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Support Your Favorite Author

toomanybooksAs authors, we love it when people buy our books. But from a personal point of view, I can’t buy every book I want. It’s not practical or possible. For one thing, my house won’t hold many more bookshelves and, for another, my Kindle is quickly reaching capacity. I know I’m not alone. But even if you can’t buy an author’s book, there are a number of other things you can do to support them.

Write a review. Leaving a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads is a huge help to authors and other readers too. There’s nothing like a recommendation to encourage someone to pick up a book. And, honestly, having someone read our book is almost as good as having them buy it.

Tell others. If you loved a book, spread the word. Tell your friends. Let librarians know. If it’s not in circulation, ask them to order it. Make a point of telling booksellers if you enjoyed a book too. It’ll help them when they need a recommendation for a customer.

Use social media. Mention a book you liked on your blog. If you’re on Facebook, share the title in your status update. If you’re on Twitter, send out a tweet about how much you enjoyed it.

Contact the author. Authors love hearing from readers and most of us are pretty easy to find. Drop us a note through our website or via Twitter.  Let us know you enjoyed our work. That kind of feedback is literally priceless. And it’s appreciated far more than you could ever know.

Happy reading!

 

A Writer’s Better Half

LB_Wedding2Happy anniversary to my better half  . . .  a guy who wears a variety of hats:  Mr. Petrol Head, Dad, son, and lord & master over Team Sheltie (and thank God someone is in control of those two).

The phrase ‘better half’ is something of a cliché these days. While it’s come to mean the superior half of a married couple, it originally referred to a person so dear that he or she was more than half of a person’s being. Whatever way you look at it, the intent is clear: someone who is good and true and holds a place of deep importance in one’s life.

That would be my better half. Much has been written about the wealth of support writers receive from editors and readers and critique partners and writing friends. It’s support we depend on and appreciate. But a writer’s better half is rarely mentioned. It’s too bad. They’re a silent (and sometimes not so silent) yet intimate companion on this crazy publishing journey, a journey they didn’t always expect when they took their vows. In our case, there were signs but I’m pretty sure Mr. Petrol Head chose to ignore them.

Over the years, he has offered advice and solace, and he has paid the bills when my writing didn’t. He has brainstormed plots and character arcs, he’s made too many dinners to count and he spent as much time as I did with our children so I could focus on this career. He constructed a sluice box for my gold rush book, designed business cards and websites, built me a treadmill desk, and he was always there with a hug when the journey seemed too tough to manage. He has helped me make sense of royalty statements, understand the business side of publishing better than some publishers could and he has pulled me back from the brink when I’ve been ready to press send on an irate email that needed a more tempered response.

He accepted without reservation my decision to trade a lucrative and successful job as a journalist for the uncertain and low paying job of a novelist. He has believed in me and loved me and never once complained that things didn’t turn out quite the way he expected on the career front. He is the wisdom and calm in my world.

That’s why he is, and always will be, my better half.

 

It’s Nomination Season

The Willow Award Lists are up and I’m happy to say The Art of Getting Stared At has been nominated in the Snow Willow category. It’s a lovely honor and I’m in terrific company. Check out the entire list of nominees here:  http://willowawards.ca/

The Saskatchewan-based Willow Awards were established in 2001to promote reading by granting an annual “Willow Award” to a Canadian or Saskatchewan book.  Students vote on the nominated titles in three categories: the Shining Willow for young readers; the Diamond Willow for upper elementary students; and the Snow Willow for readers in grades 7 – 9.

Voting will take place over the coming year with the winners announced around this time next year.

Happy reading, students. You have lots of good books to choose from!

And Now For Something Completely Different

laineyfinalI’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of self-publishing for a long time.  When it comes to traditional publishers, I’ve worked with some of the best. They’ve done more for my books than I could ever do on my own.  They’ve edited, they’ve promoted, they’ve distributed. Sure, there’ve been glitches (and times when I wondered what kind of rabbit hole I’d fallen into) but show me an endeavor without glitches and I’ll show you a fairy tale.

