Tag: Bosnia

My Posts

The Blog Tour Experience

lesleyanne7 Comments

I’m halfway through my blog tour and I have to admit, it has been a great experience and a great way to celebrate Braco‘s nomination for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. The idea was first discussed in the writer’s group that I joined this past abaFebruary. Two members, Kate Robbins and Valerie Francis, already had a well established web presence and were very familiar with the concept of the blog tour.

And yes, they had to explain it to me.

My first thought was that it would be a monster to put together, but Kate held my hand and the tour got off to a great start with her post on April 17th. Valerie and Rati Mehrotra volunteered to take a week and they encouraged me to approach novelists Paul Butler and Michelle Butler-Hallett to do the other two weeks. I was thrilled when they agreed to host. Continue reading “The Blog Tour Experience” →

My Posts

The Book Club Experience

lesleyanne10 Comments

If you’re part of a book club, I imagine it must be pretty thrilling to have the author show up to answer some questions.Braco

As an author, I can tell you, it’s exhilarating to be invited to a book club to answer questions. Unlike readings or book fairs where I’m trying to sell the book to people who often know little or nothing about it, the book club is completely different. I don’t have to sell anything. They’re already sold.

Recently, I had my second opportunity to meet with a book club. Two members of my writing group, Kate Robbins and Melanie Martin, belong to this club and Melanie picked the book. They got together at 7 pm for a discussion and I showed up at 8:30 to an enthusiastic crowd of six from varied backgrounds including a nurse, a former reporter, a sister of two soldiers/peacekeepers and a historian. Continue reading “The Book Club Experience” →

My Posts

Braco Blog Tour

lesleyanne7 Comments

A few weeks ago, my debut novel Braco abawas nominated for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. I was thrilled to learn of the nomination and plan to be in Halifax on May 16th when the winner is announced at the Atlantic Book Awards.

As Braco is a deeply personal story to me, I’m grateful others have connected with Atif’s story as well. I’m fortunate in that I’m surrounded by an incredibly supportive writing community and wish I could take them with me. As such, they’re giving me a pretty impressive send off.

In the time running up to the awards, some local writers have been kind enough to host me on a blog tour. My very first! What a strange new world we’ve embarked on. The tour will give you an opportunity to learn more about myself and my novel, and at the end, I will have two signed copies of Braco to give away. We will ask a question at the last stop on May 15th and draw for the two winners from a hat. The answer will be found in one of the tour posts.

The blog schedule is as follows:

17 April 2013 – Kate Robbins

24 April 2013 – Paul Butler

1 May 2013 – Michelle Butler-Hallett

8 May 2013 – Rati Mehrotra

15 May 2013 – Valerie Francis

This is all new to me and I’m excited to see it all come together. A heartfelt thanks goes out to the bloggers who will host me and I hope you can join us.

My Posts

Why I wrote Braco

lesleyanne5 Comments

When I started to write Braco, a lot of people were interested in where I came up with the idea for the book. It’s a personal story that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell, but the response has been so positive, I decided to include it in my readings.

Srebrenica is a small Bosniak town located close to the Serbian border about eighty kilometres east of Sarajevo. Before the war, the town had a population of six thousand with 60% identifying themselves as Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak and 30% as Bosnian Serb. (Today, the population is 95% Bosnian Serb).

When the war broke out in 1992, the town was quickly surrounded by the Bosnian Serb army and the Bosniak population in the town swelled to over 50,000. With little aid making its way through the Serb lines, a humanitarian crisis developed. Thousands lived under blankets in the streets in sub-zero temperatures. People killed each other over food. Disease was rampant, and through the winter of 92-93, the Serb army continued to shell the town from the surrounding hills. It was only a matter of time before this caught the attention of the world press. Continue reading “Why I wrote Braco” →

My Posts

Web Presence

lesleyanne1 Comment

I’m still working on setting up this blog and tried to put up a post a few times over the past week but writer’s block hit. Which is weird for me. I never get writer’s block. While I was writing Braco, I had a motto that helped prevent block. I cut it from the box my sneakers came in and pinned it to the wall above my computer: Just Do It.

It works. Really.

And this post is proof. I’m doing it! Continue reading “Web Presence” →