A Funny Thing Happened at a Craft Show

I miss craft shows. Actually, I miss seeing real people with their faces visible, but that's another story.

I miss the busy craft show atmosphere of talking with all variety of folks and selling books to interested readers. Craft and trade shows on the Prairies have been part of my life every fall since 2009 when I published The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story by Alan J. Buick. That fall, the author and I and our spouses (Carol and Al) went on an epic author tour through parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta to launch this wonderful book about a Canadian soldier from Olds/Calgary and a Dutch girl who received his troop's wartime gift of a child's coat made from a Canadian Army blanket. 

The Little Coat is still one of our most popular titles - for good reason, including the fact that the coat is now an artifact in the Canadian War Museum thanks to Alan's writing efforts - and it launched us into the world of selling our books at trade shows and craft shows as well. We had a trade show booth at big events like Canadian Western Agribition for many years and we took our books on the road to various craft shows in all regions of Saskatchewan as well as southern Manitoba and Alberta. Fun stuff for sure.

But people do say the darnedest things sometimes.

One of the funniest - or maybe strangest - moments that happened came during a show in a Saskatchewan town in November 2012. The craft show was held in a large gymnasium-like room and there was plenty of space for craft tables and for customers to wander among them. (Sigh. Did I mention that I miss people?) 

Anyway, I returned to the room after a short break and an older woman greeted me at the door. She called to her friend to follow her and they both walked behind me, following me for the entire length of the large room until I got to my table. They stopped in front of my table and waited until I sat down in my chair behind the table.

Then the woman picked up my Never Leave Your Wingman book - about fun-loving, inspiring, seven-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner and her wingman husband Graham - and held the bright pink book up for her friend to see.

"They say this is a really good book," the woman said to her friend.

Then she put the book down and they both walked away.

What... was... that? I wondered for a long, long time - when I wasn't laughing and shaking my head, that is.

She never did buy the book. Not that weekend anyway.

At another craft show - in a city this time - a woman came up to my booth and asked if she could buy "that big book." 

I was confused. All the books I publish are of a standard size - either 6 inches wide by 9 inches high or slightly smaller. I have published only a couple of books that are 8-1/2 inches by 11 inches, so I didn't understand what she was wanting. I asked her to repeat herself.

"I want to buy that big book. There!" she said as she pointed to the 12-inch by 18-inch poster of a book cover that was hanging on the booth wall behind me.

"Um... those are just posters of the book covers. The books are here," I said as gently as I could while I motioned to all the books covering the tables between us.

I don't remember if the woman ended up buying an "actual" book or not - I think she did - but I distinctly remember that she was not the only person who asked if they could buy one of the book posters. One other person inquired at a different trade show a few years later.

So maybe there's a market out there for oversized books. Hmmm...

As my publishing business grew and my display table of books by various authors expanded during the past 10 years, my routine of briefly introducing the books on my table became more complex. Sometimes the words that came out of my mouth were confusing for craft show visitors and for myself as well. (I'm better at writing than I am at talking.)  As I honed my publishing preferences to focus only on non-fiction books and other genres related to non-fiction, it became easier for me to describe the books on my craft show tables. At least that's what I thought was happening.

"Hello. These are all books I publish," I'd say. "They're all written by Saskatchewan and Prairie authors, including me. These ones are all true stories (as I pointed out the books), these are healing and wellness, these are children's fiction and non-fiction, and these are humour and cowboy poetry over here. They're all true stories or based on true stories."

It sounded simple enough to me but, then again, this is my business and I deal with these books daily, so it should sound understandable to the person who creates the books. Let me tell you, it definitely boggles the minds of some folks who wander up to my craft show tables. Usually, I can sort out their questions and help them understand whatever it is that they want to know about the awesome books written by awesome writers. (Shout out to my authors!)

But sometimes, nothing I say really matters.

I recall spending five or ten - or maybe it was a hundred - minutes one day talking to a man about the different books he appeared to be interested in on my craft show tables. He had asked about some of the storylines, whether this one was a Saskatchewan story or not, whether these people were still alive... and more. Then came the question that floored me.

"So, have you read any of them?" he asked.

Uh.... What?

"Yes," I replied, trying to keep him from seeing how astounded I was at his question. Hadn't I just told him about almost Every. Single. One. Of these books?

"I edited and published all of these books, so, yes, I've read every word in every one of them. Many times," I said.

The guy eventually walked away. I was glad to see him go. Sometimes you just can't help people.

The final memorable funny moment came when two young girls, about 10 years old, stopped at my booth one evening and began looking at the children's and young adult books. They picked up one kids' book and then another and began conversing with me.