So the idea of publishing a book on my own didn’t hold much appeal. I love the writing and the editorial process, but the business and promotional side of things? Not so much. And I knew if I ventured down the self-publishing highway, I’d have to wear those hats occasionally.  Since I’m already wearing a few too many hats, it was an easy choice to say no.

But I had this book. Note the word ‘but.’  That but is a big but.  It’s the equivalent of a teenager saying ‘but it was just that one time’ or a confirmed bachelorette saying ‘but I met this guy.’   It’s a but that leads to change.

I first wrote WHAT LAINEY SEES years ago. It received very positive attention from a number of editors. One wanted to buy it and held onto the manuscript for a year only to be overruled by her publisher.  In the end, there were two main reasons he said no.

First, WHAT LAINEY SEES is a hybrid. It’s the kind of novel marketing departments don’t know what to do with. It’s a romance with suspense and paranormal elements. It’s both contemporary and historical. It’s not time travel, which is an established category, it’s more of a time slip novel, where two distinctly different story lines play out at the same time.  Time slip is a quirky, barely-there genre. Publishers prefer a sure thing over quirky, particularly from a mid-list author.

An even bigger hurdle had to do with Native Americans.  As the story unfolds, Lainey Hughes starts remembering life as a Native American woman living in the Pacific Northwest. She believes the memories from that life could stop a terrible tragedy from occurring today. But the one man who can help her is a man who doesn’t believe in her visions – the Native American lover who died in her arms centuries earlier.  Native Americans, I was told repeatedly, don’t sell.  One editor even went so far as to suggest I lose the Natives and use another culture, another time period (I think she suggested Scotland; Diana Gabaldon was big at the time).

I couldn’t – and didn’t – do that. The Native American element was intrinsic to the novel. So I put the novel aside for a number of years. But like a sliver that won’t go away, WHAT LAINEY SEES remained with me.  I wanted it published. I wanted people to read it.  So I took the manuscript back out, rewrote and updated where I needed to, and weighed my options.  Since I didn’t have the patience to listen to more editorial feedback about how I needed to replace the Native Americans with Vikings . . . or make the time slip less time slip and more time travel, I decided to publish it myself.

From the cover design process, to working with an editor followed by a formatter, it’s been quite a process. It’s given me even greater respect for traditional publishers. It’s opened my eyes to a world that’s not going away – direct, author-controlled publishing. And it’s made me grateful for the many friends and colleagues who traveled the road before me and were so willing to share their stories and expertise as I bumbled along.

Is self-publishing the future for me? It’s one probable future, but traditional publishing remains my future too.  I’m a hybrid . . . like WHAT LAINEY SEES.  It’s up on Amazon. If you have a minute, check it out: http://www.amazon.com/What-Lainey-Sees-Laura-Tobias-ebook/dp/B00UZK92M2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1427395698&sr=1-1&keywords=what+lainey+sees

 

My February Reads

P1000911The snowdrops are up, my winter clematis is in bud, and the air carries hints of warm earth and flowers.  We’re walking around in hoodies enjoying the nearly spring-like conditions. Things could change – we’ve had snow flurries in February the last couple of years – but the temperatures are unseasonably mild, the hummingbirds are flitting from the pear trees to the kiwi vines, and I’m dreaming about what I’ll plant in the garden in a few months.

But for now, though, I’m staying indoors where I’m focusing on work, family, and books.

Here’s what I’m reading this month:

On the Kindle: Man Enough: A Return to Salt Spring Island by EC Sheedy

At the Gym: The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow

In the Office:  We Killed – The Rise of Women in American Comedy by Yael Kohen

Books read to date in 2015:  12

 

 

Comfort Books for Writers

for_writers_onlyBGSometimes all you need is comfort: a warm blanket, a loving hug, a dog cuddle first thing in the morning.

