I am thankful for the wonderful kids at Courtenay Elementary and their exceptional staff. In fact, I am thankful for all the kids I met on this tour. Each and every one of them gave me hope for a better world ahead.

Thank you to my friends who came over to the island to show their support, as well as to all the people who attended our events throughout the week, especially the folks at last night’s public reading at Courtenay Library. There were a few people who wanted to go out afterwards to continue the festivities, so we had an impromptu after party with our new friends!

Thank you to all the sponsors, Coho Books, Laughing Oyster Books, and Mulberry Bush Books. Thanks to Kids Can Press for not only publishing my book, but also for supplying me with bookmarks to give out at all the events - the kids loved them! Thank you to Monica for taking such good care of us.  Thank you to Anne for being an amazing road trip buddy - I can’t imagine having gone with anybody else!

Finally, thank you so much to BC Book Prizes for short listing Maggie’s Chopsticks and for taking me on this magical tour! All the best to each and every one of the other finalists! You are all superstars!

Stefan with students at Glenmerry Elementary in Trail

Evelyn with students at Sparwood Secondary

During Stefan’s presentation at the Fernie Heritage Library

Evelyn at Fernie Secondary

After visiting schools in Princeton this morning, we will head back home to Vancouver. Thank you to everyone who has made this year’s tour such a success!  I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow at the 29th Annual Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prizes Gala in Victoria!

Campbell River treated us grandly, as noted by Alan in the previous post. Grade twelve English and Psychology students sitting in the back row at Timberline Secondary tipped their chairs back on cue at the same time as the character in the story I was reading tipped his back. No one was hurt. I continue to be inspired by the teachers and students I’m getting to meet. At Timberline, we talked about revision and collaboration with a poet, a screenwriter/filmmaker, and a rapper, amongst other students who didn’t declare their writerly tendencies, along with musing on boredom, creativity, agents and ten percent royalties.

Today brought us to Courtenay and Comox, where western grebes mad-scooted away from a swooping bald eagle in between the two towns, and a mule deer held us up en route to Highland Secondary. I got to visit a Creative Writing class and loved that in the confusion ensuing from trying to pass papers from one person to the next in a round of Exquisite Corpse (the Surrealist game wherein you write an article and adjective, fold the paper and pass, then a noun, fold and pass, then a verb, fold and pass, another article and adjective, fold and pass to the last person, who writes another noun, and then you read sentences like “The freaky shark buffed the diffident donkey”), teacher Jill Peacocke interrupted to say, “We can have these desks in a circle in no time flat.” So we did, and there we were in that beautiful creative writing circle, passing words around. So great.

Tonight it’s a reading at the Courtenay Public Library, 6.30 pm, with book sales by the superlative Laughing Oyster Books, where we poked our noses in to say hello this afternoon to a warm welcome.

Then it was time to make the trek down to Campbell River. It took about an hour but luckily we had some fine entertainment in the car! Anne Fleming on her ukulele! This helped the journey fly by as she strummed those strings and led us all in a road trip sing-a-long!

My next stop was at Penfield Elementary in Campbell River, where I had the good fortune to meet more awesome kids, like the ones in Mr Jarvis’ class, also known as The GummyBears! They had studied up on Chinese culture, made special welcoming signs for me, practiced their chopstick moves, and were enthusiastic and prepared with intelligent questions. Then they made me prove my chopstick skills by making me eat gummy bears with them! It was such a great experience and I can’t thank them enough for their hospitality, kind words, and genuineness.

The day still wasn’t over as we had a public reading to do at Coho Books! One student from Mr Jarvis’ class made her dad bring her down for it, even though she just saw me earlier that day! That’s super sweet! We talked about her own aspirations of one day writing a story of her own.  Even Mr Jarvis showed up for the event. What an awesome teacher and you can tell that by his amazing students as well!

Thank you everybody for making this day such a terrific one! I will remember it for always!

The people here have been so nice and the scenery has been beautiful. Check out some shots below!

(Bastion in Nanaimo)

(Sunset in Qualicum)

On Day One I read to about 40 kids at Park Avenue Community School who were delightful and full of rambunctious energy.

Day Two had me in front of a gym full of just over 100 kids who were simply thrilled to have an author visit them at their school, Alberni Elementary.  One little girl asked me for a hug on the way out - it was super cute!

I’m looking forward to the rest of the week. Traveling with fellow author Anne Fleming has been inspiring and I love attending her presentations as I am always learning something new! A huge shout out to Monica Miller for driving us around everywhere and being such the organizer. And after two days, I think we finally figured out how to use the GPS, whom we have named Jackie, obviously.

For now, I’m heading to bed with the sound of frogs outside my window, their evening symphony lulling me to sleep.

Three Grade Eight classes crowded the library at Ecole E.J. Dunn Middle School, where they asked smart, snappy questions for half an hour (“Have you ever been on The Ellen Show?”), laughed at all the right points in “Puke Diary” (phew!) and were good sports about reading “Thirty-One One Word Stories” out loud. They were an absolute treat. I have a feeling the next generation of BC writers is going to include a whack from Port Alberni.

