Author Interviews – Cynthia Reyes

Author Interviews, Authors, Book Interviews, Lauren Reyes-Grange

Interview with Lauren Reyes-Grange

September 22, 2019September 23, 2019 Cynthia Reyes

I’ve been wanting to interview my co-author, Lauren Reyes-Grange.

But how do you do that when she is your daughter, as well as the person who inspired the first Myrtle the Purple Turtle book?

I decided to put on my professional interviewer’s hat — after all, I’d done thousands of interviews in my journalistic work. Here goes:

When did you first realize you loved to tell stories?
LRG: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to read stories, write stories or tell stories. I am fairly certain I was born with a wild imagination. Pair that with two parents who were superstar journalists (and naturally fantastic storytellers), and I think I was bound to catch the bug, too.

Blog Photo - Lauren headshot

What was it like growing up in a house of storytellers and writers?
LRG: It was wonderful. I loved hearing stories about my parents’ work, about their day. My parents also encouraged my sister and me to read, be curious, stand up to injustice, and look for the humour in everyday things which I believe makes for great storytelling.

Do you remember any of the stories you first wrote?
LRG: Yes. One of the first stories I wrote was about a bird who, after overcoming some obstacles, learns how to fly.

Blog Photo - Lauren and Quentin and CR — ***Cynthia, Lauren at 5, and her beloved doll Quentin***

A story your mother wrote for you when you were nearly five, was published many years later and became an immediate bestseller. What was that like for you?
LRG: Pretty emotional in all the best ways possible. Myrtle the Purple Turtle was a lifesaver for me when I was going through a tough time at school. Myrtle’s story made me feel proud, confident and strong. I feel very lucky that 28 years later we were able to share this gift with children who may need a reminder that they should be proud of what makes them different/unique.

Myrtle - Cover latest at 2MB

You are now the co- author of the Myrtle series, and you are the one who comes up with the new story ideas. Where do your ideas come from?
LRG: After visiting numerous schools and speaking with children of all ages, it’s clear that messages of inclusion, kindness and friendship are still very much needed. This is what’s inspired us to continue writing more books and has made the ideation process relatively simple.

Myrtle - Cynthia and Lauren and Students

How did you react the first time you saw your name on a book cover?
LRG: Incredibly proud. I still can’t believe I’m an author. I also feel very fortunate that I get to collaborate with my mum on this. It’s made the entire experience even more meaningful for me.

Why are the messages in the Myrtle books so special to you – and what do you hope children will get from the books?
LRG: The messages in Myrtle’s books are how I was raised. I hope the Myrtle series inspires children to act with kindness, to make their peers feel included, to be a good friend and to embrace their own differences.

What are your hopes for the series?
LRG: I hope we continue writing books! At least 1-2 books every year for as long as there’s an audience who wants to read them. I would love to speak with even more children and continue to inspire young people to act with kindness and self-esteem.

Your own daughter is due to be born soon. Can we assume you will be reading the Myrtle books to her when she gets old enough?
LRG: Absolutely. I’ve already started reading the books to her, but she likely doesn’t know that yet. I hope she falls in love with Myrtle’s message and is as proud of me as I am of my mum.

Blog Photo - Lauren and Dan

A Good Home, Author Interviews, Author's Homes, Gardening, Hilary Custance Green, Sculptor

At Home with Hilary Custance Green

March 9, 2018March 22, 2018 Cynthia Reyes

Hilary Custance Green has many roles. She’s a daughter, wife, mother, author, sculptor, blogger and gardener.

It’s the gardener role that first caught my eye.

More specifically, it was her Japanese maple seedlings that caught my interest.

Hilary had written a blog post about growing Japanese maples from seed. Being a gardener ( and having failed to grow Japanese maples from seed), I was impressed.

Hilary loves gardening, of course. She brings both art and science to the task. (Did I mention she also has a doctorate in brain science?)

She even had a knot garden, which I know from experience is not an easy thing to create.

“I love all the phases of project work, creation, engineering, labour, completion and peer review. I am never happier than working to exhaustion on a big 3D piece of work, or weeding for hours in the garden.”

“As a teenager I dreamt of becoming Rodin or Michelangelo. It was not to be, but I spent twenty (mostly happy) years making large semi abstract sculptures and also, to earn a penny or two, portrait heads.”

“In both sculpture and writing, it is the crossfire of unrelated elements that makes the story.

“So this sculpture developed out of The Song of Hiawatha (Longfellow) and the sad time in my twenties when my boyfriend was drowned.”

One of the recurring themes in all Hilary’s books is this question: What gives individuals strength in adversity?

By the time I met her through her blog, Hilary had already written three novels — Border Line, A Small Rain, Unseen Unsung — and was working on a special non-fiction book.

Each novel explores the question above, with themes of “love, grief, adventure, disability and both good and bad luck.”

“I hope to give readers something positive to take away as well as a hefty dash of the music and poetry I love so much.”

Family and home are important parts of Hilary’s life.

“Home is where I have the wondrous fortune to be loved and feel safe,” she says.

“My husband Edwin and I both had parents with jobs that moved around. To give us a good education they sent us to boarding schools far from our homes.

“When we found this house, and had our two girls, we never wanted to move again and our children walked to school in the village.

“When we outgrew the space, we built an extension (or two or three!).”

Hilary’s parents, Barry and Phyllis, went through great adversity during the second world war, and in 2016, she published a book about their experience.

Surviving the Death Railway: A POW’s Memoirs and Letters from Home is that book. Both acclaimed and very successful, it may well be her signature work so far.

“It includes the 68 men captured with Barry and their families back home in Britain, who kept in touch with Phyllis throughout the war. The real story is the amazing support these ordinary men and women gave each other in horrific and testing times.”

