A couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days making a book trailer for THE HERMIT. I used Animoto, which was new for me, but I have to say it’s a nice program (once I figured it out, roughly). And I got to include my late grandparents, Nana and Gramps Mingo in a YouTube video:)

Here’s the link to the two-minute trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19vC0aFDBdc.

I’ve been continuing to play with art, but I did work on the first edit of my forthcoming picture book with Red Deer Press, tentatively “Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi” due out in 2022. The wonderfully talented Francois Thisdale is doing the art for this one, which I’m pretty excited about.

I recently had some great news for THE HERMIT – it’s one of five finalists for the IODE Violet Downey Book Award, for the best Canadian book for readers 13 and under – two of the other finalists are also finalists for the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Awards, so my novel is in good company. I’m reading the other books, and so far I’ve read BANKSY (Tanya Lloyd Kyi, MY PINE ISLAND HOME (Polly Horvath) and SARA AND THE SEARCH FOR NORMAL (Wesley King) – they’re all very different and really excellent. Next up is THE BARREN GROUNDS (David A. Robertston). I have absolutely no hope of winning, but I’m happy my novel, from a relatively tiny, indie publisher (Nimbus Publishing) in Nova Scotia has gotten some recognition nationally:)

Hope you’re enjoying spring – it’s arrived a little early here in NS, and I hope all of you will get to see your people sometime before summer ends – I’ve had one shot of AZ, and I have to say I’m hoping for something else for the second shot now that AZ has been paused across Canada. The good news is the roll-out has been faster than expected – now we just have to persuade everybody to book an appointment. Cheers!