Sidura Ludwig

Thank you to Rebecca Ihilchik, from Friday Night Magazine, for this lovely interview. Shabbat Shalom to all!

I love meeting with book clubs. When you think about it, what a wonderful concept – people getting together to talk about books. Last night I met with a group of women at a home in the Bathurst Manor area of Toronto. They had invited me to come speak to their group about Holding My Breath. The host had even prepared a bundt cake a la Goldie. The women had wonderful questions, questions that really make me think about this book four years later. I cherish the opportunity to revisit the characters from Holding. It’s as if talking about them makes them come alive again for me.

Mostly, I’m honoured that after four years, there are still book groups that want to review my book and are interested in my story. So, if you’re in a book club and you’re interested in reading Holding My Breath, contact me. I’m more than happy to find the time to come speak.

I think I’ll start with the Kobo. You can now purchase Holding My Breath on Chapters/Indigo’s e-reader, Kobo. Click here to go to my listing on the Kobo website. In the next little while, I plan to get the book up on Kindle, iBook, etc. Happy shopping and happy e-reading!

In other electronic, literary news, I was asked to blog for the CBC’s Manitoba Scene, thanks to all of you and my book’s success on the Cross Canada Bookshelf. Have a look here at my post about writing what matters.

Lovely to have news to share, and readers to share it with! Shabbat shalom and happy weekend to all.

I sometimes feel I am two people. I am the writer/creator, and then the writer/entrepreneur. And I need to be both to sustain my writing life, but when I stay too long under one category, I begin to crave the other.

In new “entrepreneurial” news, York Region Writers (my series of writing classes) now has its own website! For details on my summer classes and to register online, visit http://www.yorkregionwriters.ca. And once again, a BIG thank you to Aviva Krygier, my extraordinary web designer.

The CBC Cross Country Bookshelf contest is official finished. Thank you all for your continued support. Holding My Breath finished in the Manitoba rankings with over 71% of the vote! I’ve been shipping copies of the book off to interested stores (because I’m now a book distributor too…). And it a week or two’s time it will be available on Kobo. It feels wonderful to know that so many people were touched by the story. I hope that it will continue to be read by many more (and that my next book gets picked up somewhere, and that I have the creative energy to write another one…).

And now back to the categories. I’ll admit, with planning my summer classes and organizing my websites, I haven’t done much new writing lately. And I’m craving it. That quiet space. That desire to throw the internet and all other distractions out the window and give myself a clear, blank, creative slate. There is something so liberating about not knowing what is coming next. I know it’s there. I just need to slow down to find it.

It’s been a very busy time! The CBC Cross Country Bookshelf has renewed interest in Holding My Breath, and I’ve been sending out plenty of books. I’m nearly finished converting it to ebook format and it will soon be available on Kobo (with other versions to follow). And, of course, I’m bugging everyone I know and their dog to vote (vote where, you ask? Have a look at this http://www.cbc.ca/books/crosscountrybookshelf/manitoba.html)

In the meantime, there are classes to run! I’m offering two Finding Your Voice classes this summer as taster sessions. Class one will be Thursday mornings from 10-11.30am (July 7, 14, 21, and 28th). Class two will be Tuesday evenings from 7.30-9pm (July 5, 12, 19, and 26th). You can sign up for individual classes or the series of four. Classes take place in Thornhill, ON. All classes are designed to spark your creativity and help you uncover the stories you want to tell. Contact me if you’d like to register or you have any questions. Be inspired this summer – and come and write!

Holding My Breath has been nominated one of the top 10 books to read before visiting Manitoba!

This summer, CBC Radio launches Cross Country Bookshelf, a “literary map of Canada”. Panels of book lovers from nine different regions were asked to answer the question, “What books do you really need to read to understand my home?” I’m humbled to have my book included on Manitoba’s list which includes Margaret Laurence and Gabrielle Roy.

Now here’s where you come in: You get to vote for the book which should be included in anyone’s suitcase if they are going on a cross-Canada trip. You can vote once a day, once a region. Let’s give Holding My Breath a chance! Click on the CBC website and vote for Holding My Breath. And then tomorrow, do it again! And if you comment on your choice, you can be entered to win one of nine Kobos. The contest closes June 14th, after which the top five Canadian “must reads” will be announced.

