Jan L. Coates's Blog

I recently had lots of fun chatting with a friend from my Acadia days, back in the late 70s and early 80s, on her new podcast.  We’ve reconnected now that we’re both spending time in the Haliburton Highlands. She’s starting a podcast, “Retired and Inspired” – don’t suppose I’ll ever actually be retired, but I’m definitely slowing down. I think I giggled too much, and said “yeah” about 200 times, but it’s a nice chat, nonetheless. Heather (Hez) has a great voice for radio, and she does the Tuesday morning show on Canoe FM, the community radio station in Haliburton.

Back in Nova Scotia for a couple of weeks, enjoying some pickleball, and a visit from Granddaughters #2 and #3 (and their parents, Liam & Rachel).

And I had so much fun doing illustrations for a family book my friend Carole is putting together for her many great nieces and nephews.

It’s interesting to feel like a visitor to Wolfville (since I’ve been here for most of the time since 1978…)

Hope your summer isn’t whizzing by too quickly, and that you’re having fun and staying cool!

I took SO many pictures during our recent trip, and I put together a little video – it was a busy but wonderful two weeks, and the pictures don’t do the Algarve justice. Thanks for coming along with me!

https://player.vimeo.com/video/1074753987?badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479

Back at School

Now that I’m back in Nova Scotia for the winter (and missing my little girls in Peterborough and Scarborough), I’m keen to do some school author visits. Thanks to the Writers in the Schools program (WITS) offered by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, I got to spend time at McCulloch Education Centre in Pictou last week, and it reminded me how much I like being with kids! I took a few pictures of wall art, and I wanted to share some of the interesting things kids said/drew:

After I read SKY PIG, I get kids to draw a picture of their dream. If they could have anything in the whole entire world, what would it be? There are always lots of kids who want to be princesses, have a puppy or travel to Disneyland, and the responses range from the hilarious to the sad:

My dream is that my mother could be Queen of the World (and the picture showed her entire family as princes, princesses, kings, etc.)My dream is to have my own zoo, and it would be full of birds.My dream is to visit my dad’s house again.

After I read THE POCKET PIG, it always amazes how many kids have imaginary friends, and they have detailed descriptions of their friendship with those friends, including one boy who said he only plays with his imaginary friend while in the bathroom so he can have privacy. They have fun drawing their imaginary friends, or imagining what that character would look like if they don’t have one (yet). They draw lots of other kids, dogs, and one boy drew a very detailed mouse – another a giant ant. Kids have so much imagination!

I’m trying out hearing aids as I’m tired of constantly asking people to repeat themselves. I had a head injury when I was in my 20s, including damage to my left ear, so it’s time to do something about it. For sure, my hearing is improved with things like radio and TV volume being reduced, but I still struggled to understand some of the younger kids last week. This is something I noticed last year, too, and I wondered if it had to do with Covid/masks, or are kids just having more trouble articulating now? Too much screen time? Not enough human conversation? A combination of everything, most likely. I’m sure it’s super frustrating for them since they know exactly what they’re trying to communicate. And speech pathologists have far too many kids on their caseloads.

I think (hope) there’s a trend towards old-school methods in teaching reading and writing, hopefully involving more phonetics after the Whole Language debacle. I’ve always been a fan of spelling lists, but it seems they disappeared years ago. Life is just so complicated for kids today, and I’m not sure the adults making the key decisions in education are always well-informed on the needs of kids. (ie. Not teachers, but the people in curriculum development offices).

Anyway, that’s my two cents. I got to spend the night with my childhood best friend while I was in Pictou – lots to catch up on! The weather here in Nova Scotia has turned, as it does before Remembrance Day. Hope you’re staying cozy in your little corner!

Phew!

We had a real heatwave here in the Haliburton Highlands last week – 35 with a humidex closer to 41. Phew! Luckily, we have window air conditioners and ceiling fans, but it was still too warm.

