Tag: standoff

#OLASC 2026 — Signing for Standoff

The Ontario Library Association’s annual Superconference is one of my favourite places to be! It’s an opportunity to meet up with my fellow authors in the flesh. We see each other a lot, but it’s usually virtually! It’s also of course fantastic to chat with librarians and teacher-librarians. No one supports books and authors more than librarians and educators.

Also, it’s just so utterly fun to walk around the tradeshow and snap pics of my friends. Authors are invariably by nature introverted so we all do what we can to promote each other. Take a look at all the friends I ran into just in half a day! I actually ran into more than this, but couldn’t always take pics.

Thanks, Lorna Schultz Nicholson for taking this pic!
It was lovely to meet this teacher-librarian whose heritage is Polish-Ukrainian!
Sylvia McNicoll’s book won the Hamilton Literary Award this year!!! I’m holding my late friend, Sheryl Azzam’s book, which was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award.
With the one and only Barbara Reid!
This is Mary Macchuisi, president of Pembroke Publishing. We have now known each other for 3 decades. She gave me a kind and helpful rejection when I was prepublished back in the 1990s, and I showed her letter during presentations. We seem to encounter each other once a year!
With Sylvia, Jean E Pendziwol and Ali McDonald! Jean E gave the opening keynote at CANSCAIP’s PYI, which was a bookend to my closing keynote! I first met Ali when she presented at our Brantford Book Camp about 19 years ago! We’ve corresponded ever since!
Helaine Becker!!
Signing at the Scholastic booth
Lana Button and Suharu Ogawa signing at the Orca booth!
Me and Helaine!
Kathy Kacer and her fans!
Lorna Schultz Nicolson at the CANSCAIP booktasting!
another shot of Lorna!
Barbara signed 100 books!
I LOVE this pic of Joanne Levy!
Rebecca Bender and her newest book!
Barry Jowett, my first novel editor, and dear Sheryl’s editor!
Julien Chung goes beyond just an autograph when he signs books!
Heather Camlot!
Natalie Hyde!! It’s been SOOOO long since we saw each other in person! Former kidcritter!
Natalie, Lynne Leitch and me!
Mary Jennifer Payne! Former kidcritter.

Last week’s webinar

It was such an honour to be a reading series presenter for the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi National University of Cherkasy last Thursday. The session was via Zoom and made available to the Global Coalition of Ukrainian Studies.

The questions were perceptive and wide-ranging. I was particularly heartened by this feedback from students Bohdan Khmelnytskyi National University of Cherkasy.

Online presentation, Dec 4th

Thank you, Centre for Ukrainian Studies, University of Manitoba, for this invitation to speak about Standoff, book #2 of my Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy. Looking forward to lots of questions.

CUCS Lecture Series

How and why Marsha Skrypuch wrote the “Kidnapped from Ukraine” trilogy

Date and Time: Thursday, December 4, 2025, 12 PM CST

Location: Online via Zoom

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://umanitoba.zoom.us/meeting/register/XUP5uT77ShygI7Qeee7h2g

Standoff: Koota Ooma Book Launch!

This young reader had so many interesting things to say! His favourite of my books is Stolen Child — but he’s read a lot of them. He said that reading my books is more interesting than being on his device. High praise!
Mirka and I are wearing our Ukrainian colours!
Before the book launch, I met up with Sophia Isajiw for an early dinner and chat.

Thanks for the pics, Jen!

Here are some pics from last night’s book launch for Standoff, book 2 in my Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy. Thanks so much to Jen Rudyk for taking them. Had I been thinking, I would have taken a pic of the audience: it was a full house. I was very impressed with Griffin, in the blue shirt, who bought a whole whack of books, plus brought in a couple of well-thumbed copies from home to get signed. He asked such great questions and knew a lot about WWII and WWI history. Sergio from Brant blog had been waiting patiently for an interview so once all the books were signed, Jen got a pic of him doing the interview.

Standoff launch in Brantford

Thank you The Ukrainian Village presented by Village Ukraina Dancers for hosting last night’s book launch for Standoff, book 2 of the Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy! It was wonderful to see so many people wearing blue and yellow and Ukrainian embroidered blouses in support of Ukraine. For those who were not able to make it to the launch but who still want an autographed book, please visit the Riverside Bookshelf 32A Dundas St W, Paris, ON N3L 1G2

https://brantblog.ca/2025/10/09/author-marsha-forchuk-skrypuch-launches-second-book-in-ukrainian-war-inspired-trilogy-in-brantford/
Thank you Sergio, for the great interview!