On CCBC's Best Books for Kids and Teens list 2013
about the author...
Ontario Library Association Best Bets List 2013 Honourable mention
On Resource Links? Best of 2013 list
What would you do if you only had one week to live? A skateboarding accident claims 14-year-old Jade's life when she skitches (hitches herself to a car) in order to appear on youtube; she neglected to wear the helmet she promised her father she would always use. In a Japanese garden she meets her mother who died when Jade was eight. She begs for the chance to return to earth if only to improve relations between her brother and father and Mom negotiates a one week do-over for her.
What can she achieve? A date for her father? A new job for her brother? Her first kiss? Jade can't tell anyone what is going on, which is bad enough, but after discovering a love for life that she's never known, will she be able to let go? Or will she try to cheat fate?
What can she achieve? A date for her father? A new job for her brother? Her first kiss? Jade can't tell anyone what is going on, which is bad enough, but after discovering a love for life that she's never known, will she be able to let go? Or will she try to cheat fate?
about the author...
As a child…
If someone had told me I would grow up to be a writer when I was young, I wouldn’t have believed it. My parents were German immigrants so English started off as my second language and even though I loved writing from the time I wrote my first composition in grade four, I thought it was something only dead British or American people did with success. So when I grew up (in Montreal, Quebec), I worked as a clerk in cash management for a large paper company while earning my Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University at night.
Career Starts
Leaving the finance world to have three children forced me to slow down, reflect and write again something I had not had time to do since school. I tried my hand at adult short stories, actually had some household hints published in magazines and then went on to freelance articles for the local paper when we moved to Burlington, Ontario. A friend of mine, Gisela Sherman, now a published author too, convinced me to take a children’s writing course given by Paul Kropp at Sheridan College. I loved his books and in his course wrote wrote my first novel Blueberries and Whipped Cream as the class project. After nine books, I returned to Sheridan College this time to teach Creative writing. I enjoyed teaching for nine years and then reluctantly gave it up because of the travel commitments of a book tours.
Full-fledged Writer
A professional writer often cobbles many career streams together. For eight years I edited Today’s Parent Toronto, shaping and creating non fiction about family life in Toronto. I also taught writing to junior grades for weeks at a time through Ontario Arts Council.
My recent novel, crush. candy. corpse is a novel that took the pain of losing my mom to Alzheimer’s Disease, into a story about a 16 year old girl on trial for the manslaughter of a lady just like Mom.
Lately I’m writing profiles of other authors for Canadian Children’s Book Centre as well as working on an urban fantasy series which will likely get translated first to Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and German before it comes to Canada. Dying to Go Viral will be the first to appear in Canada in the spring.
The Future
Because I believe in young writers, I love teaching and speaking about writing process. To protect their future careers, I also act as a Director on the board for Access Copyright, an agency that collects secondary rights money for creators.
Born: Ajax, Ontario, September 30,1954
Married to Bob McNicoll,
Children: Jennifer, Craig and Robin
Grandchild: Hunter, William, Jadzia, Violet, Desmond
Education: BA Specialization in English, minor in Economics
Concordia University, Montreal
Awards: 2011 Burlington Creative Artist (Literary Arts)
2011 Arts Hamilton for Last Chance for Paris
2007 Hamilton Arts Multimedia Award for Beauty Returns,
2006 Korean War Veteran’s Award (Hamilton Arts) for short article
“A Note From home” Today’s Parent Toronto
1996 Silver Birch for Bringing Up Beauty
1996 Manitoba Young Reader’s Choice Award for Bringing Up Beauty
2000 Explora-toy Best Novel for Caught in a Lie
More information can be found at her blog.
A somewhat interesting idea that turned out very cheesy and boring. If I were allowed to relive the last week of my life, I think I would have spent it in a much better way!
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