Pickleball

I’ve been playing lots of pickleball for the past several weeks. It’s such a great way to meet people when you’re new to a place. And I play inside most often, so it’s AIR CONDITIONED! I’ve played badminton for about 50 years, so I’m really enjoying learning a new game. There’s lots of cross-over, but also lots of unlearning since a paddle and a plastic ball are very different from a racquet and a bird.

Baby Birds

Can’t say as I’ve ever been too interested in real birds, but there are two nests just outside my back door, so I’ve been spending time watching. I think one nest is home to flycatchers, and their first fledglings left the nest a couple of weeks ago. I was happy when I saw one fly away over the roof, because two others didn’t make it. The adults have recently returned, and I assume there are new eggs in the nest, so hopefully I’ll get to enjoy seeing more fledglings take flight. The robins’ nest behind the garage had five babies stuffed into it. As they began dropping to the ground, I was amazed at how BIG they were – not sure how they all fit into the nest.

Brown-crested flycatcher

baby robins stuffed into their nest

Bunkie and Babies (now toddlers)

We’ve been staining our new bunkie, which is now wired. We’re doing the interior with pine tongue and groove (bought from a family-owned mill nearby) – so far so good. It’s an interesting experience owning the cottage property with Liam, Rachel and Noelle – baby sister is due mid-July, so they’ll be sticking closer to their home in Scarborough until then. I love that Don and I are getting to know our kids as independent adults/parents, and of course, time with Ada and Noelle is precious. Now that they’re talking and growing their imaginations, so much fun to hang out with them! Still no pictures allowed online – sigh…

Nana and GP’s escape room

THRIFTING

I first started shopping at Frenchy’s, (now mainly Guy’s) Maritime thrift store haven, as a teenager, and I’ve never looked back. These days, Facebook Marketplace always seems to have whatever it is I’m looking for, and I’m spending too much time browsing its virtual aisles! (got a perfect non-tippy three-seater canoe on the weekend) I’m also getting an inside look since I’m spending Thursdays in the sorting room at the Lily Ann Thrift Shop in Haliburton. All proceeds are used for the 4Cs Haliburton Foodbank, which is independent rather than being supported by a bigger organization such as Feed Nova Scotia. People are generous in cleaning out their closets and donating, but I do wish they would sort out the items that are past use – garbage is garbage, and shouldn’t be donated… Most people are sensible and arrive with donations carefully laundered and folded, but not everybody.

I finally got to visit the new exhibit of Doris’s work/photos at the Doris McCarthy Gallery (U of T Scarborough) last week – more on that in a later post, but it was so good.

Hope your summer is off to a great start, and that you get to spend time with your people having fun, and staying cool. Hope you’re feeling lucky to live in Canada.

The only downside to SSI is that rentals have become so much more expensive in the 11 years since we first came here. Like everywhere, I guess. Wherever you are, I hope you’re seeing/hearing/smelling some signs of SPRING!

I’ve been doing some school author visits this month, which I love doing since it reminds me how much I love kids! And how much I admire all the adults in the schools – heroes all of them. I took a few pictures of some of the wall/door art I found:

I’ve had three bookish things happen this month that really made me smile:

a) a high school student in Saskatchewan reached out to me because she had read A HARE IN THE ELEPHANT’S TRUNK for a school project, and she had to do a six-minute speech impersonating me! She wanted more background info than is available on my blog. I was happy to help and to hear that she got 100%!

b) I also got a note from a man who had read HARE, thanking me, and telling me he is not young – he’s in his eighties:) It’s such a treat for an author to hear from people in various corners who’ve connected with one of your books.

