I was just thinking though that, knowing how far-flung my friends and readers are, it might be fun to see exactly where in the world my novel is being read, and by whom. So I’m asking that you send me a picture of whatever device you’re reading on – whether it be an eReader or your computer – with either the cover showing or the title page or a page of text, and the setting where you’re reading it visible in the background. So whether it’s a local coffee shop or restaurant, the beach (or, if you’re in Toronto, The Beach!), your verandah or boat, your office or living room or bedroom, garden or park, I want to see exactly where you are while you’re reading. Tell us where that place is located, too, and throw in a comment about my novel, if you feel so inclined. If you don’t like the novel but still want to send me a photo, I won’t be any the wiser, unless you tell me you don’t like it – in which case, I will just delete your comments and post the photo anyway…

But, seriously, let’s make this as unserious and fun as possible! And, just to get the ball rolling, here’s where Dennis read Island in the Clouds on his new Kobo, although sans the gun on the table and while drinking coffee rather than a rum and coke…

There may be a prize – I haven’t decided on that yet or upon which criteria the photos will be judged. so just send your pictures now, for the fun of it. You may also send any weblinks you want me to include along with your name. (All you authors will appreciate this added bit of promotion you too will receive from posting your photos of my novel!) I will include as much, or as little, info as you wish me to. Send your entries to my email address: susanmtoy (at) gmail.com or post below in the comments if you know how to post an attachment there. I don’t know how to do this, so don’t ask me!

And here’s an earworm for you to listen to while you’re preparing your entry… It came to mind when I began writing this post, and I’m very happy to share!

First rising of dough – it’s ready to be punched down and sit in the fridge for a couple of hours, where it rises again. Then the dough is ready to be formed – and unlike making donuts where you cut out the hole from the round dough, with bagels you actually punch your thumbs through and pull the dough apart to form a hole. Once there’s a rolling boil going on in the pot, you add the bagels, 8 at a time or however many fit comfortably so they swim next to each other with room left for expansion, boil for 3 minutes, turn, then boil another 3 minutes. Remove from pot.

First batch done!

To recap… This is how much the bagels have increased in size after boiling on one side. They need to be turned over at this point. Increase the size of the holes in the bagels again just before dropping then into the water. After boiling, you wash them with egg white and add whatever topping you prefer – these were topped with poppy seeds and the first batch with sesame seeds.

While the bagels bake for 30 minutes, you have time for a celebratory cup of espresso…

and to begin mixing the recipe for Focaccia to take for dinner at Pam & Tom’s. The recipe I love to use is from Dishing: Calgary Women Cook published by Whitecap Books. Easy-peasy and an excellent flavour and texture. (Book available from The Cookbook Company.)

And back to the bagels, here are all 32, finished and ready to eat!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book two days ago. We have been coming here by boat since 1995 and have brought several friends with us. My husband sends a daily email to friends and family so he mentioned the book and one of our friends has already downloaded it. I am sure there will be others.

So many of our friends and family have worried about the drug abuse here and boaters’ safety. We try to be careful but no matter where one is trouble can occur so we feel confident that all will be well as we continue yet another of our dream journeys. This may be our final time to visit the islands on Windward Passage with so many friends joining us so we do not let many things worry us.

Susan Williamson

Because virtually everyone in the town was either employed by the coal company or by a service industry that supported the coal company or in support services for families – education, health, stores in the mall… ummm, Sneaky’s. No, wait, Sneaky’s was support services for the men only, come to think of it… Anyway, we got to know virtually everyone in town at some time or another. We socialized according to our husbands’ place in the company (and at that time, there were only a very few women who had been hired to work, and they were all engineers – Queen’s engineers, too!). There were three company tiers: upper management, middle management (engineers, geologists, technical staff who worked in the office), and the union members who actually mined the coal in the pit and got to drive all the big trucks and equipment. Dennis and Al were both part of middle management, as were many of the other engineers who had been hired at the same time. So we began holding and attending parties to which only middle management was usually invited, and the “wives” socialized with each other.

Unlike the other women in town, I wasn’t having babies nor was I gainfully employed in a day job, so I set up a mail order bookstore that I called End of the Road Books. I never did make any money out of that business, but I had a lot of fun supplying myself, my friends, and the library with reading material. When a real bookstore job opened up in Calgary, I left town so fast I don’t know whether anyone even noticed my dust. Dennis and I commuted back and forth between Calgary and Elkford for a couple of years until the coal company transferred him back to the Calgary head office. A number of engineers followed Dennis over the years, and we kept in touch with many people we’d met during those Elkford years. Several have even travelled to Bequia to visit us since we moved to the island.

But we’d kind of lost track of Claudette and Al over the years, other than hearing about them second-hand from other friends. So I was surprised when Heather Dean forwarded an email received from Claudette telling of a new book she’d written and was publishing herself. Heather asked if I would write to Claudette and offer some advice. Claudette and Al had moved to Stoney Plain, just west of Edmonton, so we made arrangements to meet when I was in the capitol city, and she gave me a finished copy of her book, Searching for Heaven on the Road Through Hell: The Memoirs of a Brain Tumour Survivor. What I hadn’t known of Claudette during all those years was that she’d had tumour surgery – twice – and that she had decided while recovering in the hospital the second time from brain surgery that she must write a book to tell of her experience. She hoped that her book would help others also facing the same terrifying experience and that they too would be able to not only cope, but conquer and survive the ordeal. Claudette has become very active in the Brain Tumour Foundatation of Canada and is a motivational speaker who inspires all who meet her. Claudette had been an accomplished artist and teacher before her surgery, and there was a fear that, if she didn’t completely recover, she may lose some, or all, of her creativity. Far from that, her surgery experience actually inspired her to create a number of paintings that she calls the “Healing Art Series.” These are included in the book.

