Canadian Authors Past and Present by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey--Yukon

http://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Canadian Authors Past and Present

Canada celebrated its 150^th anniversary in 2017. To commemorate the occasion my publisher, Books We Love, Ltd (BWL) brought out the Canadian Historical Brides Series during 2017 and 2018. There are twelve books, one about each province, one about the Yukon, and one combining the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Each book was written by a BWL Canadian author or co-authored by a Canadian and an international BWL author.

Each province and territory of Canada has spawned many well-known authors and my series of posts this year will be about them-one or two from the past and one or two from the present, the present-day ones being the authors of the Brides book for the corresponding province or territory. The posts are in the order that the books were published.

 

Yukon

Pierre Berton was born on July 20 in Whitehorse, Yukon. His family moved to Dawson in 1921 and then to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1932. He attended the University of B.C. and during the summers returned to work in the Klondike mining camps to earn money. He became a journalist in Vancouver and at the age of twenty-one he was the youngest city editor on any Canadian daily newspaper.

     Berton moved to Toronto in 1947 and went on to write for, and was an editor at, Maclean’s magazine. He appeared on many television shows including the long-running Front Page Challenge (1957-1995) for thirty-nine years. His first book The Royal Family was published in 1953 and his second, a young reader novel, The Golden Trail: The Story of the Klondike Rush, came out in 1954. Between then and 1993 he wrote more than fifty fiction and non-fiction books about Canadian history and popular culture, including coffee table books, children’s books, and historical novels for young adults. He received over thirty literary awards one of which was the Governor-General’s Award for Creative Non-fiction. In 1994, Canada’s National History Society established the Pierre Berton award to be given to an author who has written about Canadian history in an absorbing and charming way. Berton was the first recipient.

     Pierre Berton’s childhood home in Dawson has been restored and is now called the Berton House. It opened as a writers’ retreat in August of 1996. Four writers a year are chosen to reside in the house for three months each. During that time they can work on their newest manuscript while giving writing workshops and readings in Yukon communities.
     Pierre Berton passed away in Toronto on November 30, 2004.

Edith Josie was born on December 8, 1921 in Eagle, Alaska, and moved to the small village of Old Crow, Yukon, when she was sixteen. Old Crow is 193 kilometres (120 miles) south of the Arctic Ocean and 129 kilometres (80 miles) north of the Arctic Circle and is occupied mainly by the Loucheaux Indians of the Vuntut Gwich’in peoples. The sun doesn’t set for two months in the summer and the temperature can reach as high as +35C. In winter it is total darkness for three weeks and the temperature can drop to -50C.

     Miss Josie was appointed Justice of the Peace for Old Crow in 1957 and served for seven years. She began her writing career as the Old Crow Correspondent for the Whitehorse Star late in 1962. Her column for the Star was called Here Are The News (sic) and Edith reported the events of the village in an unpretentious and informal way, much like she spoke English. Correct grammar and punctuation were not part of her writing, it was the story that was important. Her stories were published exactly the way she composed them.

     Edith wrote for the Star for thirty-eight years and during that time her column was syndicated to papers in Edmonton Alberta, Toronto Ontario, Fairbanks Alaska, and in California. In 1965 Life magazine did a feature on her, titled Everyone Sure Glad. The article brought her world-wide recognition and her stories were translated into German, Italian, Spanish, and Finnish. She received letters from fans in Texas, Florida, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

     Edith Josie received the Canadian Centennial Award in 1967, the Yukon Historical Museums Award in 1994, was awarded the Order of Canada in 1995, and was honored by the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards (now the Indspire Awards) in 2000. She died on January 31, 2010.

Here are some examples of her work as she wrote them: Even now the spring has come cause it is daylight around 11 o'clock p.m. Pretty soon we won't use light for night time. Everyone glad to see plane every day. Even the same plane come in one day, they all have to go down to see what is going on and what come in on plane.

John Joe Kay and his family and Dick Hukon and family came into town from their ratting camp. They reported no rats around there but they say too many mosquito. Too bad no prize on mosquito.

Since last week all the leaves are getting yellow. That mean autumn is coming. When the leaves grow green sure nice but at fall time it’s turn to yellow-more beautiful.

