The Church in the Wildwood Named One of CBC's Top 95 Must-Read Books of 2017

Back in December of 2017, CBC Books put out a call for readers across the country to nominate their favourite books of the year. I shared that call on social media and then quickly forgot about it. What a thrill when today, a reader on Facebook shared the link to the list, saying I'd made the cut!

My response was a very eloquent WHAT????!!!!

I don't even know how to express the excitement I'm feeling, sharing space with the likes of Canadian superstars Terry Fallis, Eden Robinson, and Michelle Winters — Robinson and Winters were both shortlisted for the 2017 Giller Prize! I mean...whoa!


You can check out the full list HERE - scroll down to number 36 to find me.


I think I've harboured an unspoken fear that I will slowly slip back into invisibility. 

Sure I wrote a book, and yeah, people really seemed to respond to it; but with the attention span of the modern-day-human, I worried I would be but a blip on the screen of their life—there for 297 pages and then forgotten...donated to Value Village to hang out beside all those copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. (That is my nightmare. It's ugly. Please don't let me linger...)

This is a nice little pick-me-up. I'm needy. Recognition affirms and soothes me, and it encourages me to go on.

Thanks to my nominators, thanks to my readers, and thanks to CBC.

(This is not the blog post I planned on writing today. I actually have a check-list of things I wanted to accomplish before midnight tonight, and while blogging is on there, I had intended to talk about what happened on the incredible writer's retreat I went on two weeks ago OR share about the interview I did last week with a book website. But this is good. This means I'll have something to talk about next time and maybe it won't be a thousand months before my next post. No matter what happens, I can still check something off my list, and that feels good.)

Until next time friends...