(re-post)
Each Sunday for the past month or so I have been posting a chapter of one of my books, Joshua and His Gang, on this blog; this is its first appearance in print. It amazes and delights and humbles me that it can be read by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
These are books that have been published over the past twenty years.
Moon Madness is a book of poetry that came into being because people kept telling me they liked my poems, that they " stuck in the mind", became like "companions"; they encouraged me to "get them into book form". So I sent them off to the major Canadian poetry publisher and got back a letter saying "they don't stick in my mind". When I sent them to a leading Canadian poetry magazine the reply was, "We love your poems but we are not publishing rhyming poetry at this time….if you ever decide to write free form verse we would be interested in seeing it". Well, after I got over the shock and shucks I formed my own publishing company and brought out Moon Madness. Oh, of course it was not that easy but it was do-able.
Homebody is a collection of eighty-eight columns that were part of those written weekly for the Georgetown Independent (Ontario) for thirteen years. CBC Radio Fresh Air – Bill McNeil and Cy Strange – featured them on a regular basis; Reader's Digest and a few other magazines reprinted them.
Clouds is another book of poems as are the two chap books, Dorothy…. and Simply Haiku.
The five 'black'n'white' kids books got their start back in Toronto with Rebecca being the third book after Homebody and was a combined effort between my youngest son and self: he, one day, gestured toward the pile of his 'work' (he was eight or nine years old) consisting of writing and drawings and said, "What am I going to do with it?!" I knew what he meant!!! I asked him if I wrote the story would he illustrate it. He agreed. The woman who worked in the book store where Rebecca was displayed on the counter said kids would pick up a copy and, depending on their ages, either ask for crayons or say, "I could do that". She figured it was children responding to a child artist. The next four in this series happened several years later; 'children of all ages' seem to enjoy them.
Life, Travel Notes is in its second printing, a Coles Notes of a self-help book.
Journeying through life and my neighbourhood of Fernwood here in Victoria BC is the theme of Strolls.
Knitting Intuitively With Almost Anything is exactly what it says.
The Fibre Arts Memory Calendar is a perpetual calendar with photos of my fibre work.
Homebody, Life, Travel Notes and Knitting Intuitively are on Google books and accessible in their entirety, no charge. The five black'n'white books are at Google being processed and will also be completely accessible.
Moon Madness and Homebody are in some Toronto libraries. Homebody and Strolls are in some Victoria libraries.
Strolls and some of the others are available at She Said Gallery in Fernwood Square in Victoria.
The books have been in local bookstores like Bolen's and Munro's and Eaton's.
Over the years all the books have been placed in cafes, doctor and dentist offices, bed and breakfasts, a hardware store, delis etc. What greatly touched my heart and has been a motivation ever since to distribute (donate) thusly was seeing, in the service station where I took my car in Toronto's Beaches area, the copy of Moon Madness I had left in the waiting room all thumbed and marked and a bit oily and being told customers liked it and one of the mechanics "didn't know I liked poetry until I read yours."