I go to McPherson on Friday and went back to Inuvik Sunday afternoon. When I was there I went to visit my Auntie Sarah Simon she was happy to see me and also myself too.

I write my big news. That’s how all of the people know where is Old Crow. Before the news go out nobody know where is Old Crow. Just when I send my news people know where is Old Crow.

Book 3 of the Canadian Historical Brides Series:  Romancing the Klondike (Yukon) - Joan Donaldson-Yarmey - May 2017

Joan Donaldson-Yarmey began her writing career with a short article, progressed to travel and historical articles, and then on to travel books. She called these travel books her Backroads series and the research for them had her camping throughout Alberta, B.C., the Yukon, and Alaska. While researching her Backroads of the Yukon and Alaska book, Joan and her husband hiked the Chilkoot Trail from Skagway, Alaska, to Lake Bennett, the Yukon. The year was 1997, one hundred years after the Klondike Gold Rush. They did it in the summer time with one 35lb backpack each as opposed to the Klondikers who are pictured hauling their 1200lbs of supplies in the winter. On the hike she passed many artifacts that were left by the men and women on their way to the gold fields.

     Joan switched to fiction and has written ten books: four mystery novels, Illegally Dead, The Only Shadow In The House, and Whistler's Murder in a series called the Travelling Detective Series and Gold Fever her stand-alone novel which combines mystery with a little romance; three Canadian historical, Romancing the Klondike, West to the Bay, and West to Grande Portage; two science fiction The Criminal Streak and Betrayed in her Cry of the Guilty-Silence of the Innocent series; and a holiday romance/comedy titled Twelve Dates of Christmas.

     Joan’s story, A Capital Offence, was published in Ascent Aspirations Magazine and won first place in their flash fiction contest.

     Joan was born in New Westminster, B.C. Canada, and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. She married soon after graduation and moved to a farm where she had two children. Over the years she worked as a bartender, hotel maid, cashier, bank teller, bookkeeper, printing press operator, meat wrapper, gold prospector, warehouse shipper, house renovator, and nursing attendant. During that time she raised her two children and helped raise her three step-children.

     Since she loves change, Joan has moved over thirty times in her life, living on acreages and farms and in small towns and cities throughout Alberta and B.C. She now lives on an acreage on Vancouver Island with her husband and two cats. When she is not writing she is picking fruit, walking on the boardwalk through the tall trees on her property, dragon boating, entering 5K and 10K walks and runs or playing with her two cats.

http://www.bookswelove.com/canadian-historical-brides-collection/

http://www.bookswelove.com/mystery-thriller-authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

http://thetravellingdetectiveseries.blogspot.com/

https://www.amazon.com/author/joandonaldsonyarmey

If I knew then... by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

If I knew then ...

Things have sure changed since I began writing. I took a few writing courses and began my published, writing career (as opposed to my unpublished writing career) with a short story titled  A Hawk's Reluctant Flight, in a small magazine called Western People. With that on my short resume, I had travel and historical articles accepted by other magazines, one of which didn't pay anything to the author. Then I took another writing course and one of the speakers was Grant Kennedy owner of Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton, Alberta.

