L.E. Carmichael's Blog, page 12

Science Rendezvous Is Almost Here!

If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that science matters. It helps us solve problems, find solutions (or mix them!), and make life better.

From dinosaurs to robots to hoverboards to vaccines to things that go boom, science is also really cool.

Canadian science lovers get to celebrate twice a year: in September, during Science Literacy Week, and in May, during Science Rendezvous. And Science Rendezvous 2022 is almost upon us!

If you’re not familiar, Science Rendezvous aims to bring regular people into contact with scientists of all stripes. It’s a chance to learn about science and what scientists do, and a chance for people of all ages to participate in science. And unlike museums and science centres, which usually charge entrance fees, every experience at Science Rendezvous is totally free!

This year, I’ll be talking about Ice Age mammals at Science Rendezvous Kingston. My student workshops are fully booked, but there’s still space in my virtual teacher workshop on May 12. I’ll be introducing an incredible new palaeontology teaching kit that educators across Canada can bring into their classrooms for free. If you are a teacher or know one, spread the news! I’d love to see you.

If you’re near Kingston, be sure to check out all the other amazing activities on the schedule. And if you’re not, no worries! Science Rendezvous is a national event – check the main webpage to find events happening near you.

Get out and get sciencey, everyone!

Carol Matas – Who’s Looking? How Animals See the World

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Carol Matas . Take it away, Carol!

Who’s Looking? How Animals see the World, is my new, (very first) picture book, illustrated by Cornelia Li.

A conversation with my grandson was the catalyst that sent me off into the wonderful, surprising world of how animals see. One summer day we were strolling home from the park. I was pointing things out to him: flowers, leaves, trees, birds, insects. We stopped to cross the street and noticed some ants. I asked him how he thought we would look to them. (He was around seven years old.) We agreed we would certainly look like giants to the ants, if they could really see all of us at all. Which made me wonder – what did they see? And that made me want to write a book about how animals see.

That day I went home and began my research. What I found was astonishing. It was difficult to choose which animals to include in the manuscript since they all have such unique ways of seeing.

Who knew whales could only see shades of grey and black? Who knew rabbits could see so well behind them? Who knew robins can sense the earth’s magnetic field, through their eyes? Or that dragonflies have almost 360 degree vision? And the little ant? It can barely see at all! Well, no doubt a lot of scientists know all of this, but I didn’t, and I hoped I could convey at least part of my excitement and wonder in the manuscript.

The first draft of this book was about a fictional character discovering all of these wonders. The first editor I submitted to said she was only looking for nonfiction. So I thought – well, why not try to turn this into nonfiction? She didn’t buy it in the end, but Orca did and I am very happy about that!

One of the most difficult tasks for me as a writer was to simplify and condense the extremely complicated mechanisms each animal uses in order to see. For instance, cryptochromes and quantum coherence became: robins can sense the earth’s magnetic field through their eyes. For each animal I had to take a very complex mechanism – like what makes up a compound eye – and make it understandable to a 4-year-old. The number of revisions my editor and I went through were massive, (and seemed never ending) until we felt it was both scientifically correct and fun to read and understand.

And the book did end up with a kind of story. Initially I saw it as a book that would illustrate just the animals’ point of view. But as I worked with Orca, and with help from my agent, it evolved into a story of two siblings who explore the world around them, even as the world around them is looking, too. Orca had suggested a bubble on each page and inside the bubble the reader would see what the animal was seeing. However, Cornelia developed the idea of having a cone through which we could see what the animals see. Cornelia developed  a perfect combination of my vision and Orca’s.

The book ends with these lines:

What does the world look like? It depends on who’s looking.

And the wonderful thing is, it takes more than one set of eyes to get a full picture.

And in these difficult times, I hope Who’s Looking? will encourage children to realize that we all see slightly differently, but that diversity is our strength.

 

Catherine Egan – No Writing Is Wasted

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Catherine Egan . Take it away, Catherine!

Years ago, when my first child was an infant, I swore to myself that I could and would keep writing. I was still working part-time in a restaurant and doing bits of freelance work, but I was determined to Do It All. The book I wrote during that first exhausting year of motherhood was a disaster. Two hundred pages in, I knew it wasn’t working. As a writer, it’s hard to know when to jump ship. Are you cutting your losses and moving on, or just quitting when it gets tough? I had worked so hard on that book, and there was so much I loved about it. I kept banging away at it for a while, laptop balanced on a cleared space on the bookshelf and baby napping in a sling because he napped longer on my body. I swayed, rocking the baby, and typed, not rocking the book. I just couldn’t make it come together. I left the wreck of that book behind me, but I felt like a failure.

