Merry Christmas, happy readers!

Hello everyone! Dionne Warner and I recently spent two days signing Never Leave Your Wingman books at the Pasqua Hospital Gift Shop in Regina, SK. - just down the hall from the Allan Blair Cancer Clinic.

It was an emotional, awe-inspring, sometimes heartbreaking but mostly fun time as we talked with cancer patients, hospital staff and visitors. Dionne shared her personal story of battling cancer seven times (she's fighting Stage IV liver, lung and bone cancer right now) and we were privileged to talk with patients about their own cancer journeys and how they can stay stronger to fight this devastating disease.

Time and time again, I watched in admiration as Dionne gave these patients a little dash of her courage and hope, some heartfelt hugs and a few laughs to boost their strength and encourage them to keep up the good fight. As Dionne would say... "Show your cancer who's the boss!"

So from us to you.... have a wonderful Christmas and a happy holiday season! Enjoy each precious day you have been given. Share it with loved ones and appreciate all that you have.

Take care,

Deana and Al Driver, DriverWorks Ink

Two funny cats - will live on forever

We are saddened by the deaths of Oliver and Maudie, beloved cats of author Sharon Gray. These precocious, gentle Siamese cats passed away within days of each other at the age of 18 years. They were the inspiration for the beautiful book Letters to Jennifer: From Maudie & Oliver in which Sharon Gray presents her cats' look at the world - for the express purpose of amusing and soothing humans, especially her dear friend Jennifer who was ill at the time.

Maudie was the beautiful prima donna cat - watching for suitors from her perch in the living room, never causing any problems for anyone (in her own modest opinion), and chastising her brother Oliver for being kind of dumb sometimes. Maudie knew how to properly handle toy mice - by ignoring them completely and letting her silly brother and her LIP (Live-In Person Sharon Gray) deal with them - and how to gain favour with every man she ever met - feline or human. 

Maudie (above)

Oliver never got enough love - because he lived with his prima donna sister Maudie, of course. He had a penchant for making messes and causing havoc, but his loving nature and speech impediment endeared him to his LIP and all other humans. Maudie always enjoyed it when Oliver snuggled up beside her and helped her with her grooming.

Oliver (above)



Maudie and Oliver had specific views on how the world should operate - giving advice to humans and cats alike:

"Naps are best taken on top of the TV... Short naps are good, too.... Dogs are noisy and do not know how to groom themselves.... Green wool tastes the best (in Oliver's opinion).... It is possible to go around a table onto every lap without ever touching the floor.... Structured board meetings with your LIP are necessary to make your rules known.... Computers each come with their own bald, boring mouse. Imagine!"

Maudie and Oliver will be missed, but their amusing and loving personalities will live on in Letters to Jennifer From Maudie & Oliver by Sharon Gray... available from www.driverworks.ca

The little coat is 67 years old!

Sixty-seven years ago during the Second World War, Canadian soldiers who were fighting the Nazis in the Netherlands gave a 10-year-old Dutch girl a special Christmas gift. They asked a seamstress in that village to take a wool Canadian Army blanket and make it into a coat for young Sussie Cretier, who had become a little sister and a good luck charm for the soldiers during their stand in that part of Holland. On December 25, 1944, Canadian tank commander Bob Elliott from Calgary, Alberta, handed little Sussie a Christmas gift package that included the coat and a few other items. Then Bob continued shooting at the Nazis and Sussie ran home to show her parents this amazing gift.
More than 35 years later, Bob Elliott returned to the Netherlands to visit some of the Dutch people he had met during the war, including Sussie's family. Bob and Sue quickly reconnected. He was surprised and delighted to see that she still had the little coat. To Sue, it was the most precious gift she had ever received. Within a short time, Sue followed Bob back to Canada and brought her coat with her.

Saskatchewan author Alan Buick wrote about this fascinating true story in The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story. Here, he talks about the book:

  

Author Alan Buick talks about The Little Coat

Dagnabit, doodles and doots!

To get a true appreciation of the hilarity and clever humour writing in Ron Petrie's book Running of the Buffalo, one only needs to look at the Index (sort of)...

This is just under the letter 'D':

'Dagnabit, Danny DeVito, Davidson, Don Cherry, doodad, doodie, doodled, Doodles, doodling, doots, Drake, Drinkwater, Duck Lake, dumbass, and Dummer.'