       At the time Alberta was divided into tourist zones and I had been thinking about doing a book on what there was to see and do in each zone. I sent a query letter to Lone Pine Publishing and the senior editor responded with a phone call. We set up a time for me to go to the city and meet with her and Grant Kennedy. I outlined my idea and Grant said yes it was a good one but he thought that the books should be more on the people and culture of each zone. He liked his idea and I liked mine so we decided we couldn't work together. As I stood to leave I said. "Well, at least as I research the zones I will see all the backroads of Alberta." He replied. "I've always want to do a book on the backroads of Alberta." I sat back down and that was how I began my backroads series. Over the next ten years I travelled through and wrote two books on Alberta, four books on British Columbia and one on the Yukon and Alaska. These books were very successful and I decided to branch out into fiction.
       My favourite books to read have always been mystery novels and after much thought I decided to write one. I quickly learned that writing a fiction book is not like reading a fiction book. You need a story to tell, you must tell that story in a believable way, and you must make the reader want to read that story to the end. Since one of the mantras of writing is to write what you know I made my main character a travel writer. In the first book, Illegally Dead, she is headed to southern Alberta to do research for a magazine and is drawn into the mystery of a skeleton found in a septic tank. I found that I didn't write my books from page one to the end like I did when writing my travel books. I wrote scenes as I thought of them and put them in where they belonged in the story. I knew the ending but found it wasn't as easy to write it as it was to think it.
     I also learned that getting fiction published is different from getting non-fiction published.
     At that time there was no multiple submissions. A writer sent their manuscript to one publisher at a time and had to wait up to six months to hear back. If it was rejected then you sent it out to another publisher. It could take years to find the publisher who wanted to publish your book. One publisher wrote back to me that they liked my mystery story but my travel background was coming out and I had too much travel information in it. I was asked to remove some. So I did and resent my manuscript. Again, I was asked to cut back on the travel info. Again I did. The third time I was told that this was a mystery and I should stick with the mystery and leave out the travel stuff. I wrote back and said that the main character is a travel writer and is working on an article. She is not going to drop that and concentrate on the mystery. So needless to say we parted ways.
       I sent out the manuscript again and another publisher said they were interested in publishing it. They had one stipulation and that was that I should add in more travel information. We worked together and a year later my manuscript was actually a book that I could hold in my hand. Their publicist arranged a book launch and a book signing tour. It was fun and exciting to stand in front of an audience and read from my book.
       I wrote the second book of what I was calling my Travelling Detective Series to the same publisher. After about a five month wait I received a letter that told me the publishing house had been bought out by another one and that my manuscript and all my information had been sent to them. I waited a few more months then emailed the new publisher to find out what was happening. A couple of days later I received an email stating that they had no record of my manuscript.
     My heart sank.
     But a few days after that I received an email from another editor at the publishing house that they had found my manuscript and they wanted to publish it.
     Elation.
     However, in the time between that email and the publishing date for my novel, the publishing house was sold again. The new owner was going to honour my contracts, but in the future wasn't going to publish mysteries. I knew there was no use sending my third manuscript in the series to that publisher and after checking around I sent it to Books We Love. They immediately accepted it and e-published it. After two years of talking with my former publisher I was able to get the rights to my first two novels of the series and now all three are published with Books We Love Ltd.
     Since then I have written another stand-alone mystery, three Canadian Historical novels, a sci-fi two-book series, and a contemporary young adult novel all published by BWL. These are sold as e-books and as print books.
     Like I said at the beginning things are different than when I first started writing. For my non-fiction and first fiction publishers, there was a publicist to organize book readings, signings, and television appearances, and a distributor to get the books into stores and libraries. In the new publishing world, it is usually up to the writer to do a lot of publicity through social media and to arrange book signings and readings. I find this time consuming and, for me, not very profitable. It also takes away from my writing and because there are so many books being published every day, it is almost impossible to stand out and get noticed.
     If I knew then what I know now, would I have become a writer?
     Short answer--Yes.
     I enjoy taking an idea and making it into a story. I have more ideas for books than I will ever have time to write. When I'm not writing I go through a bit of withdrawal, yearning to be in my make-believe world with my new friends. So, it doesn't matter how much the publishing business changes, I will still write.

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Keeping Your Reader in Your Historical Novel by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

Keeping Your Reader in Your Historical Story

As a historical writer it is important to make sure that you use the words of the period you have set your book in. For example if your story is set in the 1500s you could use the word hugger-mugger when talking about a sneaky person who is acting in a secretive way and elflocks to describe messy hair. Jargoyles meant that a person was puzzled about something in the 1600s while in the 1700s a person who was out of sorts was grumpish. In the 1800s people would have felt curglaff when they jumped into cold water and a man going for a post dinner walk while smoking his pipe was lunting. In the early 1900s a person who was drunk was referred to as being fuzzled.

Of course, it is important when using those words that the writer somehow explains what they mean such as, if a man said he was going for an after lunch lunt, the person he was talking to could reply. “I don’t have my pipe and tobacco with me today.” I feel that writers who use terminology from a different era or words or phrases from a different language without clarification are trying to impress the reader with their vocabulary and intellect. Speaking as a reader, for me what they are really doing is making me angry and interrupting the flow of the story. I am jolted out of the lives of the characters and into my life as I try to process the meaning of what was written.

