Maureen Bush

Cursed! Audio Clips

My husband and I have started work on audio clips for Cursed! I have no idea when they’ll actually be finished and posted on the website, but at least we’re starting the process.

Maureen

Another Review

Prairie Fire has a review of Crow Boy; it’s sixth in the table of contents, click to open the PDF file. http://ojs.lib.umanitoba.ca/prairie_fire

It’s also posted on the Crow Boy page on my website – scroll to the bottom to News and Reviews. http://www.maureenbush.com/_book_crowboy/

A friend tipped me off to an Orca ad on the back cover of December’s Quill and Quire, featuring Cursed! and two other lovely Orca books. I can’t say I ever expected to be in Quill and Quire, in any form. I’m thrilled!

Maureen

The Bush Family Birthday Cake Curse

While much of Cursed! is drawn from my family life, I have said we’ve never been cursed. This, I now remember, is not true. I grew up in a family unable to make birthday cakes that both looked and tasted good.

We had many attempts – chocolate cakes that collapsed into ruin but were delicious, a purchased cake that looked beautiful but tasted like sawdust.

When I had kids, the curse continued. Somehow, I managed to convince my husband I shouldn’t ever bake birthday cakes, and he and the kids took on the task. With little kids decorating, there’s no pressure for perfection.

Today, I forgot the curse and baked a cake – an old recipe for butter cake with saskatoon berries we froze this summer. It’s delicious, straight out of the pan, no icing. Perhaps that’s the key – focus on flavour, don’t worry about anything else. And don’t, ever, think of it as a birthday cake.

Maureen

Reviews

First reviews for Cursed!:

http://www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol17/no11/cursed.html

and Crow Boy:

http://umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol17/no6/crowboy.html

and a blog review for Feather Brain:

http://wordofmousebooks.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/a-model-story-feather-brain/

CM Magazine and Word of Mouse books are both great sources for reviews of kids books.

Two of the reviews are posted on my website now, and the Cursed! review will be posted soon.

Maureen

Launching Cursed

With the spirit man at Monkeyshines…