Or a book.

I tried to cull my bookshelves last week. Tried being the operative word. I have more books than I have shoes, sweaters, and probably underwear too (I also have an embarrassing number of spices and condiments in my kitchen – Ras el hanout anyone? – but that’s not relevant to writing unless you care to know how I eat; the short answer is very, very well).

But back to books.  The problem started in early January when we took down the Christmas tree and put away the holiday decorations. You know that delicious feeling of spaciousness you suddenly have in the New Year?

I know it too. It’s one of the comforts of Bloatuary January. Except I didn’t feel it this year. Sometime between October and December, my book pile had babies. I’m pretty sure each title had triplets (Don’t even ask about my Kindle).

I needed to find space. So I went through a couple of bookshelves and pulled some titles to donate to the Goodwill.  In the process, I stumbled over books I hadn’t looked at in a while.  And one of those books brought me so much comfort at the time I read it I decided to put together a list of books specifically written to comfort writers.

These aren’t books geared to craft or business, though many writing books on those subjects also include terrific advice and comforting thoughts.  I wanted books where comfort, insight or advice, was the primary goal. Think of these books as a New Year’s tonic. A writer’s jump start. The equivalent of a warm blanket, a loving hug or a cuddly puppy.

Rejection, Romance & Royalties: The Wacky World of a Working Writer by Laura Resnick.  Sharp, funny, honest and insightful, these essays on the writing life cut right to the heart of the joys, sorrows and rewards of being a writer.  On my keeper pile and never leaving.

The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life by Dinty W. Moore. Though it’s small enough to fit in a back pocket or a bag, don’t let size fool you. This small book packs a big punch. The Mindful Writer starts by outlining the four noble truths of the writing life and then goes into four key areas:  the writer’s mind, the writer’s desk, the writer’s vision, and the writer’s life. A wonderful source of inspiration and insight.

The Writer’s Book of Hope by Ralph Keyes.   According to Keyes, inspiration isn’t nearly as important to the successful writer as tenacity.  And encouragement and hope are cornerstones to keeping that tenacity alive. Drawing on his experience as both a writer and teacher of writing, Keyes details some of the tactics well-known writers have used to maintain hope, particularly during difficult times.  Enriching and full of encouragement.

For Writers Only by Sophy Burnham. One of the first ‘comfort’ books I ever bought on writing, and still a favorite. A collection of thoughts from many great writers interspersed with Burnham’s own observations on everything from nerves and letting go to audience, productivity, and aloneness.

Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo. Since Palumbo is both an author and a psychotherapist, he brings a unique empathy and insight into the writing life. A positive and fresh take on topics like envy, rejection, loneliness and the joy of commitment.  Wise, compassionate and funny.

 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.  In spite of the fact that Lamott is one of my all-time favorite writers, I wrestled with whether to include this title because Bird by Bird does have a number of chapters directly relating to craft. However, in most cases they go well beyond craft, and reading them is more like having coffee with your favorite writer friend. That aside, this book is a must have for these three comfort chapters alone: Broccoli, Perfectionism and Radio Station KFKD.

New Books & a New Year

bookstackLast year, for the first time, I noted down every book I read in a green notebook.  I’ve attempted to track my reading before – and I’d start with the best of intentions (even give them a rating of sorts) – but at some point in the process I’d forget to add a title or two and the whole intention thing would slide.   Since I really wanted a clear sense of my reading preferences, and an exact book count, I decided to try again. This time, I decided to post the results on my blog every month. I figured it would make me feel more accountable. It did.

The numbers are in, and they aren’t what I expected. By the end of 2014, I’d read 65 books. The fiction was pretty much all over the board: women’s fiction and romance; young adult; romantic suspense; a few thrillers and some literary novels.  The non-fiction was heavily slanted to books about writing, travel memoirs, spirituality and paranormal – or what Mr. Petrol Head calls woo-woo.

