Every month or so I like to do a little update on cool stuff that is happening with my novel Lost on the Prairie. January marks eight months since it was released to the public.
Huge thanks to Laurie Hnatiuk from the fabulous blog Bit About Books who put Lost on the Prairie on one of her Must Read Shelves for 2022.
In December Lost on the Prairie was part of the Heritage House Christmas card that featured all the books they published in 2021. Can you spot it?
My friend Kelly, an author herself, reads voraciously. She chose only eight of the 58 books she read in 2021 to keep on her bookshelf. I was thrilled Lost on the Prairie was one of them.
On January 12 I visited with a Winnipeg book club via Zoom. The women in this book club have been meeting together for nearly thirty years. They were very interested in the research I’d done for the book and asked such good questions.
One woman asked me why I had chosen to have three talkative and interesting daughters in the family my hero stays with for a brief time. I had never thought about that. As I chatted about it with the book club members I realized I had probably been influenced by the fact that there were three girls in my mothers’ family. They were very close to each other and such interesting women.
I love how I always gain new insights into my book when I talk with people who have read it.
My friend Billie told me she gave Lost on the Prairie to her great-nieces and nephews for Christmas along with a story she had written about their family history. What a terrific idea!
I was so pleased Heritage House added a McNally Robinson Bookseller button to the page about my book on their website. They wanted to acknowledge the wonderful way the store has supported the sales of Lost on the Prairie.
I want to acknowledge my publisher Heritage House for the absolutely AMAZING job they have been doing of promoting my novel.
My friend Darren in Hong Kong just received a copy of my book which I autographed for him. Darren is a former international school colleague of mine and is now a professor at the Education University in Hong Kong. He plans to read my novel over the Chinese New Year. I know my friend Meena in Hong Kong also has a copy of Lost on the Prairie but I would be curious to know if any of my other Hong Kong friends and former colleagues or students have one.
I noted recently all four copies of my book at the Winnipeg Library are out and there is a waiting list to read them. They have also added an electronic version of the book. So happy for this support from my local library system.
My publisher Heritage House featured Lost on the Prairie in their advertisement in the latest issue of Canadian Children’s Book News. Congratulations to Nadine Neema, another Heritage House author whose book Journey of A Traveling Girl launched just before mine and has been nominated for multiple awards.
February is I Love To Read Month and if there are any teachers out there who would like me to visit their class virtually to read from my novel or talk about reading and books I’d be thrilled to do that!
You can take a look at all the other posts I’ve done about Lost on the Prairie here.
What Next? 