The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, has been nominated for a Yellow Cedar Award in the 2021 Forest of Reading! I am both thrilled and honoured to be in such great company, so I've ... Read More  

Last time, we talked about note-taking skills, and why it's important for writers to know where every piece of their information originally came from. Today, I'm going to introduce a tool that makes this process a lot easier: the ... Read More  

The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, has been nominated for a Yellow Cedar Award in the 2021 Forest of Reading! I am both thrilled and honoured to be in such great company, so I've ... Read More  

February 17th - next Wednesday - is the second annual I Read Canadian Day! Help me celebrate it by spending 15 minutes reading a book - any book! - by a Canadian author. Read More  

The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, has been nominated for a Yellow Cedar Award in the 2021 Forest of Reading! I am both thrilled and honoured to be in such great company, so I've ... Read More  

So far, our discussions of research have focused on how to find interesting, relevant information for our writing projects. Now we're going to look at a skill that's equally important, but less-commonly discussed: how to manage and organize all ... Read More  

The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, has been nominated for a Yellow Cedar Award in the 2021 Forest of Reading! I am both thrilled and honoured to be in such great company, so I've ... Read More  

I’d been working really hard on my first-ever children’s book and was so excited for it’s spring 2020 release. Called Proud to Play, it’s about the experience of Canadian LGBTQ athletes in professional sports. The topic was so important ... Read More  

The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, has been nominated for a Yellow Cedar Award in the 2021 Forest of Reading! I am both thrilled and honoured to be in such great company, so I've ... Read More  

It's mid-December, and you know what that means: New Year's Resolutions are just around the corner.  I'll be honest. I've never found classic resolutions particularly helpful. In fact, they're more likely to produce feelings of guilt and inadequacy than happiness ... Read More  

I love writing science fiction. My very first four books were science fiction: time travel dystopian novels about climate change, corporations taking over the world, false prophets and utopias. Hmm. That was 33 years ago! Seems like I was either ... Read More  

Sooner or later, every writer is going to have to interview an expert. Students might be required to do so for an assignment; for creative writers, interviews are sources of stories, anecdotes, quotes, and details that can't be gleaned ... Read More  

Two things you might not have known about me: We moved around a LOT when I was young, so I was the new kid right up until high school. I was a gifted kid who learned quickly and tested very, very ... Read More  

Now and then illustrators get projects that aren’t straightforward, and not only challenge our technical skills but also our ability to research. I was thrilled when I signed my first illustration contract for a children’s poetry book titled “Recess ... Read More  

Last fall, I was lucky enough to visit the ruins of Pompeii. October not withstanding, it was a hot, sunny day, even first thing in the morning when our tour group arrived. In the distance, the green slopes of ... Read More  

Today we're continuing our discussion of research, with a focus on a special type of primary source - the expert. First, what do I mean when I say "expert"? As a former scientist and writer of sciencey books, I ... Read More  

It's almost Remembrance Day in Canada, so it's high time for a special edition of Cantastic Authorpalooza. Today, I'm welcoming my not-so-evil stepmother, Jaqueline Carmichael, who is celebrating the release of her newest book, Heard Amid the Guns: True ... Read More  

It all began at the Vancouver Aquarium where the instant I first saw sea otters, I was smitten! Cuteness overload! Especially when they linked paws! But it got even better. I was amazed to learn that in the wild, ... Read More