I was in Charlottesville, VA, last week to attend the latest annual meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society. I used to be a regular attendee between the 1980s and the early 2000s, and once served as its president.

This time round I was there as both a presenter (my topic and session are reproduced here) and as a past president that the society wanted to acknowledge as it nears its 50th anniversary. One photo here shows everyone in my session: chair Robin Mitchell and fellow presenters Sue Peabody and Patti Flinn. Another photo presents some of the leadership of the FCHS, past, present, and future.

Here is a list of six books I drew up the other day.

Best Books on the 18th-Century History of Louisbourg, Canada | Booklisti

I had not heard of the book-loving website booklisti.com until a couple of weeks ago.

What a pleasant surprise to find it has a nice presentation of my books!

Books by Author A.J.B. Johnston | Booklisti

This is not news, just a possibility.

But it will be great if it happens, so it’s a possibility I am hoping becomes a reality.

About a month ago, I received an email from a film production company expressing interest in turning one of my books into a film.

Wait, what?

Yeah, that’s right.

Since then, there have been more preliminary emails back and forth, and the production company has brought in another at their end to size up the potential transition of my pages to the screen.

How will it play out? I guess I’ll find out.

The book that is being considered for such an adaptation is Into the Wind: A Novel of Acadian Resilience (Acorn Press).

You write books because you hope they’ll be read.

Sometimes they are, sometimes not so much.

The ones on any author’s backlist generally just kind of fade away. Eventually, all but a lucky few, move to being out of print.

So, what a delightful surprise it is when someone tells you how much they enjoyed reading this or that book that you wrote a long time ago. This has happened to me a few times lately.

On Saturday, while at Carrefour Atlantic Emporium and the Puffin Gallery, the owner of the shop (Michel Levasseur) took the time to tell me how much he liked “Thomas, A Secret Life”. We then talked about that book and its central character (Thomas Pichon) for a while. It was great to hear that book had made such an impact. I shared that I am about 2/3 through writing the fourth and final book in the series.

Then on Sunday, I received an email from a gentleman I’ve never met who lives in Quebec City. He wanted me to know how much he admired two of my books — the one on religion at Louisbourg and the one about the 1758 siege — both of which he had read in their French translations. This again was a kind and generous act on his part, to let me know how much he enjoyed reading a couple of my books.

If anyone who reads this feel the same way about some book that they’ve read, by any author still living today, I suggest you let them know. It will likely make their day.

Today, I wrote to @PascaleStOnge_ & @FP_Champagne to tell them that that Canadian creators and publishers are counting on them to fix the Copyright Act & stop great Canadian content from disappearing. Please join me! #cdnpoli https://www.ivaluecanadianstories.ca/creators.php