As a writer you want the reader to be so caught up in the story that they don’t want to put the book down, you don’t want them to throw the book across the room because they don’t understand what has been said or done.

Another important aspect of writing historical novels or even novels set in past decades is to make sure that you do have the characters using devices that hadn’t been invented yet.

The ball point pen came into use in the 1940’s so you can’t have someone signing papers with it in the 1920s. The Charleston dance was introduced in a movie in 1923 and caught on after that, so a story set before that time could not have party-goers dancing it. While the computer was invented during World War II, it didn’t come into commercial use until the 1950/60s and personal use until the 1970/80s. Don’t have a person make a phone call before March 7, 1876, which is when Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone and don’t have someone send a text on a mobile phone in the 1970s.

It is important to do your research when writing a novel set in the past, no matter what the year.

More historical words:

In the 1590s beef-witted described something as being brainless or stupid.

In the 1640s callipygian described a beautifully shaped butt.

In the 1650s sluberdegullion meant an unkempt, drooling person.

In the 1950s two people making out in the back seat of a car were doing the back seat bingo.

 

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My Writing Companions Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

I first began my writing career with a short story about an injured hawk my son and I found beside the highway. We took him home to our acreage and named him Highway. We nursed him for a few days then set him free. He decided he liked us and moved into the bushes around our acreage.

       This story lead to the publication of historical and travel articles and finally seven travel books. To research these books over the years I travelled and camped throughout British Columbia, Alberta, and the Yukon and Alaska. My travelling companion was a cockapoo dog named Chevy. He inspected attractions with me, hikes trails with me, and waited patiently in my vehicle when I had to go into a building. We would be on the road for a month or more at a time taking pictures, learning history, and meeting people.

       At the end of each trip I’d be glad to get home and begin to unload my vehicle. Chevy would jump out and check the house and yard. I thought he was happy to be home also until I would go into my vehicle and find him lying in his place on the seat. I’d tell him we were home to stay and put him on the ground. I’d gather up more stuff to carry into the house and when I came out for my next load he was once again on the seat. I guess he wasn’t taking a chance that I would leave him. That little guy lived to be seventeen and was a great companion.

       I have had as many as five cats at a time over the years—I’m now down to three. When I am writing, one’s favourite spot is on my lap, another likes to sit on the desk between me and my computer screen, and the third one sits on the floor and talks to me trying to distract my thoughts. But I don’t mind. They are a joy to have.

In The Name of Love Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Two family stories in the name of love

#1

My husband and I lived on an acreage and my husband work in the country for an oil company. Therefore he didn’t make it into town to buy me a Valentine’s card. So early Valentine’s morning he went outside and packed some snow into a pile. He got a can of red spray paint and painted a heart with an arrow through it on the snow. He also printed Be My Valentine on it. I could see the pile of snow from the kitchen window for months as it was the last snow to melt in the spring.

#2

My mother had moved from Alberta to B.C. to pick fruit and then got a job at a store in Vancouver. Mom’s parents, my grandparents sold their farm in Alberta and bought an acreage near Vancouver. My father was in World War II and was repatriated to Vancouver when it was over.

When dad left the army he got a job and began to look for a place to buy. My grandfather’s health was bad and so they decided to sell their acreage. One of mom’s friends was my dad’s sister and my dad found out about it through his sister. He bought my grandparents acreage and met my mother. They married seven months after meeting and were married for fifty-four years.

The way dad put it: He bought the acreage and got the daughter for free.

Would I Redo by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
 

When I was in school, I wanted to travel and my dream job was to be a stewardess as they were called back then. I studied French, German, and Russian so that I would know some other languages for when I landed and maybe stayed over in another country. In my last year a job show was held at my high school and I went to talk with the representatives from an airline. She was dressed in her uniform and was very nice.

     I explained that I wanted to be a stewardess and asked for information. She told me that I had to be a certain height and weight, which I was. She said that all stewardesses had to wear a girdle even though their figures might be perfect. I was okay with that. Then she told me that anyone who wore glasses could not be a stewardess. I was devastated, since I needed prescription glasses but seldom wore them. I went to an optometrist to get contact lenses. This was when they were still made of hard material and my eyes could not adjust to them.