c) During one school visit, I had shared SKY PIG, and then I asked the kids to draw their dreams. If they could have anything in the world, what would it be? Kids love this activity, and they come up with some great ideas. As I walked around one classroom (P/1), I noticed one little boy sitting quietly, but not drawing anything. When I crouched down and asked if I could help, he remained silent. I asked an EA in the room if he didn’t speak, and she told me he had just arrived from Ukraine before the holidays. I then went back and really worked to help him understand what he was to draw. A few minutes later, I noticed him staring at the wall behind me, while drawing on his paper. He was using a red crayon, and when I went back, he was carefully copying the Canadian flag behind me! “Your dream is to live in Canada?!” I exclaimed, and he gave me a big grin and nodded his head. This was definitely one of the best moments of my writing life. I had a painting of a dog carrying a Canadian flag at home, so I put it in an envelope and mailed it to the Principal to give to the boy. I hope it makes him smile:)

Wherever you are, I hope January is being kind to you and yours.

I hope you’re launching into 2024 with a sense of hope and a heart full of kindness. I’m going to cheat and post only pictures to summarize my 2023. My year was all about Ada and Noelle (who are now 2), but they’re still not appearing on social media, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say they are the most amazing toddlers in the world:)

Saint Simons Island, Georgia – beach walking and pelican watching. Approaching Quebec City from the ferry out of Levis (easiest way to visit Quebec City without the parking woes). This picture of my shoes and Ada’s never fails to make me smile. (I got her Keenes at Frenchy’s) I had such fun spending the winter on this project for Camp Triumph on Prince Edward Island. https://www.camptriumph.ca/why-camp-triumph Pine Lake, Haliburton Highlands – so happy to spend half the year here! Sadly, this moose was put down after wandering along highway 118 in the Haliburton Highlands for several days. Not sure why… Haliburton Sculpture Forest – magical place for a walk. My Beach Meadows writing women – we’ve been retreating together for over a decade, and we never run out of things to talk about! Lahave River Books – with surprise guest, Holly Doll, publisher at Fitzhenry & Whiteside (and her furry friend, whose name I’ve forgotten). Such a cozy, warm bookshop. Squeezed in some sister time with Nance. Pine Lake in the fall – the tractor mower mulches all the leaves pretty well. Ada and GP at Benjamin Bridge winery, fall, 2023. Think I can post this one because it’s from the back…

I have to say I do love being able to take pictures with my phone. They’re not the best quality, but it’s so great to have a record of the year since they’re passing by so quickly that they all blur together it seems.

I wish you good health, peace, contentment and plenty of time with your people in 2024. This Neil Gaiman quote is popping up everywhere this year, although he wrote it in 2011.

“May your coming year be filled with magic, and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw, or build or sing, or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

And I hope you read Canadian, too. November 8th is I Read Canadian Day this year – a day set aside to celebrate Canadian books. I was thinking of first lines of novels the other day, and as a writer and a reader, I know how important those first lines are. When I begin reading a novel written by a favorite writer (after I’ve read their Acknowledgements, which is a habit I have), the first line immediately lets me know that I’m in good hands, and that I’m about to enter a world that will engage me and my emotions and cause me to become invested in that world’s people.

So, here are my novels’ first lines:

A HARE IN THE ELEPHANT’S TRUNK (Red Deer Press, 2010)

PROLOGUE: “Jacob held his pointer finger just above his thumb, forming a small, rectangular box in the air. He closed one eye, held the box up to his open eye, and trapped puny little Majok in the frame.”

AND CHAPTER ONE: “From the gnarled branches high in the leafy baobab, Jacob saw Mama kneeling by the river. Even in the blue-gray dusk, with the sun glowing red on the horizon, he could see that she was the most beautiful of all the mothers, like a queen with a crown of braids.”

THE POWER OF HARMONY (Red Deer Press, 2013)

CHAPTER ONE: “The mirror on the back of the bathroom door’s all cloudy. Makes me look like an angel. A skinny, freckly angel in an itchy white dress. I’ve got the voice of an angel, too. That’s what my music teacher tells me. Only I don’t want to be in God’s heavenly choir. Not yet. Since that’s just a nice way of saying somebody died.”