And that's when my "I've read every word in every one of these books" line came back to haunt me.

One of the young smarty-pants girls picked up The Inquiring Reporter by Clay Stacey and randomly opened it up. "Okay, I'm on page 68. The word starts with a p and ends with r. What is it?" the youngster brazenly asked as she looked straight at me.

"Publisher," I replied, without hesitating.

The little girl's eyes opened wide as she looked at her friend in shock. "Wow! She really does know every word in the books!"

She quickly put the book down and they almost ran as they left my booth.

I smiled.

Yes, of course, I got lucky with "publisher", but it was a pretty easy guess. The book's author, Clay Stacey, was a publisher, editor, and reporter in all four Western provinces for 50 years - so "publisher" seemed like a reasonable option for a word that starts with p and ends with r - in a book about a publisher!

However, I am glad that she didn't look a little farther down the page and pick out the word starting with a u and ending with a y...

Unpredictability.

Exploring Book Expo America 2016 in Chicago

In May, I was pleased to be invited by SaskBooks (Saskatchewan Publishers Group) to be one of three Saskatchewan publishers to attend BookExpo America in Chicago, IL. BEA is "the leading book and author event for the North American publishing industry and is the best place to discover new titles and authors, conduct business and network, and learn the latest trends."

I had never attended BEA before and was delighted to participate, with the help of Creative Saskatchewan funding. I learned more about the book publishing industry in North America and made some great business connections towards the goal of eventually selling foreign and international rights to some of our books written by Saskatchewan and Prairie authors.

I quickly found out that BEA is definitely "the largest gathering of booksellers, librarians, retailers, publishers, rights, licensing, and book industry professionals in North America." We were told that this year's conference was smaller than those of most years because it was in Chicago rather than its usual location of New York City.

This was not only my first trip to BEA but my first trip to Chicago as well, so there was a lot for me to learn and explore. Here's a photographic snapshot of some of my experiences at BEA:

Here's Millenium Park and Lake Michigan, on a clear day's view from my hotel room.

Sask publishing friends Heather Nickel of Your Nickel's Worth Publishing and Jillian Bell of SaskBooks stand in one of the halls of McCormick Place, the huge conference centre where BEA was held.

A blogger's conference was a great start to the event, where I learned more about the importance of book bloggers in getting the word out about new titles.

Book marketing and promotion ideas were shared by these panelists.

The time that people spend on social media is constantly increasing, so publishers need to adapt to that change, says branding authority Cindy Ratzlaff. (This was my favourite presentation of the conference.)

Cindy shared a list of some great graphics tools. 

These bags were waiting for their participants' new haul of free books, informational brochures, business cards, and more.

The exhibit hall had many rows of booths.

More booths, from some of the biggest publishers.

These folks were all waiting for a book launch...

...by Kenny Loggins, who reworked his Footloose lyrics into a children's book about animals at the zoo.

Yes, there's Kenny Loggins in the background, signing his book at the booth a few steps away from me.

Kenny Loggins and his new Footloose children's book.

NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was signing his new book as well.

We met many authors, including Kwame Alexander (above centre) and illustrators, including Daniel Myares (above right). We enjoyed a little singalong with Kwame and Daniel before we could happily take home a copy of their beautiful new children's book. 

Oh yeah, I. .. did not meet the Beatles, of course, but I enjoyed these life-sized cutouts at one of the booths. Too cool to ignore, right?

I was most intrigued by this display at the booth of Foreword Reviews. We just might include a couple of our DriverWorks Ink books in their display for the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. 

These U.S. teachers were the lucky, very happy  recipients of some DriverWorks Ink books that I had taken to hand out and spread the word about our great books.

Book Expo America was a fabulous opportunity to learn, make some connections for marketing and increased sales, and share information about our popular and award-winning books. Thank you, SaskBooks, for the invitation and thank you, Creative Saskatchewan, for the funding assistance.

And now with the conference over, there was a tiny bit of time to do a little sightseeing in Chicago.

What's in a Name? Authors Deana and Cornelia discuss Sabinka

I recently talked with Cornelia Bilinsky, one of the many wonderful people who submitted stories for our upcoming Cream Money book, due for release in late May. Cornelia grew up on a farm in Manitoba and now lives in Ontario. She is the author of several children's books, published by Pauline Books and Media, run by The Daughters of St. Paul in Boston. (I am constantly learning and meeting the nicest people in my line of work as a Canadian writer, editor and publisher.)

Our conversation began with me thanking Cornelia for submitting her memories of growing up on her family's farm. Then I let her know the details of when the book will be released - late May or early June. 

