Well, that was quite the trip. Friends, fire, fiesta…it was nuts. Had a great time. Care to reminisce with me…?

My buddy James McCann in Times Square around midnight.

 

 

 

My other buddy Lee Edward Fodi, aka Mr. Wiz, signing copies of his latest Kendra book at the Mom’s Choice booth at Book Expo America. [He’s the one in the funny hat…]

 

 

 

 

 

One of the many metal men who haunted my waking…and my walking…hours in Manhattan.

 

 

 

 

Another metal figure — this time sans head and with quite a steampunk ethos, from Union Square on a Sunny Sunday.

 

I managed to take in two shows while I was in the city — Million Dollar Quartet — an enjoyable romp with a blockbuster finish, and Avenue Q, which was funny and a little poignant, with the death of Gary Coleman earlier in the week [the character Gary Coleman did not leave the building…].

 

A highlight for me was a peek at the Flat Iron building from the inside — huge thanks to Susan Chang for giving me the tour!

 

Now, back to the world of making words. I have a whole pile of tabs open, but will save those for another day this week. Will also post my favourite New York shots to my flickr page, and will link to those as soon as I have them up.

Two quick notes to finish — I had a great visit at Gleneagles School today — Mrs. Kozak’s class were tons of fun and very welcoming. And …SiWC 2010 is now open for registration. Huge stampede for spots in the first 24 hours…but there is still room for registering, and SO much fun will be had, we may all never leave.

 

More soon!

 

~kc

 

Been here a couple of days now — so action-packed there’s been little time to record events.

A few highlights:

Taking in all the sights and sounds of Book Expo America.

Heading out on an abortive [and very expensive] gypsy cab ride to NINJA restaurant [with my favourite ninja James McCann, and other friends] only to find the restaurant closed, the cab driver was a crook and we were out a lot of money and were still hungry. [You know, when I type it out, it’s sounding less like a ‘highlight’ and more like an ‘adventure’.

Having a Most Excellent dinner and view of the electric NY skyline via the West Village with Lisa Rector and Donald Maass. Absolutely generous and lovely hosts.

[Lisa’s incredible shoes!]

A trip to the Apple store in Manhattan, for the laying-on-of-hands of an iPad, to celebrate the release day in Canada.

And finally, a great lunch with Tor editor Susan Chang. Susan is a total doll and she took me on a tour of the Tor offices in the FlatIron building — just gorgeous [both of ’em!].

Still have a couple of days here…

…more soon!

 

~kc

…but celebratory, nonetheless. Final galley corrections of FACING FIRE are now officially done. Doubleday is doing a few tweaks on the cover, but I’ve had a sneak peek of it and it is looking mighty fine. As soon as I see the final result, I’ll post it here.

Looks like all the elements are in play for my new baby book to arrive this fall! 

Once I stem the bleeding in my eyes from the work of the past few weeks, I’ll think up a fun way to celebrate the completion of the new book and the launch of the new website design. I’m thinking a heck of a give-away is in the cards. Will mull and get back to you.

 

This is a shot of the Lions Gate from Ambleside — something I see almost every day, in all sorts of weather. This week I saw it with a whole collection of giggling grads running across in the buff. A memorable way to finish high school for those young lads, I’m sure.

So much going on, but the brain is now officially non-functional, so…

More soon.

 

~kc

Hello, my little chickadees! Am re-emerging after a long wrestle with a couple of Important Projects. My latest endeavour, a timeslip steam-punk novel for young adults [currently titled THE VANISHING] is almost in the can, and I have been shining it up and writing synopses and all the things one must do before launching such a thing at prospective editors.

 

And today, I spent most of the day going over the final galleys for FACING FIRE, the new Darby book that is coming out this fall. This is, of course, the sequel to A WALK THROUGH A WINDOW, and I’m really, really happy with how it’s turned out.

 

I’ve got a couple of other things going on, too, that I’ll talk about here as soon as I can.

So…busy times. But I’m going to be updating my ‘Upcoming Events’ section over the next few days, so keep your eye on that page for exciting things to come. Next week I am off to Book Expo America in New York. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to get excited yet, but today I started to feel the thrill start to build. I heart NY in a big way, and am hoping to connect with as many friends as I can while I’m there. Got a whole pile of other upcoming events happening as we move toward summer time — this is going to be a crazy-busy summer and fall for me, but I am really looking forward to all the new experiences.

So, to finish tonight, here are a couple of things that made me go hmmm this week:

Via Gawker, HERE is where you’ll find the Seven Most Overused Cliches in Journalism. Can’t say I disagree with any of ’em — they all irritate me. I like the challenge at the end!

And HERE , via boingboing, is a lovely list of Unusual Words. I often stumble across sites like this with a few odd linguistic anomolies, but this is the best one I’ve seen in a while. Loads of examples. Enjoy!

 

More soon….

 

~kc

Well, here we are. Brand new website [almost a year in the making] and a new location for the blog, too. I’m pretty chuffed to be here, and anxious to hear your thoughts. Going to celebrate, too, with a contest, in the next day or two once all my loyal readers have found their way over here.

…but to inaugurate the day, I think I’ll share with you some shots I took Saturday morning, when a pod a dolphins come to call.

For the first time in living memory, a pod of pacific white-sided dolphins swam into Howe Sound, right off Lions Bay. Peter and I took the boat out and found them, at a distance. We turned off the engine to get pictures, and they came over to swim around and under our boat before heading off to the Pam Rocks to engage in a visable feeding frenzy.

It was breath-taking.

 

 

The surf scoters thought so, too!

 

 

You can find more pictures of the dolphins and the surf scoter ducks at my Flickr page. [If the link takes you to the general page, just hunt for the set marked Dolphins!].

 

More soon — and welcome to my new world!

 

~kc

New site. New blog. SO exciting!!!!

Just testing here…

 

More soon.

 

~kc