ROCKET MAN (Red Deer Press, 2014)

CHAPTER ONE: “First day of basketball tryouts. The gym smells like rotten socks and last year’s sneakers. It’d be a fail, a colossal fail, to play D2 in Grade 8. I’ve gotta make Division 1 this year. I’m warming up, doing some power crossovers, when Roy Williams struts up to me, steals my ball, slam-dunks it, then hangs off the rim for about an hour, doing chin-ups.”

TALKING TO THE MOON (Red Deer Press, 2018)

CHAPTER ONE: “My real mother, Moonbeam Dupuis, disappeared on March 20th, 2008. On my fourth birthday. 2,699 days ago. Sir Isaac Newton died on that same date, only in 1727. He was the first scientist to notice that water could separate light into all the colors of the spectrum. Sir Isaac discovered gravity too – the invisible force that keeps us stuck to the earth, like what roots do for trees, so we’re not all the time astronaut-floating. Hugs are one of my Dislikes, but sometimes it feels like the earth’s not wrapping its invisible arms around me tight enough. Like gravity and my missing mother are both avoiding me. Part of me disappeared with Moonbeam. Since it’s an inside bit, the only one who knows it’s gone is me.”

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN ( Nevermore Press, 2019)

CHAPTER ONE: “I didn’t even know you were lost and needed to be found. Until we saw the note – under one of the scratch-and-sniff pizza magnets on the fridge. One of those yellow sticky notes you keep in your shirt pocket, the ones you leave the riddle clues on when we play hide-and-seek up at Gram’s. Only this was one messed-up clue. “GONE OUT WEST TO FIND MYSELF. SORRY.”

THE HERMIT (Nimbus Publishing, 2020)

CHAPTER ONE: “Hey, Danny! Wait up.” Huh? Why does he sound so far away? I look back over my shoulder at mini Ben, still at the very bottom of the mountain I just got done climbing. I collapse onto a massive log, help myself to some tasty wild blueberries, and prepare to wait for my super-slow friend.”

Interesting to type out these lines, especially since I wrote them years ago, but I remember so well the hundreds of times I rewrote these lines, and in fact, the entire first chapters of each of my novels. When I visit schools, kids are always surprised to hear that my novels all took more than three years to write – sometimes I’ll start something, then leave it for a time to work on something else, but the editing process is soooo… long. I started working on some of my picture books a dozen years before they were published ! I love working with editors because I know we’re both working toward creating a stronger book – and they have such great eyes for detail. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the best in the business!

If you’re reading a Canadian book this week, which one is it? Happy reading!

I’m always a little surprised when I finally make it back to my blog and see when I last posted. Oh, well. I’ve been in the Haliburton Highlands at our family cottage for most of the summer, seeing lots of Ada and Noelle, our grandbabies who will soon be two years old already! Sadly, they’re not appearing on social media, but trust me when I say they are the two sweetest little girls who ever lived They’re so different and changing every week as they’re learning to talk, experimenting with the potty, etc. Grandparenting truly is the best gig ever.

We’ve heard lots of live music here in the Haliburton area, listened to lots of Canoe FM, spent time in the woods as well as in and on Pine Lake most days. I’ve never lived anyplace with so much sunshine! Surprisingly, the lake level doesn’t seem to go down much, even though we’ve had very little rain all summer. We were back in Nova Scotia for a month in the middle of the summer, and people say it rained in Haliburton then, and the grass is still green, so maybe we missed it. While in NS, I got to enjoy my annual week at Beach Meadows with writer friends Marcia Barss, Jackie Halsey and Jill MacLean – lots of fog, but I did a lot of painting and the conversation is always rich.