A year or two later, I went diving back into that wreck and ransacked it for parts. Much of my intricate world-building and a number of characters ended up as salvage – I put them to far better use in the story that became my YA fantasy Julia Vanishes.

When my second child was an infant, I wrote another terrible book. (Do you see a pattern?). I finished that one, but I never sent it anywhere. I knew it was a broken book and no amount of editorial wizardry was going to fix it. I’d learned a little bit, by that point, about what was fixable and what wasn’t. My favorite thing about that failed book was an enchanted, maze-like house with a hundred rooms that functioned kind of as a puzzle. Years later, when I was in the early stages of outlining Sneaks (my recently published middle-grade novel), that house became salvage, and I put it to work in my new draft.

Sneaks is a sci fi puzzle book about friendship, middle school and aliens trying to take over the universe, but it’s also a book about failing and trying again. My protagonist, Ben, tries to be a good friend and a good brother – fails – and tries again. He tries to do the right thing, to save the universe, but he fails – and tries again. At my most optimistic, I think I can use all my failures – in books, in life – and turn them into new books, fresh starts, second (or third, or fourth) attempts at getting something right.

No writing is wasted. There is always the chance of salvage and, of course, there are the things you learn from failure. I used to find Failure a cruel teacher, but I don’t feel that way anymore. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to it, and the older I get, the easier it is to take the long view. I begin each book with more confidence. I’m starting to see the pitfalls before I dig them and then fall into them. I pile up lessons – and material! – and carry them with me forward.

Now I’m at the very beginning stages with a new book, that blissful stage before you’ve made any mistakes, written yourself into any corners, or just found yourself banging up against your own limitations. But I’ve gotten so much better at all this – at writing, at fixing, at quitting, at salvage, whatever the book requires. For now, the book exists only in my imagination – where it is absolutely perfect.

If you are interested in seeing any of my blunders in real time, links to my online self below!

 

Website: www.catherineegan.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byCatherineEgan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ByCatherineEgan

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bycatherineegan/

 

 

 

 

When Was the Last Time You Played?

If you’ve got young kids, probably pretty recently. If you don’t?

Was it pre-COVID? Longer?

For me, definitely longer. I am a responsible, disciplined, goal-oriented adult. It has been so long since I played that when people ask me what I do for fun, I actually have to stop and think about it.

“Fun? What is this “fun” of which you speak?”

This year, I am on a quest to down-regulate the stress and up-regulate the fun, in hopes of approaching that thing people call “balance.” Honestly, I’d settle for tamping down my anxiety to a murmur instead of a roar.

Either way. For me, one key skill is going to be remembering how to play. Here’s where I started:

https://www.lecarmichael.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Somersault.mp4

 

I haven’t done a somersault since I was probably 8 years old. Doing something silly and childlike and unambiguously playful in my body felt AMAZING* and I recommend it, with or without supportive friends watching on Zoom!

What about you? How do you play? I am taking suggestions. Bonus points for physical activities which also down-regulate the stress hormones!

 

*Also a little rough on my neck – next time I’ll tuck my head under a bit more before I start. Pro tip.

 

Isabelle Groc: Lessons from Conservation Canines

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Isabelle Groc . Take it away, Isabelle!

I have shared my life with cats for the last 30 years, and I could not imagine not having a feline companion at home. I adopted my first rescue cat in Harlem, when I was a student at Columbia University’s Journalism School, and since then cats have supported me on many of my writing journeys. They are an integral part of my daily de-stress routine.

My passion for cats began as an adult. When I was a child, I grew up with an Irish setter named Pipo, in a small town in the southwest of France. My father loved this breed, which reminded him of the time he spent with his uncle and his hunting dog in the Pyrenees Mountains. This was my very first introduction to working dogs, and little did I know that decades later, I would cross the path of another working dog that would change my life.

