Buried Treasure: The Adventures of Max and Maddie, was recently showcased on Reading Recommendations Blog, created by Susan M. Toy, author, publisher, and overall champion to writers of all genres.
So, I decided to do a little promoting for Susan! Here's a little about Susan and her "many hats."
About Susan Toy:
I have been a bookseller, an award-winning publishing sales representative, a literacy teacher, and a promoter of fellow authors and their books through my company, Alberta Books Canada. I am also an author and publisher, under my imprint, IslandCatEditions.
Through Alberta Books Canada, I have represented authors directly, helping them find promotion for themselves and their books, seeking out new readers, and assisting them in making wise career decisions. I champion Alberta authors in particular, singing their praises throughout the province and online to the rest of the world, and I have displayed books for authors and publishers at Alberta library conferences.
I created the writing contest, Coffee Shop Author, have sat on the Board of Directors of the Fernie Writers' Conference, served as a member of the Calgary Distinguished Writers Program steering committee, and was a member of the board of directors for the Writers' Guild of Alberta.
I have made the decision to temporarily suspend operations of Alberta Books Canada in order to concentrate on my own writing and publishing, but my friends know this is just a cunning plan to spend several months at my home in the Caribbean, avoiding yet another Calgary winter ... I promise to return to Calgary in the spring with even more ideas on how to promote and market Alberta books. Susan M. Toy
Also visit Susan's Blog, Books, Publishing, Reading, Writing.
Island in the Clouds: [Amazon] [Amazon CA]
A glass jar...sitting on a round kitchen table...filled with candy sticks. That's my one and only memory of my great grandmother, Samantha.
Samantha Jane Huff was born on Nov. 1, 1865, married a man 20 years her senior (my g.grandfather, Charles Conrad) on Christmas Day, 1882. She died August 20, 1957. I suppose I can be forgiven for not remembering much about her since I was five at the time.
My cousin, Paul Conrad, e-mailed a wonderful picture of Samantha, nicknamed, Mant for no apparent reason I can fathom (why would you do that to such a beautiful name?), and her sister, Cora.
In Cynthia's Attic: Curse of the Bayou, Samantha (Connor) is portrayed as an excitable, free-spirited mother of twelve children; all of whom she worries over constantly. In COTB, she is a notoriously bad cook, which is simply literary license, and is married to Cynthia's g.grandfather, Beau Connor. Okay, so I took a LOT of literary license. Confused yet? Here's an excerpt:
Cynthia's Attic: Curse of the Bayou (Book Three)As promised, there was hot food waiting for us. To say that Samantha Conner was the most awful cook in the world would not be an exaggeration. I hadn't tasted anything quite as bad as her dumplings since I'd had the brilliant idea to eat my first-grade art paste.
But, to be polite, Cynthia and I ate as much as we could choke down. At least the family stories told at dinner, helped make the food a little more palatable, especially since we'd already heard bits and pieces from Cynthia's mom. Samantha mentioned that her husband was traveling, and had not returned. I could tell she didn't want to talk about his disappearance, but that didn't stop her from talking about everything else.
"Go ahead, Ma," Jay insisted. "Tell them about how you met Pa. You know you want to."
Samantha laughed self-consciously. "Oh, Jay. These two don't want to hear tales about some old couple…
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I have been a bookseller, an award-winning publishing sales representative, a literacy teacher, and a promoter of fellow authors and their books through my company, Alberta Books Canada. I am also an author and publisher, under my imprint, IslandCatEditions. 
