margvirany-blog

[margvirany-blog]

AUTHOR WEDNESDAY - MARGARET KELL VIRANY

AUTHOR WEDNESDAY – MARGARET KELL VIRANY

Margaret Kell Virany:

Guess What? Thrilled Being Featured on Author-Wednesday!

Originally posted on P.C. Zick:

Welcome to Author Wednesday. Today I welcome Canadian author Margaret Kell Virany, who writes romantic historical books based on her life and that of her parents. Her books include A Book of Kells: Growing Up in an Ego Void, a love story, between an English young woman and a Canadian…

[margvirany-blog]

Funny Bunny Easter Paper Napkins, Canada 1940's

Before the days of Disney, TV, commercialized holidays and mass-produced toys, what did children have? Cartoon characters printed on cheap paper napkins with infant technicolor technology!Heritage Easter Paper Table Napkins, Canada 1940's

What are you doing? Get down before you fall!

Good Morning, Mr. Neighbor, I presume those flowers are for me?

Just zooming in. Come find all the eggs I’m burying.

Before the days of Disney, TV, commercialized holidays and mass-produced toys, what did children have? Cartoon characters printed on cheap paper napkins with infant technicolor technology! Here are some I saved from the early forties. I…

[margvirany-blog]

A History Lesson from a History Maker

We've just finished reading a Xmas gift book that makes us feel like it's Easter. Peace.

I’ve just finished reading a book given to us by our son at Christmas and it has made me feel like it’s Easter.

Peace of Westphalia artwork by Wenceslas Hollar (1607-77) from the University of Toronto digital collection

Ninety-year-old Henry Kissinger’s 14th book seeks and answers questions on how we can face the greatest, most consequential issues of the human condition in our time. Entitled Wor…

[margvirany-blog]

Historical vs contemporary fiction - David Lawlor's view

Historical vs contemporary fiction – David Lawlor’s view

Margaret Kell Virany:

“The past, present and future went into a bar…” An Irish joke and a new mystery thriller from Dublin author David Lawlor just in time for St. Patrick’s day.

Originally posted on A Writer of History:

David Lawlor authors the very intriguing blog, History with a Twist. It’s full of stories about unexpected events and people, what David calls ‘celebrating the bit players of…

[margvirany-blog]

Fun to Do on a February Road Trip: Six Pix

What You Can Do on a Wintry Road Trip

Harmonize and sing along with a barber shop quartet in Yuma.

Walk with the stars in Hollywood.

Cozy up in Pebble Beach along the Pacific Highway between San Francisco and San Diego.

Visit a ranch in the Sierras. Now you know where Windows got its desktop picture.

Ski in Sante Fe. It’s free if you’ve still got legs and can breathe at a high altitude after age 72.

Stop at Terry Fox’s statue in…

[margvirany-blog]

Children Ace 18-Point Quiz on Reading Classics

Teacher/author Fiza Pathan's mix of reading classics, love and ingenuity helps growing children to find themselves.

Your child’s self image and empowerment can grow because of one young woman’s passionate sharing of her early and lifelong passion for reading good books. Here’s what happened at the Classics Excellence award quiz at teacher/author Fiza Pathan’s launch of How We Can Encourage Children to Read the Classics in Mumbai, India last month. Test yourself to see if you know as much as the kids. It’s a…

[margvirany-blog]

Who Do You Marry? 10 Tips for Twenty-Somethings

Is He/She Right for You? 10 Love-Quest Tips for 20-Somethings

These tips come from an octogenarian who carefully recorded the real-life voyage of her parents who stayed married down to the core of their hearts and souls for 61 years. Sixty years ago she found her own soul mate at age 22. They still squeeze hands by the fireside in their snowy homeland. I hope their experience will help you find the answer to your love quest too.

1. Buried inside you is a…

[margvirany-blog]

Upcoming Minister's' Daughter Book Will Break the Mold

What Makes Being a Tough Preacher's Kid: 5-point Survival Kit

Being a minister’s daughter is a life full of social and personal pitfalls with exaggerated penalties hanging over her head. Writers seize the juicy topic of a sweet girl as a focus for the battle between good and evil. George Orwell couldn’t decide whether his The Clergyman’s Daughter itself was good or bad. First he banned it from publication, then let it go because his heirs needed the money.In

[margvirany-blog]

37 Frye Wisdom Capsules to Sleep On

25 Frye Takes on How Christianity/Religion Corrupts

“. . . one may live all one’s life without being concerned about God…”, said Northrop Frye, a Canadian who was one of the best literary critics and  theorists of the twentieth century. He was a professor of English at Victoria College and also an ordained but very progressive minister of the United Church of Canada. Frye was my professor for three years and I have plucked these quotes from Myth &…

[margvirany-blog]

Nostalgic Rabbitskin-Framed Photo, Rave Review in E-Mail!