In the past when people have asked me how much I read, I generally say two books a week.  I believed it. In fact, sometimes I read three books a week so I figured two books was conservative.  I guess I figured wrong, or maybe I forgot to take into account those weeks when I barely read at all which happened a little more than I would have liked last year.

My goal for 2015 is to read more than I did in 2014. I’d be happy with anything over 65. I’d love to hit 104, which would be two books a week. Considering I don’t watch much TV and books are my business, that’s not many. It’s an especially low number if you look at Amy Mathers who read 365 young adult books in 2014 in order to raise money for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre.  http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/

Wish me luck. And check back periodically. I’ll be tracking the numbers again on this blog.  Meanwhile, here’s what I’m reading during the first month of 2015:

At the gym: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Beside the bed: Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

On the Kindle:  Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace by Anne Lamott

Books read to date in 2015:   2

Happy Holidays!

christmasparliamentbuildings5237644494_909c227862_zThe downtown parliament buildings are all decked out for the holidays, and so is our house, albeit on a more modest scale.   I’ll be away from the blog for a few weeks while I celebrate with family and friends. With a little luck, I’ll get some quiet time to read too.

I leave you with a recipe for one of our favorite Christmas treats. If you like peanut butter and chocolate, you will love Tiger Butter. It’s a staple around our house during the holidays and it’s so easy even kids can make it.  Best of all, it’s fast.  You can put it together in about ten minutes, and after a rest in the freezer, it’s ready to be cut up and enjoyed. Or be given away to a lucky recipient.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Tiger Butter

250 g/8 ounces/1/2 pound good white chocolate, chopped

250 g/8 ounces/1/2 pound good semisweet dark chocolate, chopped

½ cup smooth peanut butter (note – in this particular recipe, it’s important to use processed peanut butter and not natural peanut butter which goes moldy after a day or two at room temperature)

Line the bottom of a 9-inch square cake pan with wax paper. In a double boiler over hot but not boiling water, melt white chocolate. Remove from heat, stir in peanut butter and blend thoroughly. Keep warm while you melt the dark chocolate. In a microwave bowl or glass measuring cup, melt semisweet dark chocolate.  Pour white chocolate/peanut butter mixture into the cake pan and spread evenly. Pour semisweet dark chocolate over top, and spread evenly. Draw a butter knife through the chocolate to create a marbled effect. Place in the freezer for an hour, or until solid. Remove from freezer and let it sit for about ten minutes to soften before cutting into squares. Enjoy!

More of Our Favorite Holiday Traditions

memorah)Happy Chanukah! Today is the first day of the Jewish holiday. Soon it will be winter solstice, then Christmas, and after that it’ll be time to turn the calendar on another year.   Over the next couple of weeks, many of us will gather to celebrate with friends and family. In many cases, we’ll be drawing on traditions that go back years. Here are a few more writer friends sharing their favorite holiday traditions.

 Ellen Jaffe: Being Jewish, my family celebrated Chanukah as I was growing up, and I have continued celebrating this holiday in my own family.  The holiday commemorates the ‘miracle” of a single day’s vial of holy oil lasting for eight days, so we light candles each night in a special candle-holder called a Menorah or Hanukiah, starting with one candle on the first night, then two on the second night, then three….all the way up to eight, as well as the “helper” candle, called the Shamash, used each night to light the others.  The candles burn for about 30-45 minutes, adding more light each night — just as we welcome back the light after the winter solstice. This is my favourite tradition for this holiday, which symbolizes hope and joy, even in dark times.  We eat potato pancakes (latkes) and special jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot), both cooked in oil, and children play with a spinning top called a dreidl winning raisins and pennies.  The holiday is mainly celebrated at home, and each family has its own menorah — we used one that had belonged to my great-grandmother, which I still have today; there are elegant silver ones and ones that are hand-made from clay.  Last year our synagogue in Hamilton, Ontario asked families to bring their menorahs on the last night of Chanukah — and over 100 menorahs, or more than 900 candles — all shining at once.  I used the menorah as a “portal” in my young-adult novel, Feast of Lights: when the heroine, Sarah, looks into the candle-flames, she travels back in time to meet her great-great-grandparents and other ancestors.

