One of the joys of touring around, giving one of my shows, is that I get to meet and mingle with people who love books……..sometimes even my books!

Sometimes the conversations are very surprising, coming straight out of history. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was at Leaside Library, and I was talking about Grey Owl, and the success of his shows that the Noble Red Man gave on-stage in Europe and North America. A man in the front row burst out, “I SAW HIM! In Sudbury, eighty years ago! I was a kid, and I was taken to see the famous Grey Owl. It was amazing”

Amazing, indeed, since Grey Owl died in 1938. But when I spoke to him later, Doug Gardner told me he was about 8 years old, around 1936, when he went to St. Anne’s Hall in Sudbury, the big local auditorium for major events. He remembers being astounded, and very impressed, by the man in buckskins on stage.

More recently, at the Shaw-College Library, I was talking about my Windsor visit to grab the manuscript from Alistair MacLeod when a fan in the front row couldn’t contain herself. “A HOME INVASION!” she shouted out, excitedly.

I was in Whitby this week and met a woman when I signed her book. She was more restrained at my event, but later wrote in an email that she knew all about Michael Ondaatje’s romantic adventures at Bishop’s. “My sister-in-law told me the campus fairly hummed with the scandal!”

FUTURE SHOWS YOU MIGHT WANT TO SEE

Toronto: Wednesday, March 30, 2016   Writers’ Trust Lunch…….Women’s Art Association, 23 Prince Arthur 1.30—3:00pm

Nanaimo: Thursday April 7, 2016 U.V.I. Gustafson Lecture, 7:00pm

Quebec City:  Sunday, April 10, 2016 Festival, Morrin Centre, Brunch

Scotland:  St. Andrews, Sunday, April 1, 2016, ACROSS CANADA BY STORY. The Byre Theatre, 7:00 pm

England:  London, Tuesday April 19, 2016. Canada House, Trafalgar Square, ACROSS CANADA BY STORY 6:00pm Show, 7:00 pm Reception. Please tell all your friends to register with the Canadian High Commission!

Many more shows to come, in Toronto, and beyond.