And one of my favourite sections of the Index (sort of)... under the letter 'P':

'Palmer, Paradise Hill, pee, pfft, pickamaniac, Pipestone Creek, Pile-O'-Boners, Plato, Plenty, pobbycock, Porcupine Plain, Primate, Prince Albert, and Psst.'

And what exactly is Ron's book about? Now you can hear it from Ron himself....

Video of Ron Petrie speaking about his book

Who likes a good book?

We met many fascinating, avid readers this past week at our Canadian Western Agribition trade show booth.

Here's a small sample of the comments we received:
- "There's nothing better than books."
- "I got a good recommendation of your work from the used bookstore in the Value Village Mall. She said they can't keep them in there." (It's great that people are enjoying our books - new or used.)
- "I've read Never Leave Your Wingman, Never Give Up, Just a Bunch of Farmers, My Zayde, The Little Coat and Prairie Pilot. I only read true stories. I see there are a couple of books here on your leaflet that I haven't read. I'm going to go sit down and read this and see what they are about."
- "I'm writing a book right now. Can I contact you to get some advice and talk about publishing it?" (Yes, of course!)
- "I bought Running of the Buffalo and my 13-year-old read it cover to cover. He laughed his pants off!"

(Left to right) Al and Deana Driver, Ron Petrie, Dionne Warner, Alan Buick.

Winter! Time for a good book!

With the first major snowfall of this winter, many Prairie people wonder about driving conditions and getting safely from Point A to Point B. Having been born and raised on the Prairies - I on a farm north of Edmonton AB and Al in the city of Regina SK - we know it's been done before and will continue to get done, so we aren't that worried about it. The thoughts we are interested in are the happy ones that revolve around beautiful snow-covered trees, frost-tinted windows, sparkling colourful Christmas lights and what to buy for friends and family this Christmas. May we suggest some books?
Our most popular titles this fall (available from www.driverworks.ca) are:

Never Leave Your Wingman: Dionne and Graham Warner's Story of Hope by Deana J. Driver - The true story of Dionne Warner, a fun-loving seven-time cancer survivor, and her devoted humour-filled husband Graham, who dance their way into Dionne's weekly chemo treatments in Regina, Saskatchewan – in costume – bringing laughter and hope to everyone they meet. This is an inspiring unforgettable story and a lesson in love. ($24.95 )

The Little Coat: The Bob and Sue Elliott Story by Alan J. Buick - The true story of 19-year-old Bob Elliott, an Alberta soldier who fought the Nazis during the Second World War, and Sussie Elliott, a feisty 10-year-old Dutch girl who became a good-luck charm to the Canadian soldiers fighting at the Maas River. An army-style coat the soldiers gave to little Sussie for Christmas 1944 was the start of a lifelong love between Bob and Sue. This story will melt your heart this Christmas. ($19.95)

Letters to Jennifer: From Maudie & Oliver by Sharon Gray - The daily antics of two precocious but worldly Siamese cats are captured in 56 amusing and clever letters written by Winnipeg author Sharon Gray as a way to keep in touch with Jennifer, a friend undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Whether basking in the sunlight on the kitchen windowsill, falling off the TV set during a nap, or having a 'family meeting' to set their LIP (Live-In Person) straight on the rules of the house, Maudie and Oliver's unique cat's-eye view of the world with entertain and delight readers. ($16.95)

Running of the Buffalo by Ron Petrie - As a humour columnist for the Regina Leader-Post, Ron Petrie has pondered many topics including: Can one actually lose weight on the mini Oh Henry chocolate bar diet? Is it gotch or gitch? Can a man actually change the diapers of three squirming babies on the same night? And why is it that some farm boys never learn French? A 'bathroom' reader that will add some giggles and guffaws to your Christmas season. ($19.95)

Prairie Pilot: Lady Luck was on My Side; The Stories of Walter D. Williams; Compiled and Edited by Deana J. Driver - Walter Williams was an unofficial air ambulance pilot and a flying taxi service to dozens of families and individuals in west central Saskatchewan and east central Alberta in the 1950s. A welder by trade, Walter began answering calls of distress as soon as he got his little two-seater Aeronca plane. Taking chances and ignoring common sense, Walter flew in snowstorms and landed in farmers' fields to transport pregnant women, injured children, RCMP, teachers, doctors, criminals and thrill-seekers. ($21.95)

Happy Winter Reading!

Mourning the death of a Prairie pioneer

Art Mainil, a feisty, determined southeast Saskatchewan farmer, has passed away after a battle with cancer . Mainil was the main man behind the creation of the Weyburn Inland Terminal, the first independent farmer-owned-and-operated inland grain terminal in Canada in 1976.

