End of the Line

The BC Book Prizes tour around northern British Columbia finished yesterday, 2000 km later. Driver Paul, children's writer Jordan Stratford, and I are all glad to be home and a little less grubby. But I got to meet hundreds of high-schoolers in places I've never been before, see plenty of beautiful country (alas, no wildlife, though we tried hard), and spend a week talking about books. Highlights: a terrific senior writing class in Williams Lake; the fire alarm going off halfway through my talk in the Kitimat high school auditorium; "Mike-sized" drinks at Mike's bar in Terrace; standing on tables to finish talk in Burns Lake after mic failure; very many enthusiastic and inspiring teachers; being lovingly (I hope) called a "citiot" by a writers' group; nearly coming to blows over plotting versus seat-of-your-pants writing on a panel with Jordan; the happiest kid I've ever seen eating a big bowl of soup and grinning through all the readings at the Kitimat Library on our last night.  I wish I had a picture of that, but here are a few others.