I met Alli, a beautiful and energetic nine-year old Australian cattle dog in a wetland area near Vancouver (where I live now) while I was making a documentary on the efforts to conserve the endangered Oregon Spotted Frog. In Canada, just 400 to 700 frogs are left, distributed in six isolated populations in British Columbia. Trying to discover new frog populations in pockets of wetlands through traditional surveys is a time- consuming and unreliable process, particularly as it is difficult for people to move through these habitats. Surveyors walk slowly in knee-deep mud during the short frog-breeding season and can easily miss the frogs.

That day, Alli had been called in to help wildlife biologists to detect the elusive frog. Dogs are nimble and fast, cover large areas in a short period of time, and their powerful noses can catch the scent of a species very quickly. I was amazed by Alli’s confidence and agility, and how quickly she found one of the frogs. I discovered that all over the world, dogs are increasingly being used for wildlife conservation. In addition to tracking elusive or rare endangered animals and plants in rugged terrain, they find invasive species, and they fight wildlife trafficking by sniffing out illegally obtained animal products such as shark fins and elephant ivory. They can even help reduce human-wildlife conflicts. These conservation canines are truly scientists’ best friends, helping them collect vital information they would not have access to otherwise. For example, the scat samples they can detect from many different species can tell researchers everything from the animal’s diet and stress levels to their reproductive health and exposure to toxins and population abundance.

I fell in love with these conservation canines, and I spent several years travelling to meet these dogs and their human partners. The canines always showed a level of enthusiasm, energy and dedication in helping me tell their stories that I had rarely encountered before with any interview subjects! They were always patient, they happily let me photograph them, and they constantly encouraged me with wagging tails. I was very honoured to tell their stories in words and photos in my latest book Conservation Canines: How Dogs Work for the Environment published by Orca Books in September 2021.

So will I eventually get a dog in my life? Probably in the future but in the meantime, I often think of Alli. She is now retired and will be celebrating her 18th birthday in April.  I am also reflecting on the lessons that Alli and all conservation canines have taught me, with the hope that book readers will be as inspired as I am by these extraordinary dogs. I think about how we can look at dogs (and cats too!) in our lives differently, from their point of view. After all, dogs experience the world through their noses, and when we follow their lead, we can expand our own perceptions of the world around us, from a less human-centric perspective. If we pay attention, dogs can give us access to a new way of appreciating the details of the natural word.

Conservation canines also give us the important message that we can do our part to protect our planet’s biodiversity. Dogs make the world better and can inspire us to do so too!

To learn more about my work, please visit my website and follow me on social media:

Instagram: @isabellegroc https://www.instagram.com/isabellegroc/

Facebook: @isabelle.groc  https://www.facebook.com/isabelle.groc

Twitter:@isabellegroc https://twitter.com/isabellegroc

 

 

Organizational Structures for Clear, Effective Writing

Welcome to Teach Write! This column draws on my 20 years’ experience teaching writing to kids, university students, and adult learners. It includes ideas and exercises that teachers and students can use in the classroom, and creative writers can use to level up their process.

If your January is anything like mine, it’s all about getting organized (again). So today, we’re talking about organizational structures in writing. Figuring out the best structure for your material is one of the primary benefits of outlining. This column is for non-fiction writers, whether you’re working on an essay, a term paper, or a children’s book.*

But first things first. Why am I harping on organization? Because as I said last time: I’ve read hundreds of student papers over the years, not to mention the thousands and thousands of other things I’ve read, in pretty much every genre and format there is. Hands down, the biggest barrier to a reader’s comprehension is poor organization. That’s so important, I’m going to say it again:

The biggest barrier to comprehension is poor organization.

Writing isn’t just about figuring out what your reader needs to know. It’s about understanding when they need to know it: at what point during their reading experience is that idea, fact, or dramatic incident going to make the most sense or have the most impact? And, by extension, at what point in the reading experience is that idea, fact, or dramatic incident going to be so confusing the reader tosses your work down in disgust? You know it happens – you’ve probably done it yourself.

That’s all an outline is, really – a map for what you’re going to write and when.

So, what kinds of structures are available to us, and how do we choose?

We don’t. We let the material choose for us. Here’s how.

Subtopics

Sometimes, your goal is to give an overview of a topic or field. This is common in term papers or in traditional, survey-style children’s nonfiction, and organizing material by subtopic makes a lot of sense. For example, if you’re going to discuss human uses of honey, you might want a section on honey as food, honey as medicine, and domestic honey as an industry. It makes sense to finish talking about each subtopic before moving on to the next.