     So I gave up my dream of being a stewardess. However, I married, had wonderful children who have given me wonderful grandchildren and went on to become a writer. I travelled extensively through British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon and Alaska, when writing my non-fiction backroads series.

     I belong to a dragon boat team and I have taken part in international festivals in Caloundra Queensland Australia (spent four week visiting the sites of Queensland and New South Wales then a week in Fiji) Sarasota Florida USA, (my husband and I travelled through two provinces and nineteen states on our way there and back home) and will be going to Florence Italy in 2018. While there I hope to visit many other European countries. I’ve also been to Japan and China. So not being a stewardess has not stopped me from doing the travelling that I wanted to do when I was younger.

     Just a note: my sister owned the Canadian Tourism College in Vancouver for many years. One of my granddaughters took her course and is now a flight attendant. She doesn’t need to wear a girdle and, while she doesn’t wear glasses, today it wouldn’t matter if she did.

A Recipe for a Holiday Dessert by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

 

The following is a recipe for a dessert that I made for many years for my husband’s birthday and Christmas and when requested for other gatherings. It is simple to make but takes a while because you have to let it cool between layers. It is very rich and each person only needs a small piece.

 

Cherry Delight

Bottom Layer

1 ½ cup graham crumbs

¾ cup brown sugar

½ cup melted butter

Mix these together and pat down into a nine by nine inch pan. Put in refrigerator to harden.

Middle Layer

1 cup whipping cream

1 4oz package softened cream cheese

¾ cup icing sugar.

Whip the cream until almost stiff. Blend in cream cheese and icing sugar and beat until mixed well and stiff. Spread on bottom layer and return to fridge until set.

Top Layer

Open a can of cherry pie filling and spread on top.

 

Enjoy

Ghosts and Haunted Houses by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

As far as I know, I have never seen a ghost. However, I did live in a haunted house, although without my knowledge. When my husband and I and my brother and sister-in-law first moved to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island we bought a house that had been converted into a duplex. My sister-in-law told me that she was continually seeing a man coming and going from their side. I saw no one on our side.

I returned to Alberta to visit family and friends and was describing where our place was to a friend. She began asking questions about it and said that a friend of hers had lived in that house years earlier. She also asked me if I had seen the ghost who occasionally wandered through the house there. I said no, but my sister-in-law had.

She said that a man had died in that house and her friend had seen his ghost often while living there.

I’m not sure if the reason I did not encountered that ghost nor any others in my life is because I don’t believe in them or because I’ve been lucky. However, if a ghost is reading this, this is not an invitation to come to me and prove you are real.

Who Supports My Writing by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

My family and friends have been very supportive of me during my writing career. When my first two non-fiction books were published, my parents would look for them in bookstores. If they found them with only their spines showing they rearranged the books on the shelves so that the covers of mine were facing out and they could be seen easier.

     My husband is constantly telling people that I am a writer and where they can find my books. My parents, siblings, children, grandchildren and friends have come to my book launches, sat with me during a book signing, and passed on advertising information about my new books through social media and other means.

     When they were younger my grandchildren helped out at some of my launches: acting as doormen by opening doors for customers at bookstores, singing, or playing a saxophone or flute during the interlude before my reading.

     I have some friends who buy and read all my books and continually tell me how much they like them.
     Thank you to my family and friends for your continued encouragement.

Who Would Play My Characters in the Movie by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

Total Speculation and dreaming--but wouldn't it be wonderful if a production company decided they wanted to make my historical novel, Romancing the Klondike, into a movie. When I thought about who would play my characters I went with all Canadian actors and actresses.

Here is the list:

 

Ellen Page as Pearl Owens

Rachael McAdams as Emma Owens

Ryan Reynolds as Sam Owens

Ryan Gosling as Donald Miller

Seth Rogen as Gordon Baker

Keanu Reeves as Joe Ladue

Jane Eastwood as Mrs. Wills

I think that the lesser characters should also be Canadian actors and actresses. After all, this is a Canadian story.

What do you think of my selections?