A great tour through the west…

I’ve been remiss in not posting for a week or so but I’ve been a bit under the gun at the office and writing novel #3. But a couple of weeks ago I headed west to Vancouver and then on to Whistler for a reading at a fundraiser in support of the Whistler Readers and Writers Festival. What a magical place. My hosts, the Vicious Circle writers group, are wonderful, friendly, and very committed writers. I toured the village on Sunday and marveled at the mountains and the sunshine. I spent some time in my hotel room making very welcome progress on a client writing project that was hanging over me. The reading that night in the Milennium Place Theatre in the village was great. I was outfitted with a lavalier lapel mic so I could wander the stage during my talk, which is always preferable to being anchored at a podium. The audience was very kind and laughed in all the right places during the reading part of my talk. I signed a whack of books at the intermission and then returned to the stage for a sit-down interview style encounter a la Inside the Actor’s Studio. It was a fun evening.

I was up very early the next morning for the bus ride back to the Vancouver airport where I caught a flight to Calgary. After checking into my hotel, I jumped in a cab and made it on time to a meeting of the book club that had “won” a visit from me in the CBC Canada Reads Book Club contest. I’ve never met a book club I haven’t liked and this was no exception. What an interesting and thoughtful group of women they were (and I’m sure still are).  There was wonderful food surpassed only by the conversation. I always learn something about my own novels when I spend time with readers. I made it back to my hotel and crawled into bed after midnight. It was a memorble evening.

Then it was up in the morning to catch my flight back to Toronto. Despite being wiped from my western swing, I closed out Tuesday by playing my regular ball hockey game. (I couldn’t let down the team – not that my presence or absence affects the game too much!)

Here are a couple of pics I snapped with my iPad, one from the bus to Whistler and one from the plane. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which. Now back to working on novel #3…