also had a copy of Hollywood vs. the Aliens by Brice Rux, which he let me take off his hands.

While Steven Greer, the UFO contactee wasn’t there himself, someone from his group was, and I figured it was about time I picked up one of his books, Extraterrestrial Contact.

Lt.Col. Kevnin Randle also spoke at the conference and as a matter of fact was sitting next to me at his own table, selling not only his books about UFOs but also several science fiction titles. He is remarkably productive, having published well over 100 books in various genres. I bought a copy of an old edition of his book Roswell UFO Crash Update (it had an op art cover) and got a set of his sf novels Signals, Starship, FTL and The Gate, all volumes in his Exploration Chronicles series. I also acquired from him a DVD containing three other books by him and a set of 100 of his blogs about UFOs. Randle was taking full advantage of new media. He also had several titles for sale on USB drives, not a bad option and appealing to airline travelers.

Speaking of SF, a vendor was selling Alien Log, an SF novel about the Roswell crash by Robert Farrell. But I was surprised to see that Bruce Maccabbee, the pre-eminent authority on UFO photos was not selling his books on UFOs but a science fiction book he had just penned. I didn’t pick that up but did buy a CD of his original piano music that he was selling. titled The Joy of Ivories!

There were other nice finds as well, and we got many of the authors present to autograph their works. We added to our collections well – so much so that were were overweight on our luggage, as we found out at the airport going home.

We were very satisfied book collectors. We may even have time to read some of these new acquisitions!

Oh, yes, I did sell some copies of my own books, and gave a huge plug for my upcoming book from Dundurn, titled I Saw It Too! It’s due out in September.

Now, for our next excursion…

It has been a great summer for reading, with all the rain on the weekends, and all of the sunshine during the work week. It’s just fantastic for reading on the weekends or at the cottage. I’m just trying to stay positive because if Canadians are known for anyhing it’s being radiantly positive. So this weekend while I’m in Lindsay I’ll probably cop me a novel and read while it pours.

I’m really interested to see how CBRA does. If you’re not familiar with the history, Dundurn acquired CBRA about a year ago. The Quill and Quire said the PPandB costs were too much. But that’s alright because it’s gone digital. It’s got all of the same great reviews in an easy to search and use database. We had a meeting yesterday and fooled around with it and gave suggestions. It’s a little quirky now but I believe it’s going to be a great database for Canadian works.

Also, Eric Walters came in yesterday and had on the flyest kicks. Just sayin. I don’t meet many authors with fly kicks. He writes the Tiger series. I might read that over the weekend.

With the new CBRA we’re always looking for new and interesting reviewers. We have a large collection of children’s, poetry, and fiction from Canadian publishers, and those books need to be reviewed. There’s also many non-fiction books too.  You get you’re name out there and a great book. I usually cruise past the books and find something I’d love to review. There’s some great First Nations books (authors and topics) in there, too.