Reflections on an author tour

Barbara here, recently returned from the British Columbia mini-tour that I blogged about two weeks ago. What a wonderful adventure it was! Some of the greatest, unexpected, perks of being an author are the adventures you have and the people you meet in the pursuit of your career. You may be out of pocket or at best clear mere pennies once you have factored in the cost of travelling, conference fees, promo, etc., but the sheer fun of the constantly changing experiences makes it all worthwhile. The tax deductions aren't bad either.

The trip began with the usual cramped, frustrating plane trip across the country. Air Canada had chosen to assign me middle seats for the two legs of my journey (despite my stated seat preference), and it was only by alert attention to detail that I detected this early enough to change to the aisle. So far so good. In Vancouver, after waiting ages in the ticket line, I navigated the city's fancy new Sky Train and found my way to my Airb&b, which provided reasonable accommodation near the downtown that didn't break my budget.

The Airb&b had a great location within walking distance of the Book Warehouse and the coffee shops on Main St., and I had dinner at a local noodle place with some old friends before the reading. The Book Warehouse on Main Street has a wonderful, flexible space that allows shelves to be moved and chairs set up for readings. Not only did I share the stage with two of my favourite Vancouver authors, Sam Wiebe and ER Brown, but I also met another terrific local author Janie Chang, who came to the readings and joined us afterwards for drinks at the pub across the street (by which time it was two in the morning for my eastern body). I bought her book, THREE SOULS, which I am currently enjoying thoroughly. Connecting with new author friends from all over the world is another unexpected perk of this author business.

The next morning my Sunshine Coast Festival adventure began with a 1955 DeHaviland Beaver float plane, which seats six people including the pilot. I got to ride shotgun. What a thrill! We took off out of Vancouver's downtown harbour and soared over the sunlit coastal mountains and twisting coastline to the Sunshine Coast peninsula. There I was met by Shelley, who drove me in her green Mazda Miata convertible to the inn. What an introduction to the next four days! The Driftwood Inn is an old-fashioned, unpretentious motor inn with a spectacular location right on the ocean front. Its dining room has a wall of windows overlooking the ocean. After lunching there, I walked along the ocean and took two swims in the warm, gentle surf. Being used to the wild, frigid breakers of the North Atlantic, this was a special treat.

That evening, the formal festivities began with a reception followed by a presentation by Anne-Marie MacDonald. The festival is unlike any other I have been to, and under the special stewardship of festival organizer Jane Davidson, it is an author's delight. Attendance at the festival as a whole is in the thousands, and each author is given a full hour on the stage to shine. Most of us combined talk and reading throughout our hour, and every presentation I attended was heartfelt and riveting. As a crime writer, I most frequently meet other crime writers at events and festivals, so it was a treat to meet authors from all across the spectrum, from Camilla Gibb to Waubgeshig Rice to Craig Davidson, Michael Christie and Cathie Borrie. Everyone used words in unique and moving ways. This is another unexpected perk to the writer's life– the chance to broaden and inspire our own writing.

Many festival attendees come year after year and often stay for the full three and a half days, giving a warm welcome to new authors and old favourites alike. Most sessions were full. Where else can an author get an enthusiastic and appreciative audience of 450 people on a Sunday morning? After each session the bookseller, the wonderful Bev Shaw of Talewind Books, did a brisk business. Mindful of my flight limit, I resisted the urge to buy books by each of the other authors.

Photo by Cathie Roy

My four days at Sechelt ended, fittingly, with a devilish moonlight swim in the ocean and then an early morning float plane back to Vancouver and a ferry ride to Victoria. I wandered the streets and pathways of that charming city for a day before my final event at Chronicles of Crime,  one of the few mystery bookstores left on the continent, and well worth the trip. Owner Frances Thorsen, along with Orca Books, had organized a panel with myself and local authors Kay Stewart, Linda Richards and Brian Harvey. What a lively and interesting exchange it proved to be, with the discussion ranging over morality, justice, mystery conventions, and the death of cats. The audience pitched right in and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I staggered into my taxi at 6:00 am the next morning to begin the flight home, bearing a suitcase of lovely memories, new books, new friendships, and fresh inspiration to explore new heights in my own writing.

On to British Columbia!

Barbara here. Today I am on  an airplane, flying almost 4000 kilometres across Canada from Ottawa to Vancouver to begin the first leg of my week-long mini book tour of British Columbia. BC is a beautiful province of spectacular mountains, rugged oceans, and quirky cities. Have I really only visited it once in the past forty-three years? I am really looking forward to bringing Inspector Green along with me, to three book appearances in three parts of the province.

First, the gorgeous city of Vancouver, where tonight (Wednesday Aug 12) I will be at The Book Warehouse on Main Street for an evening of book talk and killer readings with two BC writer friends I have met on previous book travels, E.R. Brown and Sam Wiebe. Both Sam and Eric set their books in and around Vancouver, and have been nominated for numerous awards. Details of the event are on the poster below. It's free and all book lovers are welcome!

Then tomorrow I fly up the coast to Sechelt by float plane– how cool is that? I've never been on a float plane, despite writing about one in my novel THE WHISPER OF LEGENDS, and so it will be a test to see how well my imagination worked! In addition to being a beautiful coastal peninsula, Sechelt is home to the annual Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts. Sunshine Coast is "Canada's longest running summer gathering of Canadian writers and readers, featuring established literary stars and exciting, new voices". I am honoured to be one of the invited authors this summer, among a select list from across the literary spectrum, each of whom gives an hour-long presentation. The festival lasts four days, but my talk is on Sunday morning, Aug 16, and the rest of the time I am free to enjoy the other presentations and the glorious scenery of the coast. 

An hour will provide plenty of scope to cover my writing in detail, so in the past few weeks I have been thinking about what people would like to hear. There are ten books in the Inspector Green series, which has an arc of its own as my character has matured and faced different challenges in his personal life as well as his work. I have decided to talk about the series as a whole, and to this end have been scouring my earlier books in search of short selections that illustrate that arc. I will start with DO OR DIE, the debut novel of the series, and will read the scene the first introduces Green to readers. It is very odd to go back fifteen years to the beginning of my novel-writing career. The series and my skills have evolved in breadth and depth over time, as one would hope, so it is a bit like meeting my younger, clumsier self.

I will read from one or two other books in the series before ending with a focus on my latest book, NONE SO BLIND. In the process, I will talk about why I write mysteries, why a nice, gentle healer of souls (I'm a psychologist) would be drawn to murder, and why I chose the themes I did. Partly catharsis, partly trying to right the world, partly... Who knows? It will be an interesting journey of discovery for me as well as the audience. 

After four days in Sechelt, I fly back to Vancouver by float plane and then across the ocean by ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island. There I have another exciting evening of book talk and readings at the wonderful mystery bookstore, Chronicles of Crime, on Aug 18. This time I will be joined by three authors from Vancouver Island – Kay Stewart, Linda Richards, and Brian Harvey – all of whom have multiple achievements to their names. Once again, a free evening for book lovers everywhere! The details are in this poster.

If you live anywhere near any of these venues, I'd love to see you!

Then, on Aug 19, it's an early morning flight back home, tired but hopefully exhilarated and inspired by the new experiences and people I have met. We authors spend a lot of time lamenting the dismal state of publishing today and the poverty-level incomes most of us make, even those with successful,  long-running series. All of that is true, yet there are unseen, surprise benefits like making new friends, travelling across the continent to conferences and festivals (albeit most of the time on our own dime), and joining the worldwide community of booklovers. 

That's priceless.