Just signed a contract with Fitzhenry & Whiteside for a kids’ book about iconic Canadian artist, Doris McCarthy, scheduled for publication in 2024. Doris lived between 1910 and 2010, and I got to be writer-in-residence for a month back in 2015 at her former home on the Scarborough Bluffs, Fool’s Paradise, where I became smitten with all things Doris. As a young artist, Doris spent a lot of time here in the Highlands painting with her friend Ethel Curry, so I’m thinking of her often as I roam about.  I’ve had a couple of nice chats with the CEO of the Haliburton County Public Library system, Chris Stephenson, and his mother was a student of Doris’s in the 1960s at Central Tech – I hope to have tea with her someday since I’ve met few people lucky enough to have known Doris.

1930s Doris McCarthy painting, Haliburton, ON

Sadly, the CEO of Fitzhenry, Sharon Fitzhenry recently passed away. She and her sister Holly Doll (who was nice enough to come to my book event at cozy bookshop, Lahave River Books, in late July, as pictured below) have been the faces of F&W for many years, and their dad started the publishing company back in 1966. A great loss to the CanLit community.

This is a very welcoming place to be, and I’ve so enjoyed our first summer in the Highlands. Haliburton only has about 1000 full-time residents, but there are over 500 lakes in the vicinity, so it’s bustling in the summer. Now that it’s fall, things will quiet down I expect. We just bought the cottage in the fall of 2022, so there’s always lots of work to do. The previous owner built it in 1975, and he basically left everything (EVERYTHING) here when he sold it. We’ve made lots of donations to SIRCH, the local community helper agency, and I’ve become a big fan of FB Marketplace, where I recently found these pinch-pleated drapes for $60, allowing me to get rid of the orange circa 1975 ones, but still use the existing tracks.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the summer of 2023 and had a chance to spend time with the people who matter most to you, as I have. I’ll leave you with the cover of the book I did for Camp Triumph in the spring, and this moose we saw close-up on Highway 118 last week. I hope he made his way back to his family as he looked kind of lost… Cheers!

I’ve been having so much fun working on a picture book I’m doing for Camp Triumph, which is on Prince Edward Island – a nurturing community for kids who have a sibling or parent with a serious chronic illness or disability. Started by the Sheriko family, formerly of Wolfville, almost 20 years ago, this is a dream project for me. The Sherikos ran Wolfville Minor Basketball for many years, and the dad, Tom, lived for almost 20 years with a brain tumor while Kathi and Tom’s three sons, Jordan, Jeffrey and Matthew, were growing up.

As part of the process of creating the book, I’ve been playing around with fonts. Fonts I like include: “Unkempt,” “Aprilia,” “Delius,” and “Lucida Bright.” I wanted to show them to you here, but apparently Word Press doesn’t recognize them. Oh well – each has things I like and things I’m not a big fan of, so we shall see…

It’s amazing how many thousands/millions of fonts there are out there!

Love this poster, spotted at Coldbrook School during a November school visit.

I did a few school visits in January and February, one of them in Stephanie Carver’s grade 6 class at Bedford South School – she’s the daughter of Peter Carver, the now-retired editor of my Red Deer Press books. Her students were completely engaged and had a ton of great questions for me. And I could see her dad in Stephanie’s smile I also spent two snowy mornings at Falmouth & District School with grades P-2 students – always fun to spend time with little ones (in 30-minute increments)

My morning with grades 3 and 5 students at Wolfville School was an easy visit – I walked down the hill! The resource teacher, Jenny Collishaw, was my warmly-welcoming host. The grade 3 students were excited to share the bulletin board they’d created with projects they’d done based on some of my picture books. Most of the pictures taken had kids in them, which is a no-no, but here’s their bulletin board, proof that teachers continue to do amazing work in our schools, despite snow days and everything else heaped on their plates. Kids really are the best, and it’s such a treat to spend time with people who have read my books!

And Jenny made me this lovely gift as a memento of my visit. So nice, all of it!

Huge thanks to Linda Hudson of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia who organizes the Writers in the Schools program. And thanks to you for stopping by. I hope sunshine and warm spring breezes will soon arrive in your corner of the world!