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I had my first radio interview earlier this morning with the awesome Hal Anderson of Hal Anderson Mornings on CJOB Winnipeg. What a great guy! I was excited and a bit nervous about the whole thing – but then I felt totally relaxed during the actual interview. Hal was so easy to talk to – as easy-going and friendly as he sounds during his show.

It was so cool to share with Winnipeg and Manitoba listeners a bit about Lights! Curtains! Cows!. We even gave away a copy of the book on air to the first caller through. A young man named Jose won – I hope you enjoy the book, Jose. Thanks for calling in!

There’ve been a lot of exciting firsts to come along with my first book, and this is one of them. Thanks Hal for having me on your show!

The other day, it occured to me that since Lights! Curtains! Cows!, has an old-time prairie legend at its heart, a theme song with a folksy, country style is just what this book needed! I composed some lyrics, and then contacted my brother, Paul Shrofel, who is a professional musician and music producer. Paul and I have been collaborating on songs, musicals, plays and amateur radio shows since we were kids. So, in a few days of bouncing ideas back and forth, we came up with the upbeat song “The Legend of Cow Valley”. The song retells the story of Lights! Curtains! Cows! in a fun, folksy style with a rousing chorus of “Moos” that kids can sing along with. I love how it turned out and I hope you take a listen! You can find it on the Fun Stuff page of my site.

I’m thrilled to be able to finally say that Lights! Curtains! Cows!, my very first novel for young people, is finally here!  It seems like a long time from the moment I began to imagine the story, to it being accepted by James Lorimer & Company for publication, to its release date – part of that though is just being so excited (like the night before Christmas, but for months on end!).  I hope you will enjoy the story, and that it will make you laugh. It was fun to write, and I hope you find it fun to read!

To read more about the book itself, please click here.

I hope you’ll come back to my site to check out the latest news about this book, and upcoming books, too. I have another book for James Lorimer & Company’s Streetlights series in the works  – it comes out in Spring 2010. I’ll be posting more about it here as we get closer to the release date, so stop by again soon!

And book lovers – don’t forget to download and print the free bookmarks I made just for you! (They come in a sheet of 5 – I don’t know about you, but between having several books on the go at once, and the uncanny ability to misplace little things like bookmarks, I thought 5 was a good number!)