If you’re a visually-oriented kind of person, picture “honey” in the middle of a mind-map with spokes moving out to each subtopic. That’s the kind of structure we’re talking about here: a bunch of ideas surrounding a central theme.

Order of Importance

I consider this one a variation on the Subtopics structure, because all it’s really about is figuring out the order the subtopics should go in! There are two schools of thought on this. If you’re a journalist, you’re going to start with the most important and work your way down, on the assumption that newspaper readers want the good stuff first and might not make it all the way to the end of the article. On the other hand, if you’ve opened with a good hook, there’s something very satisfying about moving on with “less” interesting stuff and working your way up to the most compelling information or evidence you’ve got – the “end with a bang” approach to making an argument.

That being said, anything that’s genuinely not interesting probably shouldn’t go in your outline to begin with!

Chronological

Sometimes, a linear structure makes a lot more sense. If you’re writing history, biography, or about the life cycle of a bee, things happen in order, and your writing will make the most sense if it reflects that order. 

Humans are good at visualizing time as a straight line, so this structure tends to be easiest to master. Level up by arranging the clauses in each sentence in chronological order, too!

Cause and Effect

This is another linear structure, and in most cases, it’s chronological, placing causes before effects in an unbroken chain. Not always, though! Part of our goal as writers is to capture an hold our reader’s attention, which means that, in some cases, it’s more effective to present the effect (result), and then go back to trace the chain of events that led to that most interesting situation. History and biography writers use this trick a lot.

Problem and Solution

This structure is very similar to cause and effect, in the sense that a problem exists (cause) and we’re trying to solve it (effect). Pretty much every lab report or scientific paper ever written follows this structure, but it can also be used for research papers or books that deal with “issues” and the ways we might address them. In that case, a problem-solution might incorporate a compare and contrast structure, as you present alternatives and evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses. Which leads me to…

Compare and Contrast

It’s usually pretty obvious when this structure should be invoked – if you’re a student, your teacher will tell you to use it! Unfortunately, it can be the trickiest to execute well. The easiest way to attack it is to present ALL the information for Option A, then go on to Option B… which runs the risk your reader will forget your arguments about Option A before you make a conclusion. Alternating between A and B in each paragraph is more sophisticated and can be really effective, but if you struggle with transitions, it’s going to feel choppy. Proceed with caution.

Infinite Variety

Are those your only options, you ask? Nope! I once wrote an article that was organized by size: from biggest to progressively smaller. The only rule here is that the structure makes sense for your material, so don’t be afraid to get creative. 

And don’t be afraid to try more than one. Another advantage of outlining before you start to write is that you can experiment with multiple structures before you commit. That saves time, and here at Teach Write, we are all about efficiency.

Next time: methods of outlining that won’t make you want to murder someone!

 

Hey, did you know I teach writing workshops? It’s true – I work with adult writers, teachers, and students of all ages. Contact me to learn more.

*Structure is just as important in fiction, but the strategies are different. We may talk about those later.

Welcome to 2022

Two weeks into 2020-too – how is everyone doing?

It’s been a mixed bag for me so far. In the YAAAAAAY column, I got my COVID booster (woo vaccines! woo science!) and The Boreal Forest won the 2021 Information Book Award!

 

Kermit GIF from Kermit GIFs

Thank you so much to the Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada for this honour! Also, every book on the shortlist is awesome, so check them out.

In the BOOOOO column, I got the results of my sleep study. My heart, lungs, and legs are all fine, which is great news, BUT… I’m waking up 8 TIMES PER HOUR. 

Which, no wonder I’m exhausted all the time. On the one hand, this is incredibly validating – it’s not all in my head. But it IS in my brain, and one of the things I’m supposed to do in order to sleep better is reduce my stress levels. 

*looks around at the world*

*laughs hysterically*

Yeah. I’ll work on that.

Speaking of the pandemic, does anyone else get vaguely uneasy when movie or TV characters are in crowded places and NO ONE IS WEARING A MASK? I didn’t actually notice how much this was bothering me until Tech Support and I watched Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, which is set in the 1920s. There’s a scene near the beginning where Price is walking down the street and people in the background are actually wearing masks, and the cognitive dissonance between the masks and the period costumes was overwhelming until my brain went RIGHT: the INFLUENZA pandemic.

