Featured Author: Chris McMahen
 
Bibliography at Orca
Klutzhood: Arlo thinks his mother is crazy for taking a job in a small town, far away from his old home and his good friends. And to make matters worse, the students at his new school are crazy—hockey crazy. Broken windows in the classrooms, angry ants in the hallways, bicycles in the library and monsters in the air ducts—can East Bend Elementary survive Arlo? And will Arlo survive East Bend?
Interview
Why do you write, and why children's books? This is an excellent question, and one which I contemplate frequently. For one, it's a great excuse for not mowing the lawn. How can anyone possibly ask you to mow the lawn or perform any other menial household chore when you are in the middle of creating a potential masterpiece? This is reason enough for taking up writing.
And why children's books? I am surrounded by young readers in my day job as a teacher-librarian, so it just seemed natural to write for a young audience. I do also write for an older audience, as well, so one of the challenges I face is juggling my time between these two branches of the writing road. Writing for adults gives me yet another excuse for not mowing the lawn.
What is your favorite children's book? This is an incredibly difficult question to answer. As a teacher-librarian, I get to read a multitude of great books. But if a nine hundred pound gorilla pinned me to the ground and demanded one title of my very favorite book, first of all, I'd be impressed that a gorilla could talk. Second of all, I'd tell the gorilla that David Macaulay's Black and White is a book I find endlessly fascinating.
What are you working on now? Currently, I'm working on a story which involves a billion or so bloodthirsty mosquitoes. It is based upon a recent trip I took to a park just east of Edmonton. I've never considered writing in the horror genre before, but that place was downright scary!
What are you reading now? Kenneth Oppel's Airborn. I meant to read it long ago, but somehow it never happened. His Silverwing series is one of my s, although I didn't mention this to the nine hundred pound gorilla.
What is your favorite (or funniest) childhood memory?I'm not sure if it's one of my favorite or funniest memories, but it was vivid enough to end up as a scene in Klutzhood. For a few years, I attended a boys' private school in Victoria. The building had a long hallway from one end of the school to the other. After school one day, two boys dared each other to ride their bikes down the hall from end to end. The janitor ended up catching them, and they received a very public punishment at a school assembly. After that experience, whenever I'm in my school on days when students aren't in session, I make a point of riding my bike through the front door and into the hall.
Another memory I used in the book was being a novice hockey player, although I was the age of thirty at the time. I grew up in Victoria and never really skated much, although I did play plenty of road hockey. When I moved to Armstrong, B.C., friend of mine asked me to come out to play in a pickup game held late, late, late every Thursday night at our local arena. The group was called the Golden Agers Hockey Sanatorium, and it was made up of people who just wanted to go out and have a very informal game of hockey. There were definitely no N.H.L. scouts in attendance. Arlo's experiences in Klutzhood are very similar to mine as he, quite literally, hit the ice. The first goal I ever scored was just like Arlo's—like a curling shot that barely crossed the goal line.
What are the best and worst things about writing books? The worst thing would be the rejection letters you get when publishers don't want the masterpiece of perfection you have created. The second worst thing is the taste of the glue on the envelopes when you're sending out manuscripts.
The best thing is hard to pick. If that nine hundred pound gorilla made a return visit and pinned me to the ground, demanding to know the best thing about writing books, I would probably complement him or her on having a broad vocabulary, especially for a gorilla. Then, I would tell the gorilla that I get a genuine thrill out of delving into each stage of the creative process in writing a book. From the initial spark of an idea right through to the final editing process, I'm really intrigued by the potential for developing and improving the story.
What's the funniest or most interesting reader response you've ever had? One of the characters in my first book, Buddy Concrackle's Amazing Adventure, was a lawn ornament salesman. One day, I came home from work to find my lawn littered with all kinds of lawn ornaments, including pink flamingoes, plastic pigs, and an old toilet. I'm sure my neighbours were extremely envious.
What other hobbies do you have? When I'm not writing, working, trying to get out of mowing the lawn, and doing other important things in my life, I like to have a little fun slopping clay around. I have a pottery wheel which sometimes accidentally flicks globs of wet clay all over the basement walls. This is completely the fault of the pottery wheel and is no reflection upon my own ability. My personal philosophy with pottery is that symmetry is highly overrated. I work from the Japanese principle of Wabi Sabi– the art of imperfection. In addition to very warped pots and plates, I occasionally do small sculptures. I've included a photo of a self-portrait done in clay. The mask's expression of "baffled amazement" clearly reflects the author's prevalent state of mind.
Biography
Chris McMahen is an elementary school teacher-librarian living near Armstrong, British Columbia. When he's not busy writing, teaching or spending time with his family, he can be found cycling the back roads of the Spallumcheen Valley or making peculiar pottery. Klutzhood is his second novel for children.
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