Kathy Stinson’s new young adult novel is set in downtown Toronto, where the main character, Al, faces a terrible choice. Every summer she leaves her home in Alberta to spend a month with her father in the East, but this year she must spend a whole year with him, and after that she must decide where her permanent home will be. one year commencing is a passionate, often funny story, which never makes Al’s dilemma seem simpler than it is. It is both a novel and a document for our times.
The clue that Kathy Stinson has enjoyed a lifelong love of reading is in the wide range of books she has written. "What you read," she says, "influences what you write. And so does the day to day life that you live."
That's why Kathy's characters ride bikes along dirt paths, fall in love in summer, argue and have cozy chats with parents and friends, sometimes have trouble sleeping, and walk on beaches and city streets.
Kathy says, "It's also fun, as a writer, to imagine yourself into situations unlike your own." That's what she did when she wrote about Marie-Claire living through a smallpox epidemic in Montreal in 1885, and Mr. Elliot deciding as a grandfather that it's time he learned to read.
Kathy sorted mail, waited tables, and taught school before finally figuring out what she really wanted to do was write - everything from picture books to young adult novels, from biography to historical fiction. Readers never know what kind of book to expect from her next!
Kathy has served as Writer-in-Residence for several library systems in southern Ontario and has led writing workshops all across Canada.
Kathy is the mother of two grown children, who inspired some of her earliest books. She also has two grown stepdaughters and five grandchildren. If she's out buying them a present, chances are it's in a bookstore she'll be shopping. Of course!
