So last week was a little crazy. CBC news caught onto a situation that’s been developing in the publishing world. The tl;dr is that a combination of pandemic and shipping-related issues is making books more expensive and making it hard to stock and nearly impossible to restock physical copies of books on any kind of reasonable timeline.

Spent a few days on correspondence, recorded print/blog & tv interviews and a live radio piece on behalf of CWILL BC members. Decided it might be clearer to just lay things out in my own words. If you want the deep dive, it’s posted over on Medium.

The upshot of all this is that it gave us the kick in the pants we needed to finally launch our (CWILL BC) planned giveaway! If you live in British Columbia, click here to enter to win a stack of kids books in time for the holidays OR a free author or illustrator visit via Zoom.

UPDATE Cannot believe I won!! Thanks to my mystery nominator and the whole council team, volunteers, and supporters!

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A post shared by K.A. Wiggins | 🇨🇦 Bookaholic (@kaie.space)

Original Post: September 9:

This was a definite higlight of my summer: someone nominated me in the annual Abbotsford Arts Club Arty Awards!

Congrations to my fellow nominees in the literature category, local authors David Tickner, Julia Rohan, Emily Isaacson, and Lauralee Sí:tel Á:la Kelly! The awards ceremony will be held remotely on September 25 at 7 pm.

If you’re a visiting and looking to check out my work in hardcopy, you can find paperbacks locally to borrow through the Fraser Valley Regional Library, or for sale at The Bookman or Hemingways Books and Records. Thanks for...
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Aaand just like that, summer’s over! As usual, I’ve been too busy to share updates as they happen, so here’s a quick rundown of what you may have missed:

Threads of Dreams Complete

Burn the Skies launched on July 6, completing the trilogy. Binge the whole series today!

Elections

The Children’s Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia society elected me as president on June 30. If you’re a published (or professionally indie publishing) illustrator or author of books for the under-18 crowd living in British Columbia, please join us at cwillbc.org. We’re doing a ton of cool stuff!.

Awards

Not sure I’m allowed to share the news yet, but there’s a super fun awards nomination in the works that I’ll be able to shout about soon. Thanks to whoever nominated me, btw!

Instagram Catastrophe UPDATE: It’s back!

On the not-so-fun news side, my Instagram (@kaie.space) got unexpectedly shut down. Not sure if I got hacked or flagged by bots or something else, but it doesn’t appear to be recoverable. Sad to lose 3,000+ connections and 5+ years of work, but moving on and starting over with a new handle. Join me @kaiewiggins for pretty(?) book photos and book recs featuring YA fantasy and Canadian authors! Main account @kaie.space was reinstated (after a month . . . ) with their apologies, so we’re back up and running!

Student Showcase & Recommended Resources

Just launched two new website sections to feature creative projects by emerging writers I’ve had the privilege to teach and compile writing and publishing resources. Between teaching and leading CWILL, I’ve been getting an increasing number of questions about where to start with x or y, so while I’m no publishing guru, hopefully this provides a helpful starting point to refer questions to. It’ll likely grow as I have time and questions increase. Students of past workshops or who I’ve connected with at presentations are welcome to get in touch at any time with a creative project they’d like featured on the showcase page.

Up Next

I’m still dithering about what project to dive into next on the writing front, but I’ll be teaching two anthology workshops with Creative Writing for Children in the fall term, growing CWILL BC’s reach and effectiveness, and taking a continuing ed workshop on short fiction with WMG Publishing. Somewhere in all that, I need to plot and draft the next release, genre and title TBD. Stay in touch via the newsletter or social for all the details as they drop!

World Read Aloud Day Online

Date: February 2, 2022

Time: 9-10am - 12:30-9pm PST

Location: your classroom, library, or book club via Zoom (or similar)

Type: Live Reading

World Read Aloud Day is a “celebration of the power of reading aloud to create community, to amplify new stories, and to advocate for literacy as a foundational human right.”

As creators of books for young readers, many members of CWILL BC are offering free 10-20 min. virtual readings in support of this wonderful cause.

While I’m more than happy to present to classrooms, library groups or book clubs of all ages, I write for ages 8+ (published YA + forthcoming MG), so for elementary school groups, I’d be happy to read from an age-appropriate Canadian children’s book that inspires me rather than my own work.

Shoot me a message at [email protected] to book a free 10-20 minute...
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