I had the pleasure of interviewing him in 2001 when WIT commissioned me to write a book about their first 25 years as an organization. Just A Bunch of Farmers: The Story of Weyburn Inland Terminal 1976-2001 was my first book and it was a wonderful process interviewing and working with these men who changed the way that all Canadian farmers are paid for their grain.

WIT started in 1974 as an idea to improve the country's grain-handling system. By 2001, "just a bunch of farmers" (as they called themselves when they got in trouble with the bank or needed an out - "What do we know? We're just a bunch of farmers?") had worked through tough and prosperous times and become very successful. WIT had racked up an impressive list of 14 'firsts' including being the first grain elevator to do protein testing on grain and pay farmers for the protein content of their grain, the first to offer custom drying, and the first to pay farmers for the foreign material and refuse in grain.

By 2001, Art Mainil had long been away from WIT operations, but he was still committed to the terminal and graciously agreed to talk with me about the start of WIT. I arrived at his farm and was greeted by a man of my height who appeared tough and a little gruff but hard-working, principled and certain of what should be happening in Canadian agriculture and how he could make that happen. Art reminded me very much of my father, a tough little Ukrainian farmer, and we shared a laugh when I told him that.

Art was quick to not accept credit for being the instigator of the creation of WIT. He and other farmers had long been talking about how to improve the system and Art had wondered, after doing some custom-combining in the U.S. and seeing inland terminals there, why there couldn't be such a thing in Saskatchewan. Clarence (Clare) Taylor and Glen McEwen, other farmers who became WIT directors, were two of many men I interviewed who gave Mainil credit where credit was due.

"We would have never had the terminal if it hadn't been for Art," said Taylor.

"You couldn't help but catch his fever," said McEwen. "It was something that needed to be done because nobody else was doing it."

WIT is in its 35th year of operation and will be inducted into the Saskatchewan Business Hall of Fame later this month.

Rest in peace, Art Mainil. You were a man ahead of your time. You will be missed.


http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Grain+marketing+advocate+Mainil+mourned/5678400/story.html

So ... what about e-books?

We've been asked from time to time (probably one out of every 60 or so people that we meet), whether our books are available as e-books. Our response is, "Not yet, but we're looking into it." 

The world of book publishing is changing daily, especially that of e-book publishing - as evidenced by today's big announcement that (Chapters) Indigo Books & Music Inc. has sold its Kobo e-reader business to Rakuten Inc, one of the world's largest e-commerce companies, for $315 million.

For the past year, we've been considering taking a few of our book titles and creating digital files for e-readers. We were waiting for the industry standards to settle down a bit. This spring, we thought that epub was chosen as the standard format to use, then we found out it isn't necessarily so. The costs of translating a manuscript into one that is available via an electronic reader device is not as costly as it once was, but it takes time and skill and money that could be used for other things - like producing more physical books. The problems relate more to informing readers of your e-book, marketing and selling online, making sure the information is accurately translated to the new format, and keeping up with the latest technology. Whew! It sounds exhausting and a little overwhelming for a small publishing house like ours - but we aren't dismissing it altogether.

At a recent meeting of the Saskatchewan Publishers Group, we were given advice by a fellow publisher who told us not to worry about the swarm of new e-technology - which can feel like an army of soldiers on horseback coming at us. He suggested, "Just pick a horse and get on it."

So we're carefully wandering around the horse barns now, looking for the most sturdy, reliable animal. Once we've found the right one, we'll carefully jump onto its back and see where it leads us.

On to Assiniboia!

We're on our way to Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, for the Mistletoe craft and trade show tonight and tomorrow! These shows provide us with great opportunities to meet the people who buy our books and to chat with folks who don't yet know about our Saskatchewan and Prairie stories. We always come back wtih some fun comments and compliments, and we add more stories to our collection of memories about the people of this province. Have a fun weekend, everyone! It might be the last one before it snows!

Laughing with chemo patients

I will never tire of sitting beside Dionne Warner as she carefully listens and talks to people about their cancer stories. On Tuesday, at the Pasqua Hospital's gift shop in Regina, we were privileged to chat with some of the nicest people, who shared their struggles and successes, laughs, tears and hugs with us.

It was a very special day and I have no doubt that Dionne has given a whole new group of people - the Tuesday chemo patients and their families - another spark of hope to take with them on their journey.