At Alberni Elementary, about a hundred kindergarteners, grade ones, twos and threes trooped into the gym with their “petits tapis gris” (if you’re the parent of a French Immersion kid, you know I’m talking about carpets and also a song about carpets) to sit on to watch and listen to Alan work the magic of Maggie’s Chopsticks. They had this cool projector, so Alan could lay the book on the table in front of him, and it was projected onto a giant screen up on the stage so everyone could see the pictures. Best question of the morning? “I like your book!”

View more Photos from the Vancouver Island Leg on Flickr

So, seat belts buckled, sunglasses on, and away we go! We’ll be stopping at schools, libraries, and bookstores in the communities of Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Parksville, Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, and Ladysmith. Anne and Alan will be doing four public events, so come on out and say hello if we’re in your neck of the woods!

Thank you Terrace, Kitimat, Prince Rupert, Smithers, Prince George, Fort St. James and Burns Lake for being so welcoming.

And if that guy who wrote The Book of Awesome is still adding to his list, I think he should put Bryan Pike and Jackson Davies on it. Right at the tippy top. They are a couple of “champeens” and never once asked when lugging my luggage how many pairs of shoes I packed (4).  I feel privileged to have swapped stories with these two fine and funny fellows (yup, finally got that advance!). ☺

Time to turn the page. A new leg of the tour, with all new author-bloggers, begins on Monday.

All great books come to an end and so do all great trips. I finished Bruno and the Beach yesterday and we head for the airport and home this evening. But not before a stop at Misty River Books in Terrace.

On the first day of the tour I called dibs on the back seat. It’s a short girl thing, and besides, I really liked the idea of being chauffered around. Very Diva-for-a-Week. Jackson is more than a foot taller than me and he is no diva. I say to Bryan I think I was picked for this tour because of my short legs. “Why yes”, said Bryan. “We keep all the authors’ leg measurements on file. Sure…” he says, sounding a bit like a Marx brother, “Sure that’s how it’s done.”

We have been a funny combination touring this stretch of the Province. Especially Jackson and Bryan, they are very funny ha ha—my favourite kind of funny. Jackson is recognized everywhere he goes. People come up to him and ask “How’s it goin’? How’s Jesse?” like they’ve known him forever. He’s nice to everyone and he wakes up the friendliness in other people.

I do a double-take seeing my name next to Jackson’s on the town marquee in Fort St. James. If you’d told me when I was a girl, sitting in my beanbag chair eating creamed tuna on toast with my family and watching The Beachcombers that I’d one day write for children and go on a book tour with Constable Constable, I never would have believed it. You can’t make this stuff up.

This is one of my favourite photos from the whole tour.

They look like readers.

We really enjoyed this interview and meeting Zameer of Prince George’s CKPG. He had done his homework and had great questions for both of us!

Victoria with a budding writer at Kildala Elementary in Kitimat

Jackson with students at Charles Hays Secondary in Prince Rupert

Victoria and Jackson at the Museum of Northern BC in Prince Rupert

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize finalist and Prince George resident Sarah de Leeuw joined Jackson and Victoria at Books & Company for the public reading

CKPG interviewing Victoria and Jackson

The Interior BC tour leg with Stefan Czernecki and Evelyn Lau kicks off on Monday with school visits in Trail and Nelson, and a public event in Cranbrook. Stay tuned for blog posts and photos from this and our Vancouver Island tour!

April 25, 2013

Poet Sarah Leeuw, a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and an assistant professor at the University of Northern BC, joined us last night to read at the very cozy Books and Company in Prince George. She added a new element to the road show; between the three of us we offered something for all ages!

I failed to negotiate that hefty advance for blogging (it helps if you actually bring it up). But that’s okay, when you sit in a car with Jackson and Bryan, there’s no shortage of material to work with. Really, I should be paying them.
A friend texted me with a couple of questions for Jackson.

Q: What does he miss most about Bruno?

Jackson: He was one of the few people I’ve ever known who had an unbridled passion. We would to a place called the Omega, a restaurant in Gibson’s and he’d get all fired up about something. I called it his “Italian aerobics.”

Q: Jackson Davies’ name is unique. What’s the story? Did he have a unique upbringing?

Jackson: I come from a small town in Alberta and my parents were very supportive when I wanted to become an actor. I didn’t have a theatrical upbringing, the first play I ever saw I was in. My dad worked for Northern Alberta Gas; Mum was a singer. She still sings. She’s part of a group. She told me over the phone not long ago: “We’re going to entertain the seniors at the home today.” She’s 86.

My real name is John Davies. My Dad’s name was John, and people sometimes called him Jack. So I was Jack’s son.

When I go home, I answer to both.

But my mum calls me Johnny.

“Good news!” says Bryan when they pick me up. “We found a place for tea!”

“We’re taking you to McDonald’s,” says Jackson.

They think they are very funny. Methinks not so much.

“You can get a McTea!” says Bryan.