Ellen S. Jaffe Feast of Lights (Sumach Press)  www.ellen-s-jaffe.com

Joan Galat: My favourite holiday tradition is baking and decorating cookies with my children, even now that they’re grown. In addition to Christmas-themed cookie cutters like stars, trees, wreaths, and Santa, we can’t resist the other shapes in my collection and end up making Christmas porcupines, snails, moose, dogs, and dog bones. We lather each cookie in red, green, and white icing and embellish with chocolate chips, raisins, candied fruit, sprinkles, and coconut. Choosing which cookie to eat from all the creative masterpieces takes some time.

Joan Marie Galat, Branching Out, How Trees are part of Our World (Owlkids)  www.joangalat.com

Lee Edward Fodi: Every December my wife (actress Marcie Nestman) and I host a Yoda Yulefest party for all of our geeky writer and acting friends. It started out a few years ago when we were trying to make our party stick out from all the other things going on. At first, it just started out with the title and a Star Wars Wreath on the door, but every year it gets a bit bigger. We now have many geek-themed ornaments around the house, including a Yoda tree. We prepare Yoda Soda and Yoda cookies for the guests and during the party itself we end up having one room for geek games, such as Star Wars Operation and Zombie Dice. Later on in the evening we end up writing and/or performing Star Wars parodies of Christmas carols or stories.

We always make lots of extra Yoda cookies for the creative writing classes that we teach and we hand them out at the last workshop before the holiday break. That’s become a big tradition, too—which I found out a few years ago when I skipped cookies on the last day because of time pressure. Boy, did I hear about it!

Lee Edward Fodi, Kendra Kandlestar and the Crack in Kazah (Simply Read Books)    www.kendrakandlestar.com

Kristin Butcher: When my husband and I were starting out in marriage (44+ years ago) my mother-in-law gave us a variety of decorations, one of which was a little Santa —no more than a couple of inches high — that could hook round something cylindrical. Over the years it has become a tradition for me to place this Santa somewhere less than obvious but not hidden each year, so that my husband has to hunt him down. I guess you could call him a Secret Santa.

Kristin Butcher, Alibi (Orca Book Publishers) www.kristinbutcher.com

Jacquie Pearce:  My husband, daughter and I celebrate several Christmases each year. My husband’s family is Ukrainian on his dad’s side, and we refer to our many celebrations as one long “Ukrainian Christmas” (even though the only thing Ukrainian about it is that it lasts more than one day, and we sometimes have perogies as part of our Christmas dinner). My husband, daughter and I usually have an early Christmas at our house in Vancouver, then we take the ferry to Vancouver Island to spend several days at my husband’s parents’ house (in the town where we both grew up), and we also visit my parents, who live in the same town. We have a tradition of getting together with friends on Boxing Day, then getting together with my family for another Christmas celebration sometime between the 27th and New Year’s Day.

We’ve only broken with this tradition twice. Once, when my husband (boyfriend then) and I were going to university in Toronto, and we stayed in Toronto for Christmas. The other time was when my father-in-law was recovering from a paralysing back injury in hospital in Vancouver. That Christmas, my husband’s family came to Vancouver, and we gathered for Christmas dinner in the cafeteria of G.F. Strong, sitting at a long table beside the cafeteria’s Christmas tree. Instead of turkey, we had Chinese take-out from my father-in-law’s favourite Vancouver restaurant. Instead of a visit from Santa, we had a visit from my father-in-law’s doctor. The best present of all was learning that my father-in-law was on his way to making close to a full recovery.

