Winning Authors, Touring Authors, Teaching Authors... We've got 'em all!

By Claire Eamer

It's the season, apparently, when Sci/Why authors come out of hibernation and flaunt their accomplishments. I did a quick whip-round of the Sci/Why bloggers and friends of Sci/Why, and discovered a flurry of activity. Here are the highlights.

First of all - we have a winner! Sci/Why blogger Shar Levine and her writing partner, Leslie Johnstone, have won the Canadian Science Writers' Association's 2013 Science in Society Youth Book Award for their down-and-dirty science activity book, Dirty Science: 25 Experiments with Soil. We are all, needless to say, very proud of them.

The 2014 roster of authors touring during TD Canadian Children's Book Week, May 3-10, includes a couple of Sci/Why bloggers. Helaine Becker will be touring in Manitoba, telling kids all about Zoobots and entertaining them with her Ode to Underwear. Claire Eamer will be visiting schools and libraries in Nunavut and talking about her book Before the World Was Ready: Stories of Daring Genius in Science.

Sci/Why blogger Marie Powell recently placed runner-up in the 2014 City of Regina Writing Awards. She'll lead a Channelling Creativity workshop on Tuesday, May 7, at Regina's Central Library. You can also catch her every second Thursday and third Wednesday at the Prince of Wales branch library, leading her ongoing Write for the Heart programs.

Blogger Jan Thornhill has been busy too. Her new book, Winter's Coming: A Story of Seasonal Change, is about to go to press. It's a companion volume for Is This Panama?: A Migration Story. And Jan has discovered a passion for fungi - to the point where she has launched a fungi blog called Weird and Wonderful Wild Mushrooms.

Our travelling-est blogger, Margriet Ruurs, has taken time off book writing to go touring the world over the past few months. You can find her adventures at her Globetrotting Grandparents blog. Recent entries include history in Holland, Turkish Delight in Istanbul, and the amazing archaeological sites of Petra, Jordan.

Paula Johanson, who's happiest in a kayak, has still managed the time to produce a couple of new books: one on Love Poetry, and another, called What is Energy? and due out in August. You can follow Paula's kayak adventures at the Kayak Yak blog.

Sci/Why's first Blog Boss, L.E. Carmichael has a couple of new books out for older kids who are dealing with health issues, either their own or someone else's: Living With Scoliosis and Living With Obesity.

Our Alberta blogger and astronomy enthusiast, Joan Marie Galat, will be leading a writing workshop at the Calgary Young Writers' Conference on April 26.

Sci/Why friend (she came up with the name!) Pippa Wysong can be found on Saturday, May 10, at her Quarantine Tent vaccine education event at the University of Toronto campus. It's part of the national event, Science Rendezvous. Here's a short video of the 2013 Tent event.

Finally, Sci/Why blogger Judy Wearing informs us that she's in the first year of a second (second!!) PhD in education, writing papers about critical thinking in science education and the relationship between fear and learning. She also says she'll have some book news to announce, but it's still a Big Hairy Secret. Keep an eye on Sci/Why, where all will be revealed... unveiled... whatever... soon!