Moose Jaw miracles

The people of Moose Jaw and area were wonderful hosts to Dionne and Graham Warner and Al and I as we joined them for their 12th annual Canadian Cancer Society Living and Learning fundraising luncheon on Tuesday. The event was held at the beautiful Timothy Eaton Gardens and we were treated to a tasty lunch of soup, salad, sandwiches and desserts. Dionne was the guest speaker for the luncheon and every eye was on her as she told her story of battling cancer seven times.

The people at one table were even heard to yell out, "No!" when she stated that in December 2009, she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer of the liver, lungs ("And I've never smoked a day in my life,") and bone cancer in her rib, spine and pelvis. Most people in the room could not believe that she was there the day before she was due for her weekly chemo treatment. There were tears of sadness and empathy but also much laughter throughout her address.
A very touching moment for Dionne and me came while we were signing books for customers after the luncheon. An older gentleman and his wife came through the line-up and, as is our habit, I signed the book and then handed it to Dionne so she could sign next and then hand it to Graham to add his signature and hand the book back to the happy customer. When this gentleman got to the spot in front of Dionne, he said to her, "You saw me six weeks ago at chemo ... You gave me a hug." Then he placed his hand over his heart and patted his chest twice ... and slowly said to Dionne, "You made me feel special."

Dionne and I were both temporarily speechless, moved by his profound gratitude for what Dionne would consider such a simple act. I said to the gentleman, "She has a way of doing that, doesn't she? She makes everyone feel like they are the most important person she has spoken to that day." The gentleman smiled and agreed. He then grabbed Dionne's outstretched hand and thanked her again before he went on his way. He turned around one more time with another smile and nod to the woman who had given him a small boost six weeks earlier - in the form of a hug.

As he walked away, he turned to me and said, "You wrote a good book."

All I could say was, "Thank you."

This little Piggy...

When I was younger, I wrote poems for school projects, for fun and to express myself. Since I became a journalist 30-some years ago, poetry took a back seat to true stories. A recent contest by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild peaked my interest, challenging us to write a poem about Hogs for an upcoming promotion. I fully intended to submit the poem, but Al and I were on the road and I missed the deadline. We did have fun creating our rather simple, but funny poem.... so here it is - to brighten your day....

Our Hog Poem
By Al and Deana Driver

I wanted a dog
Mom got me a pig
It started to eat and then it got big
And now it's a hog.
Soon it will be bacon.


HA HA HA! Have a great day, everyone!

Speaking to students always a blast

Going into a school and talking with students about my writing and publishing is one of my favourite adventures. You never know who will be listening (or not), who will ask questions (or completely ignore you) and who will actually be paying such close attention that they later come up to you with compliments and many more questions relating to their own writing future!
I spoke to an Entrepreneurship 30 class today at O'Neill High School in Regina SK and was pleased with their attention and their questions afterward - about my business, my writing, the cost of publishing a book, and the timeframe in creating and growing our business to the point it is at right now. A young lady came up to me afterwards and talked about her goals of becoming a writer. Those one-on-one chats are always special and make me feel proud to do what I do and share the little bits of knowledge that I have.

At St. Augustine School in Humboldt SK last week, I was greeted by enthusiastic, polite students who seemed to enjoy the stories of my writing and our many DriverWorks Ink books. While we ran out of time for the Grades 5-8 students to chat with me afterwards, the younger students (Grades 1-4) in my first presentation asked at least 30 questions and made me grin all the way home with their inquisitive honest queries:

How long is your longest book? (That I wrote? Longest in the number of words? Never Leave Your Wingman is about 90,000 words.)

How long did it take you to write the longest book? (I wrote for two months straight - from start to finish because I had a tight deadline. I write more quickly than some writers I've met.)

What's your favourite book? (Of the ones I wrote or published? They're all kind of like my babies and it's hard to choose a favourite one, so I won't.)

How do you get the words so small? (Ah... the type size in the finished book ... It can be adjusted with different computer programs.)

Is the lady who has cancer - she's dead, right? (Nope. Not at all. Dionne Warner, subject of Never Leave Your Wingman, is on vacation right now, enjoying her week off of chemo with some friends  - she's doing very well!)

Are the cats still alive? (Yes, the cats in Letters to Jennifer are still alive and well, ordering around their Live-In Person - author Sharon Gray.)

Do you ever take a vacation? (Hmmm... do I look that tired? Or did I baffle them by listing all the books and projects we've worked on lately?... We just had a short vacation, but maybe I need another one.)

How long have you been writing? (Since I was a little girl... but I've been getting paid to write for the last 30 years. Cool, huh?)