Jacqueline Pearce, Siege (Orca Book Publishers) www.jacquelinepearce.ca

And finally it’s my turn: My favorite part of the holidays is Christmas Eve.  But it wasn’t always. As a child I was impatient for the night to end because my parents always seemed stressed and preoccupied (sometimes downright grumpy), and I just wanted Santa to come.  Still I was determined that when I had children of my own, things would be different.

When my kids were little I started a tradition of putting out finger food for dinner on Christmas Eve.  I originally did it for expediency.  I had a pile of people to feed, I didn’t want to cook (I had several days of cooking ahead of me) and I needed something fast so we could eat and get to an early church service. So I raided the fridge of what I had on hand:  veggies and dip, smoked salmon, crackers and cheese, hummus and olives, and I heated up a few not-so-healthy things I’d made ahead: chicken fingers (because I knew my picky son would eat them); perogies (my picky mother-in-law would eat them), and coconut crusted shrimp (because we all loved them).  I put on the carols, dimmed the lights, lit dozens of candles and called everyone in to eat. My daughter christened the event ‘a picky dinner’ and we’ve done it ever since.

However, what started out as a fast, easy way to get a meal on the table has evolved as more friends have joined the celebration. These days, we’re as likely to put French Canadian tourtiere on the table as we are Indian pakoras or Indonesian satay skewers. But whatever we serve, Christmas Eve now epitomizes what the holiday means to me. It’s a time of friends and family, wonderful music and candlelight, good food and spiritual fellowship. It’s as special and as relaxed as I wanted it to be back when I was a child. Only now I never want the evening to end.

 

 

Our Favorite Holiday Traditions

christmascandlesand_treeThe holidays are just around the corner. At this time of year, many of us find our thoughts turning to the things we hold close: family and friends, food and faith, and traditions. Old traditions that evoke warm memories. And new traditions that speak to change and fresh starts. I love to hear how others celebrate at this time of year. With that in mind, I decided to ask a few writer friends to tell me about their favorite holiday traditions. I’ll be sharing their answers with you over the next couple of weeks.

Sylvia McNicoll:   Early Christmas is my favourite holiday tradition, newly created as a result of my three children marrying into extended families that quickly fill up the statutory holidays with celebrations. Usually the Sunday before December 24 we get together in the afternoon, and allow the children to open the gifts almost immediately.  Santa visits this set of grandparents first! The kids play till we enjoy our prime rib and Yorkshire pudding dinner, complete with sticky toffee pudding and yuletide log–relaxed and unhurried.

Sylvia McNicoll, Revenge of the Fly (Pajama Press)    www.sylviamcnicoll.com  What did you read today?nationalreadingcampaign.com

 

Victoria Miles: My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating our tree. I pull out from under our stairs the very same boxes my mother packed the decorations in that I inherited when she passed away. Many of the decorations are over fifty years old and along with all the glass balls, bells and birds of various sizes there are some distinctly unique decos, including a space man with a clear glass helmet, and an odd little Pinocchio. Added more recently there’s a decoration from the crafty kids at Christianne’s Lyceum and a tiny set of white leather and bead moccasin boots—a gift from Ainslie Manson for dog sitting when the girls were small and that was all we could manage for a summer holiday.   Soft toy decorations ring the bottom of the tree and those the girls are allowed to hang themselves; the rest of the ritual is for my husband and I. We use the same strings of lights that were once Mum’s, bold and bright rainbow colours with tinted metal reflectors in flower and star patterns. And we trim the branches exactly as she did, with long strands of lead tinsel, reused year after year, that is hooked gently between the fir needles one strand at a time.

Victoria Miles, Mimi Power and the I-Don’t-Know-What   (Tradewind) This year, my Christmas card to the world is “A Power Christmas Special” — a FREE ibook for everyone to download and share at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-power-christmas-special/id940288695?mt=11

Lisa McManus: It started quite a few years ago, and I don’t know how or why. The ‘Spot’ has been our spot for so many years – for so many memories and celebrations – that it made sense to go there on Christmas Eve. Every December 24th we head to BC-owned White Spot Restaurant for dinner. It’s a tradition ­ – it’s almost a given – and I look forward to it every year. Some might think it unconventional, but heck ­ it works for us. We go to the same location and we always seem to get the same table server ­- he gets a big tip!! Needless to say, I’m counting down the days ­- not so much for Christmas, but for Christmas Eve dinner!

