Busy times

Ramping up toward the big holiday celebrations, I have been invited to speak to several groups. This is one of my favourite things to do as I get to see the reaction to my stories first hand. My Irish heritage helps me as a story teller. My father could blather a yarn as well as the best, the only thing was his offerings were few and repeated over and over again. I try to avoid that one!
The Author's day in Smiths Falls introduced me to a great group of writers that I would otherwise not have met. I have been invited back to do a seminar on memoir writing when I return from Arizona.
Ah, Arizona! I am counting the days until I load the car with my faithful furry friend, Bailey, enough clothes, and golf clubs to get me through 4 months and head off down the road. But my road trip is for later.
As the month of December approaches, my calendar, and I expect yours as well, is filling with wonderful invitations. I am mentally shopping fot the various people on my list - never an easy task. Oh, but when you find that perfect gift, it is so rewarding! And I have found a few already. With so many curious eyes in our house, I have to wrap and hide immediately. This creates its own problem because, of course, in order to divert curious eyes, I don't label the gifts. At my age, this can create a small dilemma when I try to remember whose gift is whose. Well we all have challenges in life and I just create my own.
I sing in a choir, did I tell you that? Actually, I sing in two, one in the Ottawa Valley and the other in the Verde Valley. The one here, in Canada, is doing the Messiah for two performances, one in Manotick and the other in Kemptville. What a wonderful way to be able to give and get the Christmas spirit.
Happy shopping everyone, may the weather continue to cooperate and make for easy driving.

On my calendar

As the year winds down, my schedule winds up. I just finished a Flash Fiction seminar for OIW - great bunch and the time flew by! I have been interviewed for both radio and newspapers (very pleased with the Citizen review of Wandering Backward:
Ottawa Citizen Sept.5
In 1944, seven-year-old Molly O'Connor moved from Huntsville, Ont., to Port Hope with her father, a police chief, and her mother and older brother. Decades later, she returned to her Port Hope roots, walking the streets where she had lived and played, eventually turning her reminiscences into this memoir. O'Connor, who now lives in North Gower, has penned a detailed account of life during the Second World War from a child's perspective, with coal deliveries, Eaton's catalogues, baking lessons, the latest Roy Rogers movie, mentholated oil rubs for colds, roller skates for Christmas and tragically, an uncle shot down over Germany. Many of the anecdotes are charmingly Ontarian. Older readers will wax nostalgic and younger readers will learn about the world "back then."

I have a number of speaking engagments booked for December and will be flogging my books at the the North Gower Farmers Christmas Market on December 4th.

I'm always looking for opportunities to speak to groups so welcome any invitations - just email me at fourteencups@hotmail.com

The cold weather is drawing me south. I still have not determined my exact location but have a couple of good leads. This week for sure, I will know when and where I will be from January to May.

Keep posted to my blog for regular updates

Molly O'Connor - fourteencups@hotmail.com

Fourteen Cups,my first published book, I self published. It is a selection of short stories each about a cuppa long. It has sold well and I am considering a reprint. What it did do was bring me a publisher, General Store Publishing, that published my latest book, Wandering Backward.

Wandering Backward is situated in small town Ontario in the mid 1940's. My reader can follow the adventures of a young girl and see the world through her eyes. It was a time very different from today and I wanted to capture the memories that linger and are everyday memories. It is not the big things in life that we carry forth but the small. It is my hope that Wandering Backward sparks memories for the older reader; prompts questions for the younger reader and gives those hovering mid-life an insite to their parents childhood.

Wandering Backward is available through http://www.gsph.com/ for $19.95