Susan Dobbie (When Eagles Call, River of Gold) will be speaking at the Abbotsford Recreation Centre, 2499 McMillan Road, Abbotsford, on March 28th, from 10 am to 12 pm.

Susan Dobbie (When Eagles Call, River of Gold) will be reading at the R.E. Mountain Secondary School, 7755 202A Street, Langley BC, as part of the school’s Literacy Day celebrations on November 12th, 12.30 pm.

On Wednesday, December 9, Jean Rae Baxter (The Way Lies North) will give an illustrated talk, “The Facts behind the Fiction.” The talk will take place at Post’s Corners Public School, 2220 Caldwell Drive, Oakville, Ontario at 11:30 a.m.

On Saturday, November 14, Jean Rae Baxter (The Way Lies North), will be signing books and chatting about The Way Lies North and other Loyalist-related topics at the United Empire Loyalist display at the Waterdown Historic Book Fair, St. James Church, Parkside Drive, Waterdown, Ontario. She’ll be there from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm.

Norma Charles (The Girl in the Backseat, Chasing a Star) will be storytelling at the Mackin House Museum in Maillardville, BC, on December 5 from 4:30 pm to 5:30pm. One fun feature of this talk is that the museum features some Barbara Ann Scott dolls — Scott being the famous Canadian figure skater that featured in Chasing a Star, Charles’s historical novel for young adults that was released in August. I found a picture of a Barbara Ann Scott doll on the website of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. I think she looked better in real life — even if this picture looks a little posed!

Norma Charles (The Girl in the Backseat, Chasing a Star) has been invited to give the keynote talk at the CCBC/Roundtable/Cwill event at Hycroft on November 10th, 6:30 pm-9:00 pm. She will talking mainly about writing Chasing a Star, which was released in August 2009.

Susan Dobbie (River of Gold, When Eagles Call) will be appearing at the Langley Authors’ Day Event at the Langley City Library on Saturday November 7th at 1.30 pm. She will be reading from her 2009 novel, River of Gold (the sequel to When Eagles Call), at 2.30 pm. For more details click here.

The launch for Sheila James’s debut collection of short stories, In the Wake of Loss, will take place at Collected Works bookstore in Ottawa on October 29th. Collected Works is at 1242 Wellington St W (at Holland), Ottawa. Please phone 613-722-1265 or click here for more details.

Here’s a poetry newsletter that may be of interest, especially if you are in or near Ottawa: http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2009/10/poetry-past-and-soon.html