Books & Animals
Posted on November 30, 2013 by Catherine Austen
You may know the old story of The Hares and the Frogs: Once there were three hares who were always stressed out by all the predators in the fields. If it wasn’t a fox in the grass, it was an eagle overhead. Hare life…
Category: authors, Fables, Friday Fables, writingTags: aesop's fables, creative process, publishing, writers
Posted on October 21, 2013 by Catherine Austen
Want to win a $50 Amazon gift certificate? Want to chat with authors of speculative fiction from across Canada? Want to celebrate longstanding independent book publishers? Then please come to the virtual book launch of Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast to Coast,…
Category: authors, books, short storiesTags: bitten by books, book launch, book release, science fiction, team leader, tesseracts, writers
Posted on May 3, 2013 by Catherine Austen
Next week I’ll be in Atlantic Canada on an author tour as part of the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award celebrations. My middle-grade comedy, 26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6 (Lorimer) is a nominated title in the 2012/13 English Fiction category. Classes all over the eastern…
Posted on February 1, 2013 by Catherine Austen
“World is suddener than we fancy it.” (Louis MacNiece, “Snow”) We’ve long been warned not to build tension on the cheap by spattering our manuscripts with the word “suddenly.” Lately I’ve read a few posts advising writers not to use the word at all…
Posted on January 25, 2013 by Catherine Austen
You may have heard the classic fable, “The Lion and his Three Councillors:” A lion caught a whiff of his own rancid breath and thought, “Maybe I’m not as kingly as I ought to be. I better check.” He called to a sheep and…
Category: Friday Fables, writingTags: aesop's fables, creative process, critiques, writers
Posted on November 22, 2012 by Catherine Austen
I’m taking a breather from picking up after the puppy to say, wow, it was such an honour to win the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2012 Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature for my middle-grade comedy, 26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6 (James Lorimer &…
Posted on November 13, 2012 by Catherine Austen
…to bring you PUPPIES! Well, just one puppy. But what a puppy. Sigh. I’m smitten. Puppy’s vital stats: Name: Ernest (AKA Ernie, Ernesto, Che, and occasionally the names of my cats and children when I get confused) Age: 3 months; he’s been with us…
Category: pets, writingTags: cats, dogs, inspiration, procrastination, writers