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

I want to acknowledge the artist who produced the cover for my latest book, the YA novel Into the Wind (published by Acorn Press and distributed by Nimbus Publishing).

That artist is Lio Lo, who lives in Nova Scotia after immigrating to Canada from Taiwan. She read the original manuscript and came up with a painting to depict the book’s opening scene. That artwork was only slightly modified to become the cover of the book.

Le Courrier de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the French-language paper for Nova Scotia, has reprinted the story originally published by the PEI newspaper, La Voix acadienne.

Un grand merci à ces deux journaux.

Here is the link.

Le nouveau roman de John Johnston mise sur le caractère universel de la déportation – Le 13 novembre 2023 (lecourrier.com)

Here is the article about my latest book prepared by Jacinthe Laforest for the Sept. 20, 2023 issue of the PEI’s French-language paper, La Voix acadienne.