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Justin
Livingston, from Spruce Grove interviewed Cora. This is his report
from January, 2005..
JUSTIN’S AUTHOR QUESTIONS
1. How many books have you written? 13
2. What was your first book?
Julie
3. How many awards have you won in total?
18
4. Have your books come out in different languages?
If so which ones?
Yes, Swedish, Japanese, Dutch and German
5. What was your favourite book you wrote?
That’s a bit like asking your mother who her
favourite child is – if she’s got more than just one!
6. How old were you when you started writing your books?
About forty-two. I was taking a course in short
story writing at university and started writing the short story
that developed into Julie.
7. Where were you born?
A place called Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan
but I grew up further North on my grandmother’s farm by Fort
Carlton.
8. What inspired you to write?
Finding some letters written by an aunt who died
long before I was born. She had died very young and there were pictures
of her around and I thought she was beautiful and rather like a
fairy tale person until I found some of her letters one day and
realized she was funny and she seemed to very alive. I realized
that you could write something and reach people you’d never
meet. I was about nine or ten at the time.
9. What tips can you give to people who want to become
authors?
Read, read, read! It’s the easiest, best and
cheapest way of learning to write though of course you can take
lots of courses. Then write. Nobody ever knows how to skate the
minute they put on their skates – it takes practice to learn
to do anything.
So write lots. Write about things you like, things you hate, things
that happen each day. Just write. It doesn’t have to be a
story or a poem. It can just be practice.
10. Why do you use the word “mum” instead
of “mom”?
“Mom” is the American spelling. Canadians
use English spelling. Unfortunately there were a lot of American
books used in Canadian schools during the 60's and 70's, including
spelling books so a lot of people went through school using American
spelling. I remember getting the manuscript back for Julie and seeing
that they had changed “plough” to “plow”
on page one as they were using American spelling hoping to get into
the U.S. market. Since my books have a very Canadian point of view
(settings, etc.) they aren’t published in U.S. anyway so I
stick to Canadian spelling.
I actually had it in my first contract with Scholastic to spell
“mum” m-u-m! Canadian children don’t say “m-aw-m”
like kids in the U.S. do. They actually say “m-um” even
though they’ve been taught to spell it the American way. So
I stick to the spelling. Publishers seem to be more Canadian these
days so I don’t have to fight about it any more.
11. What kind of books can we expect in the future?
Vanishing Act is coming out again as The Spy Who
Wasn’t There and will be a series – I’m currently
working on one set in Mexico – The Mayan Adventure. I have
just finished another (historical) book in the Canadian Girls series
and have one more to do for Penguin. Also am working on a sequel
to Wings of a Dragon which is a fantasy, or course. Coteau books
want another Ghost Voyages time travel too. So it looks as if I’ll
be writing Adventure, Fantasy, History and Time Travel anyway!
12. When is your newest book coming out?
The newest book for the Canadian Girl series, Angelique:
The Long Way Home is just out and should be in stores any day. The
dragon sequel, Wings of Evil will be out in June but I’m still
re-writing it now.
13. Where do you go to get all your information for
your books?
Libraries and books. I prefer using
books to the Internet as I like to have them spread around and use
post-it notes to mark the important bits. If I’m writing about
another place I go there. For instance to Batoche for the latest
Angelique book and to Mexico for the Mayan book. I lived in Crete
in Greece for a couple of months to write The Deadly Dance so that
I could visit the Minoan and other sites I was writing about to
make sure my research was authentic.
14. What do you do when you get writer’s block?
Never had it. I do a “Freefall” writing
an exercise I learned from the writer W.O. Mitchell when I studied
with him. I think writer’s block only happens when you are
under pressure to start writing something and you don’t have
any idea what you are going to write. I keep an “Idea”
file with good opening sentences or interesting characters to use
if I’m stuck.
15. How do you come up with your names?
Sometimes I just pick names I really like (Jennifer
in Vanishing Act, Julie, Angelique, etc.) . Sometimes (but not often)
they are people I know like Jeremy in Ghost Voyages – after
my grandson who complained that I should write a book about a boy.
And sometimes I pick them up in my travels: Joseph (Angelique) was
after a boy at a school in Calgary and Faizah (Wings of Evil) after
a girl in Ontario. Others I get from other languages. For example
Api’Naga was from someone I met in a chat room when I was
in Australia. She was from Singapore so I asked for the word for
dragon – “Naga” and since oriental dragons don’t
breath fire we added the word for fire as well “Api”.
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