Claudette’s story of her experience, told in a diary format that begins each day with a quote from Mother Teresa, is nothing short of inspirational. While she speaks specifically of her own situation (and includes a lot of information she discovered that is very valuable for anyone who has a brain tumour or who supports someone with a brain tumour), the book may also be read as a testament to the human spirit, to faith, to the tenacity of not allowing our adversities get the better of us, but instead, learning how to grow and to heal ourselves, in spite of those adversities.

In summary, Claudette says: I believe that nothing will change unless we change something. If we continue to do what we have done in the past, we will get the same results. We will continue to have the same lesson taught to us – until we learn it. With Claudette’s permission, here are the 18 points she makes at the end of the book, What does it take to learn the lessons?

1. Pay attention to your body – relieve the stress.
2. Be aware of your lessons – many of the stresses in our lives come from not learning our lessons the first time.
3. Find a reason for living.
4. Take care of your physical body.
5. Exercise your body.
6. Listen to all kinds of music.
7. Read good books.
8. Exercise your brain.
9. Meditate: quiet your mind long enough to let your creative juices flow.
10. Talk to yourself when you are not feeling quite right.
11. Live a balanced life.
12. Set life goals.
13. Refer to daily prayers or quotes to make you think.
14. Get online daily sources of inspirations.
15. Journal.
16. Visualize when you need to be stilled.
17. Use de-stressing techniques, exercise, reading, yoga, a glass of wine, mindfulness, music, sleep, visualization, and self-talk.
18. Lastly, never ever forget that life is fragile. Handle it with care.

Claudette’s book and her art are available online to purchase. The book is sold in a number of bookstores in Alberta. She will be joining me in Calgary to read from her book at the March Alberta Books Canada Literary Salon.

Pages On Kensington’s Bestseller List (February 12, 2012)

Original Edition Fiction and Poetry

1) The Island in the Clouds – Susan M. Toy

2) Half-Blood Blues – Esi Edugyan

3) The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides

4) The Winter Palace – Eva Stachniak

5) Dominant Traits – Eric Freeze

6) The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

7) The Cat’s Table – Michael Ondaatje

8) The Impossible Dead – Ian Rankin

9) The Last Nude – Ellis Avery

10) The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes

to show the excellent promo Pam is giving my novel!

Roxanne was organizing things to get ready for opening at lunch. A man came in and ordered a rum punch (at about 10:45), drank that down quickly and left. (Roxie and I were both astonished at the speed with which he downed that drink – frightening, actually when you know the strength of rum that’s used in the making of one…) Pam came in with the laundered tablecloths and napkins then left again. It rained, pretty hard, but Roxie and I just kept working away – she with the ironing, and I managing to get quite a bit done on my computer with only a very little bit of time spent on Facebook. People were starting to wander in for lunch and a couple came up to the bar to ask for a table and the password for using the free WiFi. The woman said to Roxie, “And I want to know more about this Bequia novel you’re advertising. I looked it up on line and it sounds interesting.”

So I piped up at that point and said, “I’m the author.”

“You’re the author? That’s great! Tell me more about it.”

The couple spend seven months of the year on their boat and travel throughout the Caribbean, but they particularly love Bequia and keep coming back. I explained that I lived here for almost twelve years and that the story is told from the POV of an expat who has actually experienced a lot of what is in the novel. She said that she reads a great number of books while they travel, but they both now have eReaders to save on space that print books take up in their boat. Most people living aboard yachts for any length of time are also big on eReaders. So I have found my perfect market! We had a nice long chat until Dennis arrived to pick me up. I gave her my card and asked her to write to me once she finishes reading my novel (which she was going to download immediately!), because I want to know what she thinks of it.

When I returned home I called Pam to tell her what had happened. She said I’m welcome to sit at her bar anytime, if it means that I’ll sell more copies of my novel!

Developing a good recipe for baguettes that works in the tropics was not easy. With the humidity here, it’s difficult to get a crunchy crust that lasts for very long, not to mention a toothsome quality to the bread itself. I had been somewhat successful over the years, but then began baking bread in the pizza oven Dennis built and, Voilá! Perfect bread (almost) every time!

Here’s a photo essay of the various steps it took to make baguettes yesterday. I was very pleased indeed with the results – as close to perfect as I’ve ever baked! But in everything we do there’s always room for improvement.

Two batches of dough, risen and ready to form…

First shape into small baguettes that need to sit for 20 minutes

Then stretch them into baguettes with tapered ends long enough to fit the pans, let rise for at least half an hour and score with a sharp knife

Into the oven, hoe-hoe-hoe!

Finished and ready to eat!

Only then is the tired and hot baker allowed to enjoy a cooling dip in the pool with a glass of wine as reward for her labours…

Thanks so much to Pearl Luke for posting a listing for my novel Island in the Clouds on the Book Club Buddy site! Read the interview here.

It looks so official!

And while you’re on the site, have a look through the listings for many, many more authors and their books. Book Club Buddy is an excellent resource for discovering new reading!

Thanks, Book Club Buddy!

Antillean Crested Hummingbird

Cats do also make very fine knitted-goods unravellers…

And when questioned about this little mishap, all three cats in the house – Zoom, Emme, and Griz – swore that it must have been a feral cat who sneaked in and committed such an atrocity to the afghan. That, or a manicoo… wretched manicoos!