I came home from Ditch Lake Manitoba yesterday, and found a copy of my new picturebook, Grandpa’s Music, in the mail.  What a wonderful feeling, to actually hold a copy in my hands!  And at the same time, be very aware of how much energy has come from others in the creating of this thing.  Another’s vision has a huge role in a picturebook, and before the vision of the illustrator, there is the vision of the editor.  It is altogether something like a stageplay, with each playing a role in the coming together of a production.

Then today, there’s another slim package in the mailbox.  And I open it to find an upside down book…no a book, with a picture of a house on the front…and I can’t read the title…because it’s in Hebrew, and it’s to be read what I think of as back-to-front, right to left.  And it comes with a slip of paper from the publisher of my stories for adults, to let me know that somewhere in this volume is my short story “Across the Hall.”  I couldn’t tell you which of the stories is mine.  All I can read is the title on the title page, and “printed in Israel.”  Again, someone I don’t know, and in all likelihood, will never meet, decided he or she liked my story, thought it worthwhile to include, someone else (possibly) translated it, decided where it would work in the collection…took all those steps that are part of creating a book…and here it is, in my hands.

Thank you to so many people.  Writing is not quite the solitary work that it is believed to be…