So help me give this a shot. And then while you’re at it, take a look at some of the fabulous books that made these nine regional lists. Make it a summer of reading Canada!

I started out as a bookseller. My first job was at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg where I spent many glorious hours as a teen alphabetizing sections and dreaming of having my own book on their shelves one day. Now I am a bookseller again – only this time it’s just one book. My own.

Here’s the story: Some of you may recall that last fall the publisher (my publisher) Key Porter Books went out of business. Then in the winter, HB Fenn distributors declared bankruptcy. See this link for more details http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/932865–hb-fenn-initiates-bankruptcy.

What did that mean for me? I had 1000 copies of my book, Holding My Breath, in their warehouse. Last month I arranged to purchase those copies so that I could ensure that it would remain available to the public. And now through my website, it is! Thank you PayPal. You will find a Buy Now button on the right-hand side of the site. If you click on that button, it takes you directly to a PayPal page where you can purchase my book directly from me.

So please keep me and my book in mind if you need a good birthday, anniversary, teacher’s, mother’s day, just-because gift. I’ll even sign it for you! If you are part of a book club and you’d like to read Holding My Breath, contact me and I can arrange a discount for large groups.

I am continuing to look for a home for my new novel, Leah’s Megillah. Apparently this process is no easier the second time around. All in good time, I hope! In the meantime, I’m trying on my bookseller hat and grateful, that with only one title in my shop, I don’t have to worry about alphabetizing!

With all the hype of ebooks (and I recently got a Kindle. I am now knee-deep in the digital hype), I am fascinated with what this all means for the future of bookstores. I say fascinated and not concerned, because I do believe bookstores will prevail. But what they will look like in 20 years is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, here’s what a 100+-year-old bookstore in London is doing to stay relevant in the digital age.

http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/05/bookseller-bridges-print-and-digital/

I had a fantastic writing class on Thursday morning. We are a small group, meeting in my dining room once every two weeks. Mainly middle-aged women (and sometimes a twenty-something guy), the participants are united in their willingness to give something new a try, and their desires to tell stories.

I try to theme each week, and this past class was held only one day after coming back home from Winnipeg where I had been with my family for Passover. I always get nostalgic when I’m in Winnipeg. It’s so different from suburban Toronto. So much quieter. The pace slower. And so my theme this past week for class was, “Can you really ever leave home?”

Here’s what I presented:

Some people say you can never go home. I believe you can never fully leave. Echoes and ghosts of home are carried with you where ever you go. They are the tapping on your shoulder, trying to get your attention. They are the stories that won’t go away, even when you don’t want to think about them any more.

Exercise:

Write:

1. This image: you find a piece of paper upon which your father has written his name over and over again. Why? What is the story here?
2. Create a passage that contains a moment of surprise, eg. Usually our father locked the doors before coming up to bed. We would hear his heavy, exhausted footsteps on the stairs.  Only one night…”

Everyone chose the second exercise. And what they came up with was astonishing. Very deep moments in their lives that they wrote about with such honesty and then shared aloud. I felt as if they all dug deep to write about what mattered to them and in doing so discovered these very important stories that need to be told, and need to be told by them. I am both humbled to have been a part of that process, and very proud of the writing that they did.

So, a passage that contains a moment of surprise. What would be yours?

I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place before. Aqua Books, on Garry Street in downtown Winnipeg is an absolute gem. Never mind the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, or that I found a hard cover copy of Leo the Lop for $6, or that adult fiction has it’s own ROOM – then you head upstairs. They have two rooms for readings and music shows. A hallways filled with writer’s offices. Posters advertising their writer-in-residence programs. The store hosts 400 events a year – AND they’re closed two days a week! This isn’t a bookstore. It’s an institution. And only a city like Winnipeg could support it.

Herein lies the beauty of a mid-size city: places like this get recognized and remembered. It isn’t lost amongst bigger box stores, or big-name festivals. People aren’t swamped with places they’ve meant to get to. Here they come, they enjoy, and they support. It’s what arts and culture is all about.

I was invited to read at Aqua Books Thursday night, with two other fantastic writers. We all read new, never-before-seen-the-light-of-day works. Scary and exhilarating. A real confidence booster for me. The setting was intimate, the crowd engaging. It was my pleasure to be their featured reader.

Okay, North of Steeles. How do we grow our culture scene so that it looks like that?