Reader's Nostalgic Rabbit-fur-framed Photo Thrills WWI-Era Author

The magic of writing a memoir is like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, only in reverse. That’s my new theory.When my mother posed for this picture in 1928, just after marrying, coming to Canada and starting life on an Indian reserve, she had no idea I’d write a book from her love letters and adventures some day.

Imagine my joy at receiving these emails from two of the first avid readers ofKathleen…

[margvirany-blog]

Review of CLASSICS: How we can encourage children to read them

Review of CLASSICS: How we can encourage children to read them

Originally posted on insaneowl:

Classics: How We Can Encourage Children to Read Them by Fiza Pathan CreateSpace reviewed by Caroline Blaha-Black for The US Review of Books “We are living in a dying culture where the reading of classics is not being encouraged by modern-day parents.”

This book is a sequel to the previous volume in this series, the award-winning Classics: Why We Should…

[margvirany-blog]

Warm & Cold Tips for a Happy 2015

Happy 2015 Everybody! Climate-coping tips for the calendat year.

Following special days in the calendar and finding activities to match the temperature can make for a happy, peaceful rhythm  for a whole wonderful year. One way or another, we focus on coping with the climate. These tips salvaged from our Xmas letter might be helpful to you too:

Valentine’s Day One of our few outings this past, cold winter was to meet Son half waybetween Pittsburgh and…

[margvirany-blog]

How Reading Classics Realizes Your Christmas Dreams: 10 Pointers via Pinocchio & Pathan

How Fiza Pathan's 'Classics' Secrets Bring Christmas

Getting children to read classic books, even hilarious ones like Pinocchio, is not always easy but the stakes couldn’t be higher. They’re our best bet for ever achieving our dreams for self-realization, rebirth, peace, redemption and goodwill to all mankind. A good boy was what Geppetto was trying to carve out of his outrageously impossible, willful puppet. What classic books come to tell us is…

[margvirany-blog]

12 Clinchers: Signing Events Keep Authors & Bookstores Booming

"A rare treat for the modern generation" is this true love story from over the ocean and in the bush after WW1.

Margaret Kell Virany displays copies of Kathleen’s Cariole Ride at Perfect Books in Ottawa, Canada. Events like this help authors and independent book stores please readers and keep each other alive.

Like many authors, I used to hate selling but a few easy techniques have made me love it and have fun. This can happen to you too — here are the keys:

I’ve wasted countless frustrating hours trying…

[margvirany-blog]

Looking to the Atlantic for Love, Twenties-Style

Looking to the Ocean for Love, 20's-Style

It would be a lonely 5,000-mile journey from Dover’s cliffs back to the Indian reserve in Oxford House, MB but Jack was stubborn and couldn’t bring himself to give up all hope.

Kathleen felt as miserable as the weather, but a voice inside said it was impossible for her to marry this Canadian. It would be far too risky, so she just let him sail away.

I’m excited about starting this month’s…

[margvirany-blog]

Remembering Books in Ottawa's War Memorial's Shadow

I used this table display to help me sell eleven books altogether Saturday at Brittons book store and the Small Press Book Fair. Other Ottawa authors I know who are on the trail are Bob Barclay, Allan Bowker, Barry Findlay and Bob Fowler. Check the Citizen’s Book Events for those I’ve missed.

Pearl Pirie is an icon of the avant garde poets’ community in Ottawa. She hosts a radio program and…

[margvirany-blog]

Attention Author! 9 Penultimate Pre-Launch Publishing Pointers!

Six Author To-Dos before Selling New Books

The UPS store on the other side of the Prescott-Ogdensburg International Bridge helps some Canadian authors save on shipping costs.

If you want a successful book launch, stay organized while awaiting your order from the printer and getting ready to sell at events you’ve already arranged.  These tips may help you avoid the blunders and adopt the time- and money-saving techniques I acquired in past…