It was weird, you guys. But the movie was good, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. I’d love to hear how everyone else is doing.

 

 

 

Bev Katz Rosenbaum: Playing the Long Game

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Bev Katz Rosenbaum . Take it away, Bev!

Like many authors, I have many author friends. I also have all too many friends who gave writing-to-publish a shot and gave up after a short while. Some of them went on to self-publish their books. I think self-publishing is a grand option if you’re happy to take on all the jobs besides writing it entails; many of my talented editing clients self-publish. But an equal number of talented friends and clients stopped writing altogether.

I know just as many authors who were traditionally published and who gave up after their first books were put out into the world with little fanfare and whose second books met with rejections.  Others hung on for another one or two books, then gave up.

I’m an author who could have given up after one or two books but didn’t. And I’m so glad I didn’t.  Because it’s only with my seventh book, my young adult novel I’m Good and Other Lies, about (in part) a teen struggling through the pandemic, that I feel everything has come together for me writing-wise. And I’m finally getting some critical attention. (I got my *first* Kirkus review with this book, and it described I’m Good and Other Lies as ‘pitch-perfect’ and ‘important’!)

I had a big birthday this year–one with a zero at the end of it. And if I’ve learned anything over my life to this point, it’s to do away with arbitrary timelines. Sure, some people make big splashes in their fields right out of the gate. But for many of us, it’s more of a slow burn.  (Please excuse the mixed metaphors!) With every book, I learned a little more–learned how to write better, which topics and themes are more likely to sell, and also what to ask of my team (publisher, agent, etc.).  Remember how, in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell told us it takes ten-thousand hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills? Turns out it’s true!  

I published my first book, a romance novel I thank the universe has no digital footprint, just before I turned thirty. I expected from that point on, I’d be able to regularly publish. Haha. I didn’t sell another book for many years.  Which is a pretty common phenomenon, I’ve learned.

That first book has usually been gelling in your head for years and has something special that makes an editor sit up and notice. Some people are able to replicate that specialness with subsequent books. I was not. But when ‘chick lit’ became a big thing, I was enchanted and finally able to sell my second book in that genre. It didn’t make the splash I would have liked, but that marketplace became very crowded very quickly, and I knew my writing wasn’t quite there yet. (Side note: I now find the premise of that book, with a twenty-nine year old panicking about how her life isn’t what she imagined it by age thirty, hilarious.)

There was another long gap until I was published again, this time in a category I would stay in–young adult. I Was a Teenage Popsicle sold in a two-book deal to a big house. People loved the first book’s premise (a cryonically preserved, popular teen is thawed into a world she doesn’t get and is now the un-coolest) but I knew it still wasn’t the best I could do. And by the time its sequel came out, the YA marketplace, which had seen publishers madly scramble for the next Harry Potter, was suddenly as glutted as the chick lit one.

My next YA sold only in Germany! That’s probably a good thing. There was definitely an air of desperation to that one.

At that point, I decided to take a break from writing. A former in-house fiction editor, I was now busy building up a freelance editing business and raising my kids. I told myself I’d write again only when an idea really pulled at me. And one did, after the 2016 U.S. election. Who is Tanksy? is a satire of that election set at a middle school, which sold to Orca’s ‘Currents’ line for striving readers. I’m proud of that one, but after writing it, I realized YA was where I felt most comfortable.

Which brings me to I’m Good and Other Lies. It’s the YA book of my heart about a kid in a difficult family situation, suddenly stuck in it 24/7 during the pandemic. As for the writing itself, I babied every sentence and am so proud of each page! As I said, critics seem to agree it’s the best thing I’ve done.

It’s a long game, folks–you need to play it to the end! Not that it’s the end for me–stay tuned..!

Merry COVID Christmas: On the Value of Traditions in the Worst of Times

The ancient glue that held the stable together finally gave up – but don’t worry. Tech Support can fix pretty much anything.

Last week was tough, you guys. Last week I told a friend I haven’t seen in over two years not to fly out for the holidays, because omicron is blowing up in Ontario and it wasn’t safe for her to come. There was grief, and there was rage. Now, there is mostly the exhaustion that comes with knowing that all of this *waves vaguely at the world in general* could have been avoided.

And yet.

Last week I also opened a box. It was a battered, duct-taped box filled with dust and memories: my mother’s nativity set. She passed away in 2009, and this year, my Dad is passing this tradition on to me. 

