Wow. There are crazy things going on in Toronto this week. Who ever heard of a mayor calling a children’s author the B word?

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Vikki VanSickle’s Words That Start With B, which I loved. Funny and unexpected and poignant. And one of those books that contains much more than promised in the back cover copy.

I read it partly because the author and I have some mutual friends. I also received a manuscript critique recently which read: “Some of the themes you are tackling have been dealt with in other books — a recently passed away mother in Words That Start With B…”

No one likes to hear her book has been done elsewhere, better. Fortunately, Words that Start with B does not actually deal with a recently deceased mother. Nope, no dead mothers to be found. My editor must have been thinking of some other title, which frees me to like this book without restrictions. Yay B Words!

You also have to like anyone who would speak in public at 4:30 a.m., and tweet this: “Rob Ford thinks I’m a bitch, but I think he’s a bully.”