Press Release: 23-stop Library Tour

Press Release

Schuh Embarks on 23-stop Library Tour Across Alberta’s North East

Home town visits especially thrilling

ST. PAUL, ALBERTA  16 October 2013 - “I’m excited, nervous, and gearing up to be very busy,” St. Paul author, Eileen Schuh says. Following her second successful presentation to the children at the North Slave Young Offenders Facility in Yellowknife earlier this month, Schuh is taking a short breather before embarking on a twenty-three stop library tour of north-eastern Alberta.

Schuh’s tour, which includes writing workshops as well as general author presentations, is sponsored by the Northern Lights Library System and kicks off on Monday 21 October 2013 in Myrnam and ends in Cold Lake on November 26th. She will be travelling the length and breadth of one of Alberta’s largest library systems. 

“I’ve got my map in front of me so I can now confidently say that I go as far west as Morinville, Gibbons, Bon Accord and the Garrison library in CFB Edmonton, east to Paradise Valley, south to Wainwright and Chauvin and north to Cold Lake and many spots in between,” Schuh says.

Although she’s looking forward to all her visits, her trip to Tofield on Thursday, November 7^th  at 2pm holds a special thrill. “I was born and raised as Eileen Fairbrother in the Tofield area and returned there for a few years after I was married,” she says. “Since I was first published in 2011, I’ve wanted to go back to my home town and thank the community for nourishing my writing dreams and skills. Now it’s finally going to happen!”

She will  also be dropping in to the municipal library in her adoptive community of St. Paul at 5 pm on November 12th. “As I say about St. Paul on my dedication page of my upcoming novel, FIREWALLS, I couldn’t ask for a more supportive, generous, inspiring place to live and write.” The nearby community of Elk Point will host Schuh at 7 pm on Tuesday, November 5^th while the Two Hills’ school will be the venue for a writing workshop on Wednesday, November 6^th.

Schuh has four books published with two more in the wings. Throughout the tour, she will be promoting, selling and autographing the first two books in her young adult BackTracker series THE TRAZ (and THE TRAZ School Edition), and FATAL ERROR  as well as her adult sciFi novella, SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT.

 “I’m  hoping to have the third book in my Young Adult BackTracker Series, FIREWALLS, ready in time for Christmas, perhaps even for the latter part of my tour.” Her second SciFi, DISPASSIONATE LIES, will be released by WolfSinger Publications in the summer 2014.  Her books are available as paperbacks and in all popular ebook formats and can be bought online from Amazon and other fine online book retailers.

“If they are not on the shelves of your local bookstore or library, you can ask to have them ordered in for you,” Schuh explains.

For a complete itinerary of her tour and more information on her books and her career, visit her website at http://www.eileenschuh.com . 

For an interview:

 email: eileenschuh@yahoo.com

phone: 780-

David Bertsch: In Memory

There were eight of us cousins who played and fought through many summers on that dirt farm near Tofield that I called home.  Sometimes all eight of us camped out in that little log cabin with the kerosene lantern, wood stove, and coal oil lamps.  That big, round, oak table.  The cream separator in the corner and the Winnipeg Couch sitting just off the trap door to the cellar.  The RCA Gramophone and the chemical toilet.  There was no TV or telephone.  We talked to each other face to face and made our own entertainment.

There was me, Marilyn, my younger sister by 3 years and Ruth, my older sister by 3 years.  There were Muriel and Maureen--my two female cousins between Ruth and me in age.  Then, there were the boy cousins--they were the exciting ones--the older ones.  Daryl was three years older than Ruth and the oldest of us all 'the twins', Donald and David.

Oh, yes, I have fond memories of that whole passel of cousins, but David...now David, he was the best.  Beyond a doubt.  Not one of that summer-pack of kids will argue with that fact.

I remember...

Yup, cranking up that gramophone and David teaching us young ladies to do the Schottische.  Keep in mind this was a 20' x 20' cabin, and David was a large man even in his teen years.  But that boy was light on his feet and had rhythm--and patience, and (of necessity when trying to teach me grace) a sense of humour.  He laughed as I hit the Winnipeg couch and kept going right up onto it in order to finish the last steps of the sequence.

Some of my earliest memories are of David.  In fact, I think the very first thing I remember is being in his arms on a hot summer day.  I know it is him I'm remembering, because I remember his scent.  Being big, he sweat a lot, and that was not a bad thing; it etched him into my memories.  Today I inhale, and imagine, remember, and weep because David will not sweat any more.

He has left us, the first of us eight to die.  It should not have been him.  He was the gentle one of us all, endowed with a wisdom and social grace seldom found in the young.  Otherwise, we would not have been nicknamed him 'Owl'.  He taught us all, through both example and words, the great interpersonal skills and magnanimity that youngsters need to be taught.

I remember being about 8 and making a remark about David being fat.  He told me I shouldn't say things like that.  "Why?" I asked, because after all he was fat.  I was just stating a fact. I didn't know being fat was a bad thing.  I had not meant to be mean.

He asked if I'd like him to make comments about my  yellow teeth just because they were, in fact, yellow.  Therein, I learned tact.  I learned to step outside myself to consider how others may be feeling.  I learned the power of  words to hurt--and heal.  I learned people knew exactly how they looked and did not need me to tell them.  I learned.

We also nicknamed Dave 'Owl' because he actually went to university, the first one in the family to do so.  He became a special education teacher and taught trouble kids.  He loved his job.  I have no doubt he was very good at it because he could spot potential in a person--potential that even one's mother didn't realize one had.  He honored everyone's potential and gently and persistently he'd pull it forth.

Not 'potential' like academic potential.  Or financial potential.  Or career potential.  'Potential' like one's innate ability to love, forgive, and care.  The potential to be loyal, kind, happy, strong, likable, and liked.  

Not long ago I asked him why he played with me when we were kids.  After all,  I was ten years younger, self-centred, and more than a little stubborn.  He scowled and said he didn't think I'd been any of that.  He always thought I was a 'neat' kid.  That changed forever my self-perception.  He made me believe I'd been a likable child--a fact that proved very comforting when I was faced with some darker childhood memories.

I want you to get to know David better so imagine this--I'm about 5 years old and David's a young teen-aged boy.   It's a hot summer day and we're outside with a tub of rain water and a wooden box full of doll clothes.  We're going to wash all these clothes and rinse them and hang them on the clothes line.  David and I.  I have no doubt they needed washing as water was scarce on the farm--there was no well.  Household water had to be hauled from my uncle's farm a couple of miles away.

I have no doubt that I agreed to this idea, because doing anything with David was bound to be adventuresome.  I was set to pretend I was a mother doing her laundry.  I remember however, that about ten minutes into the chore of washing each of those tiny dresses and wee blankets with my tiny hands in cold water, the idea lost its glamour.  It was then, under David's gentle tutelage that I learned to complete tasks.  I learned to forgo present comfort in order to achieve goals.  Those washed outfits definitely looked wonderful compared to the soiled and grey ones yet to be done.  Keep going.  Keep washing.  He was there to help.  He could warm my hands in his.  He could use his strong fingers to wring out the water, his height to hang them on the clothesline, his voice to keep me going until the job was done.

Yes, I must keep going. Reach my potential.  Finish the jobs I've started.  Finish my life--even though David is no longer here to warm my hands in his.

I miss you so much, David.

Eileen Schuh, Canadian writer www.eileenschuh.com