I don’t think it’s going to be today, but there’s still l a little time.

We’lll see….

I’m expecting someone late for supper, so I’ll try to give you a blog that’s been simmering with me for a few days. I read an article mourning the loss of the community newspaper. There used to be a Community Newspaper Association but it has folded because so many of the papers that made up its membership have disappeared. They were family enterprises and they flourished for a couple of generations. But the kids these days have gone into the cities to get an education and jobs and they haven’t returned. So small towns suffer.

So do writers. When my first books were being published, I had a good relationship with those newspapers and with their founders and writers. Initially I met them in a city close to them and we talked over lunch or coffee. My transportation was paid by my publisher and they could handle the trip to a nearby rendezvous. Later, we handled interviews by telephone or I would write them an article about my latest book for them to publish and circulate. Good for all of us. II don’t rremember when we fell out of touch, surely after I had moved to MacTier, Ontario, the closest town to the lake I lived on.

When I received the Order of Canada, the local paper in Parry Sound wanted to do an interview but then they discovered I had just moved back to Toronto (after 16 years in Muskoka) and they didn’t want me because I wasn’t a local girl. I think it was very broad-minded of the jury to choose me for a CM when I was from the backwoods;

Do you know that Canada is more urban than not. If you doubt me, take a look at a map of Canada and see where our cities are located.

My guest is coming. I’ll be back tomorrow.