Hi! Right off the bat I want you to know that I was thrilled to hear Dear Toni was short listed for a Silver Birch Award! Although I have written for a long time this is my first published book.

I live with my family at the base of Morning Mountain on the outskirts of Nelson, BC. My daughter Kohe, says that she’s grateful that I waited until she was almost finished high school to get serious with the writing business. She didn’t want the pressure of everyone thinking that just because I loved to write that she should also. My son Mclain, on the other hand, was just hoping that one published book would bring uncountable wealth. Needless to say he’s a little disappointed. Sorry Kiddo, no fancy trips to exotic places.

But regardless of all that, the past year has been wonderful. I’ve traveled to schools in Alberta, BC and the USA. With luck, I will get all the way across Canada this year. I’ve really enjoyed visiting classes and sharing with kids my passion for writing, doodling, reading and life in general. I love meeting new people and I love having conversations with people who’ve read Dear Toni. It’s a fantastic connection for me because then more than ever Gene comes to life. I hear your thoughts about her, answer your questions, and laugh with you about some of the ridiculous ideas Gene has and writes down in her journal. It’s great for me as an author to meet my audience.

One of the highlights of my year was a journey to the little town where I grew up. Going back to my old elementary school and walking down the hallway, with a peek into the old gym, brought back oodles of memories. In fact, some of the kids were the nephews, nieces, and grandkids (eek!) of people I went to school with.
While growing up the idea of being a writer was only a dream. I did not know a single writer, and most of the books we used in school were published in the US and were about American places and kids. Rarely did I read about Canada and Canadian people. What I do have from my childhood is a journal I wrote in seventh grade, and it was in there that I confided that I wanted to be a writer.

The other great thing that happened this year was receiving emails and letters from people who read Dear Toni. I tried to get back to everyone, so I hope I did!
Dear Toni has been nominated for the 2010 Atlantic Canada Children’s Choice Award called the Hackmatack. This award is similar to the Silver Birch Awards in Ontario, which Dear Toni has also been short listed for in the Silver Birch Express Award category. It’s wonderful to know that not only Dear Toni, but also Gene, will be traveling all over Atlantic Canada this year, and that they will also be traveling through schools in Ontario. I’d love to write that journal!

Dear Toni has also been chosen by the Children’s Book Committee at the Banks Street College of Education in New York to be included in their special 100th Anniversary Edition of the 2009 Best Books for Children. I know there are many great books on all these lists, and I am honoured to have Dear Toni included and potentially read by so many people.

I’m also supposed to include some interesting facts, here goes:

- I have a confession: as a kid I rarely read fiction. If you’re curious about that you’ll have to ask me why.

- Before I drew the first dog doodle for Dear Toni, I had never drawn a doodled dog, even though I am a compulsive doodler. Guess what I did to learn how?

- As a kid my mom would send me to school with rollers, prickly cylinders used to make my exceptionally straight hair curly. I’d arrive with a note for my teacher to take them out right before school photos. Can you imagine how embarrassing that was? I had to ride twenty kilometers on a school bus with my hair in rollers to a little country school in the middle of the Alberta prairie. And what about the teacher, do you think she really appreciated taking out my rollers while she was trying to teach and organize all of us for our school photos?

- Growing up in my family there were a few little lies. For example, my older brother who was six years my senior, would say when he wanted the soy sauce, “Pass the elephant blood.” I pleaded with my parents to tell me if it was really true. You see I loved soy sauce, but they wouldn’t tell me and so I grew up thinking we poured elephant blood on our rice. This is not a very fine thing to believe especially if you, like me, loved not only soy sauce, but also elephants.

- My first job was in a bakery. I was twelve years old and one of my tasks was running the electric bread slicer. It had a million-okay not a million- but lots, of electric knives going a million miles an hour, (really they were faster than a speeding bullet). Anyway, every now and again, the crust would get stuck in the whizzing knives, and believe it or not I would (this is very dumb, do not do this at home…promise me!) stick my finger into those knives, being very careful as to where the knives were and were not, and push the last bit of crust threw the extremely sharp blades. I am so grateful that I didn’t cut my fingers off; it would have made writing terribly difficult!

- One of my favourite things to do is swim in the lake. I love to dive into the water and go as deep as I can and imagine that I am a dolphin swimming in clear blue tropical water. But I guess I wouldn’t be a very good dolphin because I also love sitting on top of mountains, lying in the grass, going really high on a swing, and flying in my dreams. As a kid I thought one day I’d grow up, and that would mean being a grown up and becoming all serious about life. The truth is, that’s true and in many ways I am serious, but I am still very curious. I still have an imagination, and I still love to laugh. More than just about anything I am grateful for all that.

If you want to contact me you may at cyndisandeveland@accessola.com
My website is www.sand-eveland.ca

I look forward to hearing from you,
Cyndi