Ours is a secular household, but this nativity set means so much to me. I remember when Mom bought it – at a Christmas shop in Disneyland when I was about 5 years old. It was big and awkward but she fell in love with it and refused to go home without it. She used to let me arrange the figures when we set it up each December, and I loved that I could change the story by changing their positions. Every piece felt like a friend. And sitting on the floor of my living room, gently unwinding each piece of tattered bubble wrap, I felt the warmth of those memories soothing away the stress of the week, the way Mom’s gentle touch soothed away my childhood fears.

And then Tech Support and I made candy cane cookies. 

Two halves of the same heart.

My Mom taught me how to bake, and these cookies are one of the first things I remember making with her. It’s a laborious process. First the dough, half of which gets died red with food colouring before going into the fridge to chill. Then breaking off chunks, rolling them between your palms to form balls. Matching the balls for number and size – somehow it never comes out quite even, but somehow, despite my perfectionist tendencies, that imprecision is part of the delight. 

Then a dough ball of each colour under each hand… rolling out into snakes, pressing them together, tapping the ends to make them even, rolling some more. Twisting the snake, and bending it to create the arch – so gently, or the dough will tear. And the scent from the oven as the almond extract aerosolizes – it’s the smell of Christmas. The smell of care, and attention, and love.

Because we’re not done yet – oh no. We still have to wait for them to cool so they can be drizzled with icing sugar glaze and coated in sprinkles. And somehow, there’s always one cookie that gets “accidentally” broken and simply has to get eaten before the rest are packed away in the freezer for Christmas Eve. The look of total innocence on Tech Support’s face when he informed me of this tragedy last night? It was pure joy. As was our discovery that we twist in opposite directions that magically make a whole heart.

And this is how we’ll come through another COVID Christmas. By slowing down and paying attention. By remembering what really matters and working to protecting it. This is how we’ll heal both ourselves and our broken world.

Wishing you joy, and hope, and love.

Jean Mills: When “Research” Means Mining Your Own Experience

Welcome to Cantastic Authorpalooza, featuring posts by and about great Canadian children’s book creators! Today’s guest: Jean Mills . Take it away, Jean!

“Write what you know.”

Who said that? I’m not sure, but it’s a phrase – an instruction, really – thrown around as a guideline for writers. It suggests you should draw on what you know, mine your own life experience, and be careful leaping into the unknown – or at least no leaping without solid research.

Confession: I’m not enthusiastic about research. I can see my kidlit colleagues throwing their hands up in horror. Research is the fun part for many writers. I’ve heard writers say that research sometimes takes over and they have to force themselves to actually stop digging and get writing.

Not me. When I write a story, I tend to draw on a limited version of that “write what you know” approach, with a few dips into Google or questions thrown out to people with answers. After that, I just leap into the creative abyss and see where my characters take me.

So yes, I used some of my own musical background in the writing of SKATING OVER THIN ICE, a story about a musical prodigy. And yes, I used my little house on the shores of the Northumberland Strait as a starting point for LARKIN ON THE SHORE – but a whole lot of imagination (and leaping) went into the creation of both characters: Imogen, the confused and searching musician, and Larkin, the traumatized and struggling teen trying to find her way to healing. But neither of those characters is me.

And neither is Griffin, the injured hockey player in THE LEGEND, who gets a chance to work in sports media for a local radio station. But you know what IS “me”? Much of the sports media detail included in the story.

That’s because I spent ten years on the Media & Communications team for Curling Canada. I was there watching games from the media bench, interviewing athletes in the post-game scrums, sitting up late in cold arenas or lonely hotel rooms to submit game reports that would be used by other media outlets such as CBC Sports, SportsNet and TSN, not to mention outlets in the United States and around the world. And then there were photographs that needed to be selected, cropped, captioned and inserted into the website. And social media on three platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) that had to go out quickly during and after each draw, and links to videos of highlights and post-game scrums to be embedded and shared. All before shutting down for the night (somewhere around 2 a.m.) so I could get a few hours sleep before starting it all over again the next morning.

Oh, and no typos allowed, so editing, editing, editing.

It was a grind. It was fun. It was a grind. And I learned a lot.

