This afternoon I received an email from someone I didn’t know. Or at least didn’t remember. His name was Jason and he claimed we’d met at a party some weeks ago. I had only the foggiest recollection of this (sorry, Jason!)
Turns out he’s a producer with CBC news. They were doing a piece on the 30th anniversary of Owl and Chickadee magazines, and they wanted a comment from a children’s writer, preferably one who was a fan as a kid.
Okay, I thought, I was crazy about those magazines. No problem. So I called Jason and he said, “Can you be ready to do an on-camera interview in about an hour?”
No, I thought.
“Yes,” I said.
Sixty minutes later, I met Andrew Nichols on a park bench and gave him the lowdown on the how-slash-why I loved Chickadee and Owl. (It also made me recall Ranger Rick and Cricket. Remember them? I was a fiend. I had subscriptions to all four).
Anyway, it’ll be on the local CBC news here in Toronto, “sometime between 5 and 6:30pm tomorrow,” which couldn’t be more vague. But it’s hard to blame them. Television is clearly a medium that flies by the seat of its pants.
PS: Happy 30th, Chickadee & Owl! Thanks for all the years of fun, and here’s to thirty more!
