“Canada’s ReLit Award–founded to acknowledge the best new work released by independent publishers–may not come with a purse, but it brings a welcome, back-to-the-books focus to the craft.”  Amazon.com The Find is one of ten titles short-listed for the 2011 Relit Award (Novel): http://therelitawards.blogspot.com/  

It’s with some trepidation that I stuff my suitcase with copies of my latest novel  and set out for Lost and Found: In Search of Extinct Species, an Explora International Conference at the Toulouse Natural History Museum. The last time I  attended an academic conference was during my research for The Find. The 2005 Symposium … Continue reading Lost & Found →

  A  day’s prospecting leads palaeontologist Anna Silowski to make an extraordinary discovery in a remote part of British Columbia. At the same time, the tensions below the surface of her successful career are exposed. Pushed towards breakdown, she finds herself unexpectedly dependent on high-school drop out Scott Macleod, and recruits him to help on … Continue reading The Find →

It’s unsettling when life imitates art,  and a story you have written starts to happen around you.   For example, shortly after I finished the Story of My Face, I met the teenage version of my character, Natalie, in a motel swimming pool near Vancouver airport.   She was called something else and she was in … Continue reading Coming Undone →

Thinking ahead to an illustrated talk I’ll give in March, I was leafing through a box of research materials for The Find, and came across this image, a detail From The Story of Life by Lorraine Malach. The post card was pinned to my office wall  for at least two years while I wrote the … Continue reading Lifestory →

Today 200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using eco- friendly paper, we hope to raise the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to take the environment into … Continue reading The Find is a Green Book →

It was because of a woman I met while accompanying some guests on a sailboat tour that I became  anxious about the local book club visit I’d agreed to. I started to think how the noun club has two meanings. A group, yes… but also  a weapon. I’ll call her Jen: fiftyish, fit,  designer spectacles, retired. … Continue reading Book Club →

I’m sitting in the shade of a Garry oak tree with a group of other parental units, as our children call us these days. Clare, the grandmother of one of my son’s friends, (one of those fresh-faced grandmothers who look five years younger than I do), looks up from her book and turns to me. … Continue reading “It’s because of your book that I’m going in for surgery next week.” →

Readers often ask about imagery: is it  consciously or unconsciously created – and the answer is both. For example, the idea of flight, of leaving the ground and swimming in the air is a recurring one in The Find, and in writing the novel I was aware of it, but I was certainly not aware … Continue reading Flight →

When you live in a vast country – and on a small island which you only leave once in a while – it is hard to tell whether  or not your book has reached the bookstores. All I know is that The Find is in my nearest city, Victoria, turned outwards on the shelf, with … Continue reading Living (Loving) Local →

Extract from a notebook entry made during the writing of The Find Choices, choices: the writer’s life is full of  them. Current example: do I stick with the third person, limited omniscient point of view which should ideally offer me some flexibility in telling the story, or, since I don’t seem to be actually using … Continue reading Third Person or First? →

As genetic tests are developed, more and more of us are being offered knowledge about our medical futures. In The Find,  Anna Silowski, an intense,  ambitious  paleontologist at the peak of her career  struggles with that choice, and in the process finds herself inextricably involved in an ‘impossible’  relationship with school-drop out  Scott MacLeod – … Continue reading Genetic Testing →

The Find, May 10 2010,  at ArtSpring Theatre, Salt Spring Island, BC,  7:30 pm. Kathy Page introduces her latest novel. Refreshments, all welcome, free. Hosted by Salt Spring Books – signed copies available.

Research for my novel The Find included visits to clinics, hospitals,  museums,  and paleontological sites.  I love  research, but sometimes I hate it too. Here’s an extract from a notebook I kept during  one of my trips to the Royal Tyrell Museum. Suspended forty thousand feet above the Rockies I absolutely knew that I would … Continue reading Research, for Heaven’s Sake! →