Rochelle, Johanna, and me on stage with our books.

Over the years I’ve attended the Vancouver Writers Festival (even back when I’m pretty sure it was called the Vancouver Writers and Readers Festival), but this year was the first time I’ve been invited to be on stage. I joined fellow writers Rochelle Strauss (with her new book, The Global Ocean) and Johanna Wagstaffe (with her new book, Little Pine Cone) for the event, Oceans and Forests. We chatted to a very excited and energetic audience of young readers—Rochelle and I chatted about the ocean, with my talk being more focussed on the wonders of whale poo and all. Johanna, who is also a meteorologist (you may have seen her on CBC?) had the forest covered and talked about how wildfires affect the natural world in good ways (when we get out of the way) and not so (when we don’t).

Jude Isabella and me showing off our hard work.

It was a very fun event and we were all buoyed by the enthusiasm of the kids. I only wished we’d stopped talking earlier so we could have answered more of the students’ questions. As it was I think we went over our time by about 30 minutes. Although the audience was mostly students and their teachers, I did have my own little cheering squad of my sister, husband, and two dear friends, including Jude Isabella, author of Bringing Back the Wolves, the first title in Kids Can Press’s Ecosystem Guardians series. (Whales to the Rescue is the second.) We took a moment to show off our books in front of the VWF poster.