Friday, October 29, 2010

ANN BIRCH APPEARENCE


Ann Birch will talk to Writers' Craft students at Silverthorn Collegiate,
Toronto, early in November. In an interactive session, they'll discuss
the challenge of researching a period that a writer knows nothing much
about. There'll be a quiz to give the students an idea of what Ann had to
discover in order to create a convincing background for her historical
novel Settlement. In addition, she and the students will talk about
building character through distinctive speech patterns. Finally they'll
discuss the writing of effective endings without using the dread deus ex
machina favoured by writers like Arthur Hailey who once killed off the
major characters in his novel Hotel by putting them into a defective
elevator. There are no easy routes to effective writing: that's the
message.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Ann Birch Launch at Campbell House



Author Ann Birch launched her historical novel Settlement at the Campbell House in Toronto on September 26 to a very large and appreciative crowd of friends, family and well wishers.

The Campbell House was the perfect venue to celebrate this novel because of its intimate connection with the story, which is set in Toronto in 1836, and because Ann is an historical interpreter at the musuem, which is in the heart of Toronto on King Street West.