Anita Daher is tickled

MEDIA RELEASE

ANITA DAHER

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Former Sault  author having very good year

Award nomination and three books for Anita Daher
 
In 1995 Anita Daher left a career in aviation in favour of writing for children. 

She knew her path would be a long one, but she was undeterred. 

Now, in 13 years later, she’s reached a very nice place in that path. 

She has two new books out this spring, with another due out this fall. 

She’s also been named finalist for the 2007 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, and has been selected as one of 29 authors who will tour Canada during the TD Canada Trust Canada Book Week in November.
 
Daher is tickled by the John Hirsch nomination. 

“I love it that for the first time in my life I have lived long enough in a place to be part of the community.  I am proud to be part of the Manitoba writing community.”
 
She has moved 17 times in her life, as a child, and as an adult, living in places like Summerside, PEI, Baker Lake, NU, Moose Jaw, SK, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, and Yellowknife, NT. 

She lived in Sault Ste. Marie from 2001-2004, and was very active in the arts community. 

In Manitoba she’s lived in Brandon, Thompson, Lynn Lake, Churchill, and now Winnipeg. 

She says her husband was born and raised in Winnipeg , and that this is where they will most likely stay.
 
To satisfy her itch to travel, however, she often sets her books in northern locations, and then hops an airplane, bus, or Volkswagen camper van to conduct extensive research.
 
“I felt it was important to visit Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories when I was researching Racing for Diamonds,” she says, “as the small historical centre there has materials concerning the Canol Trail that aren’t available anywhere else in Canada; materials like transcripts from elders, photos, and even WWII Military documentary footage.”
 
Daher says that although she doesn’t make her adventure novels into history lessons, she gathers materials for use in classroom presentations after the books are published. 

These materials will come in handy during this year’s TD Canada Book Week tour. 

During the same week in November, authors will tour various parts of Canada.

Daher does not yet know where she will tour, but is up for the adventure.
 
About the books

Spider’s Song is a young adult psychological thriller set in Yellowknife, NT, published by Penguin. 

Stuck in Yellowknife with her crazy grandmother, AJ is one angry girl.

She's lonely, too, and her blog has become her main source of contact with the world.

It is there she reveals her innermost hurts-the absence of her mother, who has gone back to school, and of her father, who abandoned AJ when she was just a little girl; and the moving around she and her mom have had to do every few years for reasons she has never understood.

Then a festival is held in Yellowknife, and AJ is befriended by a travelling musician, a man she finds herself instantly drawn to.

Soon, she realizes that he may be her father. 

Or is he? 

Spider’s Song will be launched Thursday, April 26 at McNally Robinson, Grant Park.
 
Racing for Diamonds is a juvenile novel published by Orca, set along the Canol Trail in the Northwest Territories. 

What Jaz thinks of as an adventure, her mom and dad call trouble, but Jaz just can't seem to help herself.

When she joins the Junior Canadian Rangers and is teamed up with an annoying partner, she has no idea that all her new-found skills will soon be put to a life and death test. 

Racing for Diamonds will be launched Saturday April 28 at the Millennium Library.
 
Daher also has another young adult sports novel to be published this fall by Orca. 

It will be called Two Foot Punch, features the extreme sport of Parkour, and is set in Winnipeg’s Exchange district. 

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