12 Author Days of Christmas – Marsha Skrypuch & Valerie Sherrard

Because I got started late I’m doing the third and fourth days of Christmas today, featuring Marsha Skrypuch and Valerie Sherrard. Not only have these two women written oodles of award-winning novels – in fact, if I have my numbers correct, they are practically neck-and-neck, with Marsha having published 21 and Valerie at 20 (tell me if I’m right, ladies!) – they also, a number of years ago, started an incredible service for authors in, or visiting, Ontario.

Marsha

Valerie

They started it (I hope I have this right) to help Forest of Reading-nominated authors from outside Toronto be able to pay their way to the annual celebrations (I can’t currently link to it as the site seems to be down). These awards, run by the Ontario Library Association, are huge for children’s and YA authors. If a title gets nominated, it sells a lot of books, because kids all over Ontario schools read them and vote for their favorite. For out of town authors it was sometimes hard to attend, because most authors don’t have a pile of extra travel money sitting in their bank accounts.

So Marsha and Valerie had the wonderful idea of setting up the Authors Booking Service, to help line up school visits for nominated authors. It’s expanded beyond the Tree Awards, and now they send out newsletters throughout the school year to a huge list of Ontario schools, letting them know who on their list of authors is available for visits.

I can’t stress how helpful this has been for many of us, for so many reasons. First, of course, it’s a great way to help cover travel expenses, and put some (usually badly needed) cash into an author’s pocket. Second and of at least equal importance, it gets us in front of teachers, librarians and children who we wouldn’t normally get to meet. There are a handful of authors who are really good at doing the legwork to line up a lot of school visits on their own; but most of us just don’t have the gumption, skills or brainpower to do it. They charge a nominal fee; it certainly is not a get-rich-quick scheme for either of them. But it has made a huge difference to authors all over Canada, not only providing income but also building our readership.

On a personal note, I remember when my first novel, “Word Nerd,” was nominated for the Red Maple Award. I had never done a school visit, ever. The thought of building a power point presentation was so daunting. When I voiced my concerns in an e mail to Marsha, she picked up the phone and called me – and spent over an hour walking me through how to build a successful presentation. We had never even met. This is the kind of woman she is.

She also, apparently, is the designer of the Nursing Mother Breast Pads. Talk about a multi-tasking multi-talent!

Oh yes, and somehow Marsha and Valerie manage to do this while writing 21 and 20 novels (so far) respectively!