So in THE LEGEND, when Griffin shows up at the radio station for his interview and is asked to watch a video and write a radio news clip, I knew exactly what he needed to do (and he was a pro, naturally). From there, Griffin ventures into the world of sports media, with a mentor he’s not sure he can trust and some tricky situations along the way. I dug into my own past and, a few times, reached out to media colleagues to help fill in some gaps in order to create a realistic media landscape that readers would enjoy.

For example, Hockey Night In Canada announcer Chris Cuthbert (we were student broadcasters together at CFRC Queen’s Radio many years ago, but that’s another story…) sent me photos from the press box at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, and he shared some unexpected and colourful details that found their way into the story. Valuable research that enhanced the story.

So here are a few examples of the “write what you know” approach that found their way from my experience onto the pages of THE LEGEND:

The Kreviazuk sisters, Ali (left) and Lynn (right) made interviewing fun, for once. Note the parka I’m wearing. Yes, it was parka weather inside the Maurice Richard Arena in Montreal.

Post-game scrums

I was always nervous interviewing athletes, and with good reason sometimes, especially if someone had just lost a big game. At the 2014 Olympic Trials, the Communications Director (my boss) instructed me to ask a fiercely intimidating male athlete a pointed and difficult question after a loss.

“Do I have to?” I pleaded.

“Yes, you have to,” he said. It turns out, he knew what he was doing.

The athlete clearly didn’t like the question, but he answered well enough, and afterwards, my boss took us aside.

“I told Jean to ask you that question,” he said to the Fierce Curler (who was not happy with me.) “That’s the kind of tough question you’re going to get if you make it to the Olympics. Well done.”

A teaching moment for the athlete; a supportive “I’ve got your back, Jean” moment for me.

In THE LEGEND, Griffin attends a few post-game scrums to interview athletes and coaches. He’s nervous, but he pushes through and makes an impression. (And that’s all I’m going to say about that. *Spoiler*)

Sometimes it was just fun, though. Like the time I got to interview two sisters from opposing teams who had just played against each other.

Protocols

As Griffin discovers in THE LEGEND, working alongside other media professionals is part of the job, and there are protocols to be followed. For instance, during my Curling Canada years, the host broadcaster of our events was TSN, and they had first dibs on access to athletes (especially on the ice), dibs on media bench space, as well as dibs on the selection of donuts provided by Tim Hortons every day. But they were still our colleagues. Working alongside sportswriters from other media outlets meant we all became colleagues as the grind of the competition went on for over a week.

I can state here that CBC Sports media star Devin Heroux saved me when I couldn’t get my phone camera to work (“Just clean it, Jean. Here, I’ll do it.”) And The Athletic’s (then National Post’s) Sean Fitz-Gerald kindly overlooked an unprofessional gaffe from this inexperienced reporter in the post-game scrum and took over the interview when I asked. I learned a lot from my colleagues on the media bench, and I made sure Griffin had his moments with media colleagues, too.

Game over, winners declared, trophy presented, and the national media moves in to get their shot. And that’s me, standing on the side with my phone, waiting for my turn to get a photo for social media. (Can you find me? There, in the middle of the photo, black jacket, holding my phone and waiting my turn. Photo credit: @Chris_Bittle on Twitter)

Social media and storytelling

At various points in the story, Griffin is asked to do social media posts for the radio station, and I confess, this was one of the most fun parts of the job: looking for stories to share. Okay, sharing scores and updates was dull and necessary, but the best part was capturing moments on and off the ice. I was always on the lookout for stories that gave fans a different view of the event. It was all part of storytelling, and maybe explains why I stepped away from this job to focus on storytelling full time – writing fiction for teens, telling stories.

So much happens behind the scenes at a championship event. This was late at night, after the athletes and most of the media had left. I heard a noise and went to investigate. There was Ron, doing the thankless job that needs to be done, alone in a deserted arena.

 

When writing fiction, research is good, even essential, depending on what you’re writing. I think my own real-life experience contributed valuable insights to the the writing of THE LEGEND. So just maybe, sometimes, “write what you know” really is the best tool for a writer. It works for me.

 

Canadian champions, after a nail-biter of a game that went to an extra end. Joanne was new to the team this season, her first national women’s title, and she was crying with excitement. I couldn’t resist framing the moment, just a little…

 

Jean Mills lives in Guelph, Ontario. Her third YA novel, THE LEGEND, was released November 15 by Red Deer Press.