As many of you know, writing a book is an all-consuming task. Other responsibilities — such as keeping your blog going out to faithful readers — fall by the wayside, as you work on this chapter, then the next one, then the next. So now that my new book is done (it exists, I can hold it in my hands, and even find it displayed in bookstores!) I can get back to the blog.

The immediate excitement is that, in accordance with the book’s national scope, we’re launching it in Vancouver. You , and your book-loving Vancouver friends, are invited to the Launch at 7.00 p.m. on Monday, August 31, at the Book Warehouse at 4118 Main Street. For a book called ACROSS CANADA BY STORY, the West-Coast launch is appropriate.

There will be other public events across the country, of course, with Festivals in places like Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon sweeping me up, not to mention places as far-flung as Moose Jaw and Quebec City. But since my STORIES ABOUT STORYTELLERS show has hit 97 Canadian communities — so far — I expect to be everywhere with this new book, and the new show that goes along with it.

A final note about how far-reaching that show proved to be:  in July this year Adventure Canada hired me to run a Floating Book Club on board their cruise ship going up the Labrador Coast. I had Terry Fallis to talk about his novel THE BEST-LAID PLANS ( set in Canada’s national village, Ottawa) and Kathleen Winter to talk about ANNABEL (set on the Labrador coast we’d sailed alongside). They were both superb, and the Cruise guests loved them. Finally, after we’d sailed around Cape Chidley, Labrador’s northern point, we were in Ungava Bay, level with the top of Hudson Bay. There I gave my own show, so that I can now claim that I’ve performed it in Canada from coast to coast ……to coast!