Today, Hilary and Edwin’s daughters — Eleanor and Amy — are grown up with partners and lives of their own in other cities.

Hilary too has been busy.

She has done many author presentations for her latest book, and is working on yet another. The work-in-progress is about “a brilliant, crazy woman, her concert pianist mother, their young, troubled and disabled biographer and a prickly young jazz pianist.”

She and Edwin are also redesigning the garden.

Like everything else Hilary creates, one senses the finished products — book and garden — will be intriguing, powerful and beautiful.

Brava, Hilary!

A Good Home, Author Interviews, Authors, Canadian Authors, Canadian Books, Canadian life, Newly Released Books

At Home With Author Paul Nicholas Mason

May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

2015 isn’t even half-way through yet, but it’s already a big year for author-playwright Paul Nicholas Mason.

His third book, The Night Drummer, was launched to acclaim.

He became a grandfather.

He retired from teaching.

He’s writing his fourth novel and his umpteenth play.

Wow.

Paul lives north of Toronto. He writes in his study at home.

“It looks out on conservation lands at the back of my property, so my view is of trees. Trees are very important to me.”

Not surprising that one of his most favorite places is the Rotary Greenway Trail, near his home.

“During the summer I’m on the trail almost every day. That trail, incidentally, is the setting for my first novel, Battered Soles.”

The setting of an earlier home also provided inspiration — for the new book. The setting and some characters in The Night Drummer are linked to Kingston, Ontario where he lived.

“Indeed, one of the characters – but only one – is based solidly on one of my high school classmates… I don’t altogether understand my own creative process, but I can tell you that the character of Otis, the Aboriginal young man, came to me first.”

The Night Drummer tells the story of two teenagers in small-town Ontario: Peter Ellis, a white boy and Otis James, who is Aboriginal.

An excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review:

“Ellis’s memories of first loves and jobs and an endearingly oddball assortment of friends, including Otis, a preternaturally wise and kind Ojibwe boy adopted by devout Caucasian parents, give this portrait a welcome sweetness that draws attention to the innocence, sheer possibility, and blithe lightheartedness of youth. ‘Small towns can be ugly places,’ Ellis remarks, ‘but they can be warm communities too.’ Nostalgic but not sanitized, this novel shows the interplay of the two, with captivating results.”

Paul taught high school students for 32 years.

“I loved the young people I taught, and I loved my colleagues. Teaching is a noble profession, but it is, at times, stunningly stressful. I knew that I needed to get out while I was still whole.”

Having retired from teaching, Paul plans to write, of course. He’s blessed with a deep and melodious speaking voice, so he’ll also do some voice work.

He’ll spend more time with family. For Paul, family is the real ‘home’.

“I am, first and foremost, a family man: father to two children and two step-children; grandfather to an infant granddaughter; son to Michael and Muriel; brother to Robin and Angie; uncle to a niece and two nephews; and partner to Denise.”

Underpinning the different parts of his life is what Paul calls his “moral scaffolding”. He describes himself as a liberal Christian.

“I’m the furthest thing imaginable from a Bible-thumper, but I am, quietly, a believer. I don’t think a reader would necessarily pick up on that from reading any of my books, but my faith provides a kind of moral scaffolding.”

And his hopes for The Night Drummer?

“I hope it will move many readers to laughter and, perhaps, to tears. And I hope, beyond that, that it will encourage them to be a just a little kinder to each other.”

Bravo, Paul.

A Good Home, Author Interviews, Book Interviews, Books, Interview Shows, The Next Chapter

WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

November 28, 2014December 16, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

Pushing the limits is risky, even reckless.

But I learned early that pushing the limits was the only way to succeed.

It took long-term injuries from a car accident for me to learn – angrily, grudgingly – that some mountains aren’t surmountable.

Along the way, I gave my doctors, therapists and family a helluva time.

Apologized sincerely each time.

And yet, here I was, pushing the limits again.

You have to hand it to chronic pain: it’s cruel, but consistent.

Post traumatic stress disorder lives in the shadows, striking unexpectedly.

It’s my own personal terrorist.

I’ve had therapy and medication. But just when I think I’m improving, the damned thing strikes again.

It gives me nightmares, and in the daylight, jumps out of memory bushes I didn’t even know were there. Then I become terrified, and if I speak at all, it’s a tortured stutter.

Can you imagine that happening on a radio or TV interview about my new book?

This was one limit not worth pushing.

ONE YEAR LATER

Radio hosts Felicity Sidnell Reid and Gwynn Scheltema just wouldn’t quit.

In late summer, they finally got me into their studio for their show, Word On The Hills.

They’d agreed to accommodate my restrictions.

And I used every tool my therapist taught me – even making fun of myself.

Listen to all or part of it here:

http://wordonthehills.com/2014/08/31/cynthia-reyes/

Then came the second interview.

I had foolishly said “Yes” a year earlier — then prayed it wouldn’t happen.

My family and friends were the ones pushing me this time.

“Shelagh Rogers is a wonderful interviewer,” they kept saying. “She’s skilled and compassionate. She won’t let you fall on your face.”

It wasn’t Shelagh’s skills or compassion that worried me.

It was the fact that she’s been so candid about her own struggles that I knew I had to open up about mine.

Worse, she’d be coming to the place where I am most myself: my home.

All of this meant that I was headed for disaster.

We walked around the garden, chatting pleasantly.

Flowers bloomed, birds sang, the sun shone.

And then it was time.

Afterwards, my friend Marilyn arranged afternoon tea for all of us. I remembered most of that lovely event, but almost nothing of the interview that preceded it.

I know an interview took place. I know I cried at times. And I remembered kindness from Shelagh and her team.

I later heard the interview along with CBC Radio listeners across Canada. Listen here