These are parts of a cream separator used on the farm in Manitoba where Cornelia Bilinsky grew up. Red paint has since been spilled on the separator bowl. (Photo - courtesy of Theodore Mikolayenko)

I also asked her for clarification on how to acknowledge her contribution. Does she use the name Cornelia - which is how she signed her email - or Connie, which is what shows up in her email address?

This led to an exchange of further emails, including her giving me permission to share our conversation:

Cornelia:
Thank you, Deana, for sharing this news. I am pleased my submission will be included in the book and glad that donations will be made to a very worthy cause!
By the way, I've enjoyed reading a few of your blog posts!
Cornelia

Me:

Thank you for your comments, Cornelia – or do you go by Connie? 

The stats tell me that there are people who are reading the blog posts, but I rarely hear from readers about them. It’s nice to hear from you that you are one of them.

Cornelia:

Well, there's another story. My actual name is Cornelia. It was an unusual name in our Ukrainian community of Ethelbert, Manitoba. Some of my schoolmates in the one-room elementary school I attended had trouble pronouncing it. I remember resenting their mispronunciations. In my last year of high school, my closest friends nicknamed me "Connie" and the name stuck. Friends and family still call me Connie (and you may, too). However, I have learned to appreciate my real name and have always used it in all official correspondence and documents and, of course, as the author name in my books and other writings. After all, it is the name my mother gave me.

Connie (Cornelia)

Me:
Oh, now there is an idea for another blog post. I have always had trouble with people mispronouncing my name. That's why I finally added a pronunciation in my work emails.

Deana Driver (dee-na)

DriverWorks Ink

Proud Prairie Publishers
We also had trouble deciding what name we should call my mom for most of our adult lives. Her original Polish name (Sabina) was changed (to Sabinka) when she arrived in Canada. At university, she was given a nickname (Binkie), which she responded to for all of her adult life, but actually disliked. In her 80s, Mom finally told us what she really wanted to be called (Agnes, which is her middle name).
If I do decide to write a blog about this, can I please quote from your note about learning to appreciate your real name?

Cornelia:

What a poignant story about your mom! I think this kind of thing happened to many people who immigrated to Canada, and their children as well. My husband's name is Bohdan, but when he was in Grade One, the teacher decided he would be Bobby.

Your mom's experience illustrates keenly how a name is the key to self-identity. I'm in the process of reading The Book of Negroes. One of the things that really touches me is how the main character (a slave girl, captured in Africa at age 11) longs to hear someone call her by her real name, because it awakens in her the realization of who she really is. But, of course, to the slave traders, plantation owners and others, she is only a commodity, and they care nothing for her name.

Yes, you may quote me if you like and you may use the name my mother gave me.

Cornelia

Me:

Thank you.

The Book of Negroes just may be the best book I've ever read. I loved it. Enjoy.

My conversation with Cornelia helped me realize that others might care to hear about the origin of my own unique name. I teased my mom for years about why she named me Deana. (I was pretty sure my dad had nothing to do with the naming process, as his was more the stereotypical male role in the family and my mom had been a teacher and was very creative.) All of my siblings were given names that are easy to spell, write, and say - Karen, Barbara, Alan, Leanne - while I was given 'Deana'. I am the second-oldest, so birth order was no reason that I could see for that switch-up, although I teased Mom that maybe she had been given too many drugs during my birth.

My mom often ignored my pleas for an answer to this question. One time a few years ago, when I asked about my name's origin, she told me, "I was going to call you Myris."
"My what?" I asked.
"M-a-y-r-i-s," she spelled out the word for the dumbfounded me.
"Umm ... Deana's good, Mom. Thanks."

I didn't know if Mom was joking or not. She had a wonderful sense of humour and often made stuff up, encouraging us to do our own research and come to our own conclusions. She died from pancreatic and liver cancer in July 2011, and left me wondering about my name to this day.

I had always thought my name was a compilation of those given to two of my mom's sisters. Put 'Dora' and 'Jeannie' together and you get 'Deana'. That made sense to me. But that was not correct either, I was told.

Another story Mom told me was the most believable of all her explanations. In the 1950s, she listened to a soap opera on the radio. It was called Ma Perkins and one of the many characters was Bernadeana - they called her 'Deana' for short, Mom said. I searched the Internet for hours one day to try to confirm this story. I finally found one mention of a Bernadeana as a Ma Perkins character. I cannot seem to find that reference again, but that was good enough for me to go with this story as the most plausible explanation.

There were 68 different characters over the 27-year run of 'Ma Perkins'. One of those appears to have been Bernadeana - although I'm sure Mom told me that Deana was 'the heroine' and not a bit player.

