Maureen Bush

Galt Museum

I’ll be in Lethbridge November 7, for a talk and reading at the Galt Museum. I’ve been invited down for a kids event associated with their new dinosaur exhibit. I was thrilled that they wanted to include an absurd story about a dinosaur model coming to life, with what I assume is a serious exhibit about the science of dinosaurs. I should have called the talk Where Fact and Fantasy Collide.

Maureen

My 18 Page Day

Last Monday I wrote all day. One and a half chapters, 18 pages. It was a first draft –  I forgot threads I’ll need to weave in later, and I’ll need to edit and polish – but 18 pages! Just putting words to the page is the hardest thing for me, so this was huge. Tuesday, I sat down to work on the portion of the second chapter I hadn’t finished. I opened the file, found the right spot, put my hands on the keyboard – and nothing. Not one word. My mind was a total void. So I cleaned my desk (which I ignore when writing is going well). Wednesday, I thought, I’ll be able to write today. Wrong. Nothing. So more busywork – organizing, origami. By afternoon I could write non-story tidbits, but still no novel work. By Thursday I was back at work, editing and working threads through. So, is 18 pages worth it? Yes! A day like that is ALWAYS worth it!

Maureen

Golden Eagle Nomination

Feather Brain has been nominated for the Golden Eagle Reader’s Choice Award. It’s for Alberta authors only, voted on by kids in southern Alberta.

I’m delighted at the number of nominations etc. that Feather Brain has received – more than I ever hoped for. The full list is on the Feather Brain page of my website, maureenbush.com.

Maureen

Ode to Fall

I think it would be hard to write an Ode to Fall if fall was always like this. The leaves on the apple tree look like worn green leather. The pear outside my office window has leaves the colour of rich brown mud. I would be worried to stand under them in a rain, in case the mud ran off in brown streams. And yet, it’s strangely beautiful. The colours are muted – khaki and brown and dull gold. It’s overcast and humid, with a lovely mist this morning. The smells are rich and surprising: pears frozen and thawed again, rotting basil, the scent of dying phlox blooms carried on the wind. It feels strangely haunted.

Maureen

Most Memorable Books

I read a Facebook quiz about most memorable movies (“films that for whatever reason linger in your imagination”), and I realized that, for me, the important question is which books live in my imagination. Here’s my short list (I guess this explains why I write kids fantasy):

Winnie the Pooh, and A.A. Milne’s poems;

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe;

The Harry Potter books, especially the early ones that I read out loud to my kids;

Swallows and Amazons;

Tamora Pierce – not any one book so much as her worlds and her characters generally;

Polar Express;

Where the Wild Things Are;

Jabberwocky;

Mary Stewart’s Merlin stories, starting with The Crystal Cave;

The Hobbit;

The Lord of the Rings.

The movies The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the LOTR make the books more vivid for me, but I’m making a point to not see Polar Express or Where the Wild Things Are, as I don’t want to see the stories expanded beyond what I love.

Maureen