News stories – Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Upcoming book events

Next week, I’ll be touring for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre in North Vancouver and Pemberton BC. There is one open event at the NVPL. More info here.

I’ll be back in Toronto on May 14th, at Koota Oooma!

On May 21, I’ll be with London Ukrainian Canadian Congress for a book talk. A portion from book sales will be donated to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation. There will also be a raffle, and I’ve donated some hard-to-get editions of various books. May 21 is Vyshyvanka Day, and I will be wearing my newest traditional embroidered blouse! It will be neat to see a variety of vyshyvanky!!

On May 24th, I’ll be close to home, doing an event hosted by my favourite local bookstore, Riverside Bookshelf!

Mabel’s Fables triple book launch!

Many thanks to Eleanor LeFave and Mabel’s Fables for hosting a wonderful triple book launch last night! April is Canadian Independent Booksellers’ Month, so it was especially sweet to be in this iconic Canadian children’s bookstore right now.

It was an honour to be introducing my newest book with kidlit powerhouses Lorna Schultz Nicholson and Anna Rosner. An interesting and storied evening. And there were cookies and fruit! Thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a meaningful event.

Trilogy now available!

St. Sophia Saturday School

Attended a fantastic launch and presentation yesterday in Woodstock Ontario for Oleksa Drachewych’s new book, Replaying the Second World War, which documents the parallels between Soviet myths, national narrative and atrocities in WWII and what the Russians are doing now in Ukraine. The audience was so engaged that questions could have gone on for the rest of the day.

People had driven in from Hamilton and London to hear Oleksa’s talk, and also to participate in a display of Ukrainian culture. Students from St. Sophia Ukrainian Saturday school performed a dance. A number of the students had read my books and had questions, so after everything was over and people were packing up, we grabbed some chairs and the kids asked questions. I think every question began with, “I have a question, no, actually, I have two …” I was very impressed by these young people!

Vichnaya Pamyat: Dean Cooke

Devastated by the passing of Dean Cooke, who had been my literary agent from 1997 until his retirement in 2025. His impact on the book industry in Canada has been huge. For me personally, I don’t know how I would have survived as an author if it hadn’t been for his principled guidance. He didn’t represent many children’s authors but he loved my voice and he had a vision for my career. Every step of the way, he guided me through it. For his friendship, his guidance, his integrity, I am forever grateful.

Roberts ES students always have such good questions!

Today was the 6th time media specialist extraordinaire Tiffanie Lifsey invited me to speak with her fifth grade students in Suwanee Georgia!

There were a lot of budding writers in the audience and many questions focused on that. For example, what does my editing process look like before I send a manuscript to the publisher? How many times in all does a manuscript for a novel go through editing? I think they were shocked by the answer.

There were also questions about the real people behind various characters, but this was the first time I was asked about how I researched for the character of Officer Schmidt, who made appearances in both Making Bombs and The War Below.

This is one of the classes at Roberts ES. I think there were 6 in all.

Thirty years of author photos

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that my first book, Silver Threads, came out 30 years ago! Writers are by nature introverts, and one of the hardest things about being a writer is having to endure the “author photo” experience. My first few author photos were professionally taken, but after awhile, I just asked my husband to do it.