As a young journalist in the 1980s, I gave up trying to correct people who mispronounced my first name, especially if I was planning on interviewing them for only one feature story. Finally, my husband Al recommended that I need to correct everyone. "If you don't correct them, they will call you Dee-an-na your whole life." He was right, of course, and I have since learned to politely correct people.

Mom once asked me why I was so curious about my first name. "What do people call you?"

"Deena, Dana, Donna, but mostly Deanna."

"Harumph," was the sound I heard from Mom.

When I married Al Driver in 1976 and changed my last name from the Ukrainian hard-to-pronounce 'Pacholok' (with a silent 'c') to Driver, I thought that would make my name so much easier for others to say correctly.

The first time I was called by my married name, I was introduced as 'Deanna Driven.' Oh, brother.

Book Giveaways Lead To Giggles

This Christmas season, we decided to donate some of our DriverWorks Ink books to elementary and high schools in our home community. It's sort of a continuation of what we do with a number of our books – donating $1 from each book sold to a worthy charity – but donating to schools also has other benefits for us:

1)      More local teachers and school administrators learn about our small, local publishing company and will soon know about some of our great books written by Prairie authors; 

2)      We get more local stories into the hands of local children;

3)       We get our Prairie authors’ works to more potential customers that they cannot physically reach themselves;

4)      We reduce inventory for some books that have stalled in sales and pump up potential sales of some of our best-sellers just before Christmas; and

5)      We connect personally with more local people, which has led to some other unexpected results.

This last point is the reason for this blog.

We’ve had a few chuckles and several heart-warming moments because of Al’s deliveries of books to schools this past month.

So here, for your Holiday enjoyment, is a replay of several interactions between my husband and publishing partner, Al Driver, and individuals at some Regina and area schools.

Al’s routine was always the same – enter the school through the main doors, go to the office and present the books to office staff, along with a personal introduction and a letter explaining our company and our donation of books.

* * *

At one elementary school, he met two young lads who were waiting inside the school office. A little boy who was six was sitting with his six-and-a-half-year-old buddy. They'd already said ‘Hi’ in response to Al’s ‘Hello’ and had answered his question of their ages. (Al’s coached children for decades, so he is well-versed in how to relate to the little gaffers.)

Being an avid fan of the Detroit Red Wings hockey club, Al was wearing his Detroit Red Wings jacket. The six-year-old looked and looked, and then asked, “Do you play for that team?”

Al:  No. I’m way too old.

Student: Then do you coach them?

Al: No.

Student: Where did you get the coat?

Al: It was a birthday gift from my grandsons and their mom and dad (knowing the boy could relate to that).

Student: (After thinking for a moment) When was your birthday?

Al: June.

Student: Oh.

* * *

A young boy asked, “Are you here to help us with our Christmas concert?”

Al: No. Is somebody coming to help you with your concert?

Student: Yes. (Then he whispered) Our teacher said there will be a surprise.

Al: Well, if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?
          Student: (thought for awhile, then said) Yes.

* * *

A teacher was in the hallway by the office with a group of girls in about Grade 4. The students were learning a dance for the Christmas concert. Al had go around and behind the teacher to get to the office.

The teacher started backing up and almost backed into him. Then she asked him if he’d like to join in and learn the dance, too.

Al declined. “They don't want to see me dance. It would be bad.”

The girls all giggled.

He carried on to the office, hearing tittering in the background.

* * *

At one high school, an office secretary came running over the second that Al set a Never Leave Your Wingman book down on the counter on top of the pile of other books.

“This is my favourite book ever,” she said. “I just loved it. Any time I see anything now about Dionne and Graham, I read it. How is she doing?”
            Al was pleased to respond, “She’s doing very well.” (See a YouTube video) Then he introduced himself and our company and said why he was at the school with the books.

“(Gasp!) You published this book! Your company published this book?”

Al replied, “My wife and I did. We’re a small company. Better yet, my wife wrote this book.”

“Oh, bless her. It’s a beautiful book. I want to take you and introduce you to the librarian because you’re giving us free books.”

The librarian was thrilled with the donation and was told by the office clerk, “This is one of the best books I’ve ever read.”

* * *

Some of the older schools do not have offices in the immediate vicinity of the main doors, so Al had to go searching a couple times. At one school, a little girl about eight years old looked carefully at Al as he walked into the school.

She sternly asked him, “Are you supposed to be here?”

Al refrained from smiling and asked, “Are you the hall monitor?”

“Nooo!” she replied, annoyed at his insolence.

He told her that he was looking for the office and had some stuff to drop off there, which seemed to appease her. She pointed him in the direction of the office and let him go on his way.
            (She’ll probably be a policewoman or security guard some day.)

* * *