Lisa McManus, Newbie Nick (Lycaon Press) www.lisamcmanus.com

Diana Stevan:  A Christmas tradition is making sugar cookies with my grandchildren. It started out with my children and graduated to include the grandkids. I put Christmas Carols on, make a batch of sugar cookie dough and then we proceed to decorate them with our designs, using corn syrup and all kinds of coloured sprinkles. Last year, my grandson was 17, and I thought he wouldn’t want to do it anymore, but I was wrong. He’s coming home from U for Christmas break and I have yet to find out whether we’ll be doing them again. I suspect we will. Our family also gets out the Christmas carol song sheets every Christmas Eve and boisterously sings as many as we can before ending with Silent Night and only the Christmas tree lights on.

Diana Stevan, A Cry From the Deep (Amazon/Create Space)    http://www.dianastevan.com

Lea Tassie:  I’m not usually keen on Christmas traditions but eggnog is one I’ve always loved. My favorite treat as a kid was an eggnog made from eggs and milk that came from our own chickens and cow. There was no alcohol in it in those days; my mother disapproved of what she called ‘strong drink.’ But, for many years now, I’ve had an eggnog on Christmas morning while opening my presents. It’s not just that it smells and tastes delicious, especially with that hint of brandy and/or rum, it slides smoothly across my tongue and down my throat and forms a glowing little pool of happiness in my stomach. And not least, I love the sheer decadence of drinking alcohol before breakfast! It’s easy to make your own; there are many recipes on the internet. But even purchased eggnog, with one or two ounces of rum mixed in, a sprinkle of nutmeg on top, and a cinnamon stick for stirring, gives me an appetite for both gifts and breakfast like nothing else on earth.

Lea Tassie, Cats & Crayons    http://leatassie.blogspot.com

Jocelyn Reekie: My favorite Christmas tradition was when I lived on Quadra Island. A few days before Christmas I and my family got into our van and drove to friends and neighbors homes, where we stood outside and sang. When their doors opened, we invited the listeners to come along. The chorus never failed to grow. A couple of hours later a caravan of singers went back to our house, where we drank hot, spiced wine and sang a little more before everyone returned home feeling just a little warmer than they had before.

Jocelyn Reekie,  Please Don’t Eat The Cheese, House Mouse Tales, Volume 1, Christmas.  www.jocelynreekie.com

Helaine Becker: My fave tradition is a new one I’m going to start this year. I purchased a Santa outfit for when I present my two Christmas-themed picture books, A Porcupine in a Pine Tree and Dashing through the Snow, to school groups. I’m going to wear it as I pass out gifts to family members – donations in their names to various literacy-related charities. I’m especially partial to Librarians without Frontiers (http://lwb-online.org/), with whom I’m working on a new, grassroots project to build mobile library units in Cambodian villages.  The libraries will be created alongside new wells provided by Water of Hope (http://www.wha-cambodia.org/home). This project is going to make a big difference  – bringing them both clean water and education at the same time.

Helaine Becker, Dashing through the Snow (Scholastic Canada).   www.helainebecker.com

Karen Autio: Years ago my Finnish-Canadian grandmother taught me how to make sweet cardamom-flavoured Finnish Coffee Bread (known as pulla). One of my favourite holiday traditions is to mix and knead the dough on the morning of Christmas Eve, bake it that afternoon, and then enjoy it with my family on Christmas morning.

Karen Autio, Sabotage (Sono Nis)  www.karenautio.com

Come back next week if you’d like to read more about writers and their favorite holiday traditions.