Now they are really cracking up.

“Maybe there’ll even be a little McChicken floating on the top!” says Bryan, but instead of pulling in to the Golden Arches, he veers left to his newest roadside find. Like a mirage out of the desert, except it’s real and the proprietress is a charming woman from Sweden who stocks teas like Chocolate Iguana Chai and Blackforest cheesecake tea. For the less adventurous (me!) also has a fine variety of peach and apricot. So this explains Jackson’s twist and my well, we are not quite sure what I am doing. But its a kind of happy dance. 

Q: “You played a character for 17 years. Did it change over time?”
A: “At first I was just ‘Policeman #2’ on the script. I didn’t even have any lines. But every actor knows that your character needs a name. Policeman #2 looks bad on a resume. So we came up with Constable John Constable. John being my real name…I started as a stereotypical police officer in a uniform. Gradually the part changed over the years, I wasn’t so much in a uniform and I became more a part of the community.”

Television and film have changed a lot as an industry since The Beachcombers first aired. Jackson says now: “it’s about telling stories. I’m a big fan of people creating their own content. Everyone’s their own network. It’s not about waiting for the phone to ring. You create things. And you own them. It’s good for the people who create.”

In case you are wondering, Jackson is paying me to write this stuff. I am trying to negotiate a hefty advance on the next post. Actually, that is not true. It’s just kind of fun to be writing behind his back while he’s speaking to 300 students at a secondary school. My morning visit got rescheduled as it seems to be vaccination week in elementary schools, and I’m getting upstaged by a travelling nurse with needles. Sorry, kids! But the organizers and local school staff are very quick about finding another class nearby where the kids aren’t rolling up their sleeves, squeezing their eyes shut and taking big, deep breaths. Or trying to. So today instead of reading in Smithers I will read a little later in Houston, on the way to Prince George.

Victoria Miles with a budding writer at Kildala Elementary in Kitimat">

Jackson says he was a bad speller all through school. He dodged stories and essays when he could, but he did write jokes when he was a kid. He remembers one of his first ones, something about an NADP (Northern Alberta Dairy Pool) member who was also the MP from Milk River. I think I am not getting it down quite right here. Doesn’t matter, that early start led him to a career with plenty of comedy in it.

Kids: start early!

At some point on the drive from Terrace to Kitimat, I started to notice how many interesting turns our conversation was taking. Hence this list, a random and select assortment of topics we covered on the road:

CBC Radio
Hawkin’s cheezies
Fries or salad
Colon cancer
Adrian Dix
Parents
Cormorants
Pelicans
Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours to excellence
Gene Simmons
Root Beer
The work ethic of children
Keanu Reeves
“The Sisters Brothers”
Italians in the family
Alzheimer’s
Skunk cabbage
Forrest Whittaker is a really nice guy
Hoarding vs. “just keeping things”

I know, talk about covering a lot of ground. And this wasn’t the half of it.

“Who would have thought that a show about fighting over logs would last nineteen years?”
—Roy Luckow quoted in Bruno and the Beach

Feeling nostalgic tonight. Today was a travel day, which equals plenty of time for reading.  I’ve set Nancy Mitford’s classic Love in a Cold Climate aside temporarily, after surreptiously observing Jackson, several rows ahead of me on the plane, reading Mimi. I need to catch up.

So now I’m on page 81 of Bruno and the Beach (the Relic chapter!). It’s like pouring over a prized family scrapbook. The writing is funny and revealing, as the best behind-the-scenes books tend to be.

I was five and oblivious to the first season of The Beachcombers when it aired in 1971. But by the time I was eight or nine, our Sunday nights revolved around this show about “fighting over logs” followed by, if memory serves, The Irish Rovers.

Knowing, even before picking up a copy, that many of The Beachcombers have passed on makes for a bittersweet read. But then I remember The Rovers, and their parting words that sent me calmly off to bed every Sunday night of my young life: “May you be halfway to heaven before the Devil knows your dead!” And surely that’s a comforting thought for the beloved characters of “Nick”, “Molly”, and yes, even “Relic” and the real and talented actors who played them.

To the owner of The Lido who took us on a tour, the kids at Chetwynd who told me what you do around here, the quiet kids and the girl at the front, the rowdy kids, the student from San Antonio, Texas, the teacher who spoke to me about Dressing Up for the Carnival, the boy with the bag of food who broke off pieces of mint Aero to share with his friends, the teacher who cried, the teacher who chose The Road for his class, the teacher who gave me the lanyard and the note, thank you all so much for inviting me into your communities.  A big thank you to Bryan Pike for being awesome and Caroline Adderson for being awesome, too. I’ll never forget you.

Enjoy some pictures below, taken over the last few days:

My side project: collecting motel signs.

This place was actually open for business.

This old Mercury outboard is in one of my favourite colours.

Hungry enough to kill.

Bologna, okay.  But where’s my Spam?

Waiting for our plane to Fort Nelson.  It’s early in the a.m. and Bryan and Caroline aren’t actually hungover—they just look that way.