The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon

The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon
Shortlisted for The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Prize

Friday 19 February 2016

After a long absence...

WOW!

The last time I posted here was following Fan-Expo last September.  SEPTEMBER!  2015, no less.
A lot has happened since then.
A half dozen assorted holidays and at least three family birthdays.
Different things are currently in the air and I'll have a little something nice to crow about in a few weeks, I think.  For now, I'll talk about Turning Pages.

I don't think I've written here about Turning Pages before.  Well, last year - back in the aforementioned 2015 and perhaps as far back as 2014 - local cable station, Cogeco Cable 14 here in Fergus approached our local independent book seller, Roxanne Beale, and asked her if she would be interested in creating a "book show" for their station.  She told producer, Larry Peters that she was interested but that she'd need some help - a co-host - and she thought of me.

The three of us developed a format and thought of a name - I wanted to call it The Book Club for Shut Ins but I was (quite rightly) overruled and the show is called Turning Pages.

The mandate of the show is to cover all aspects of books, writing, reading, literacy, creativity, poetry etc.  We have author interviews, and we've interviewed editors, librarians and had people come on the air and tell us about their favourite author or genre.  It's a lot of fun and, from feedback that people give me, well-received in the community.

We shot a full season last year and have just finished an initial planning meeting (over beer and wings) to brainstorm the upcoming season.  We'll maintain (mostly) our current 3 x 8 minute segments for 24 minutes (approximately) per show.  But we might have a field trip (or two) and we'll try to get outside a little more and try more interesting camera work.

Now, the show is owned by the Cogeco.  It is intended for their subscribers but they have generously posted the author interviews on-line so that individual authors who have agreed to be interviewed  may link to them from their own websites.

Here's the first interview we did on the show.  It's children's author, Lisa Dalrymple.


In the coming weeks - in a effort to be a little more diligent about the blog - I'll post other interviews from last season.  For now, enjoy watching and listening to Lisa and Roxanne talk about children's stories...