Context for Kwong

It was a great experience, writing a biography of Larry Kwong, the star hockey player who was known as the "China Clipper" back in the day. (Click here for a link to my website's Biographies page and scroll down a little to read all about King Kwong.) Since then, I've been keeping up on the news about him. He's in his nineties, and there's still news about him, or connected to him.

Chad Soon, who made a film about Larry Kwong, is my major source for these news stories. He posted on Facebook this wonderful vintage photo of Kwong's father, Ng Shu Kwong. (When he ran a store in Vernon BC, Mr Ng put his given name Kwong on the sign. Many of his children later came to use Kwong as their family name.)

Chad Soon brought the photo to the attention of Larry Kwong's daughter, writing on Facebook:

Hi Kristina, Last weekend your grandfather was in the Vernon Winter Carnival parade! This poster was part of the museum's float which won Best Overall. The photo will now be displayed at City Hall. Also, your family will be included in a new museum exhibit called "Gold Mountain Dream," a joint project with the Royal BC Museum, from Oct. 16-Feb. 28.

Context is everything in biographical studies! It's terrific to see Larry Kwong's father celebrated as a "Prominent Businessman" from the history of the city of Vernon. And now I've got another reason to visit the Royal BC Museum in the fall, to see the exhibit.

Trudeau biography released from Five Rivers

Today my newest book has been released from Five Rivers Publishing. It is a biography of Canada's fifteenth prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. There's always something new to bring to a study of the life of such an active person. I'm particularly proud of pulling together so many moments in his life as an enthusiastic canoeist!

This book is my third from this expanding press based in Ontario, and either my thirty-first or thirty-third overall .. time to check and update my C.V.

Smashwords Sale Ends Soon!

We're at the last couple of days for the Smashwords sale of the ebook editions of my books from Five Rivers Publishing. If you're needing some good ebooks to read this summer, look here for not only my novel Tower in the Crooked Wood, and King Kwong (my biography of hockey hero Larry Kwong), but my biography of Pierre Trudeau that's due to be released in December.

It's always fun to have plenty of ebooks on a reader. When you go to the link, be sure to look at the other fine titles from Five Rivers too!

Smashwords Sale of My Books at Five Rivers

Another great ebook sale for this summer! Five Rivers Publishing has just announced a half-price sale of all their ebook titles on Smashwords, for the month of July. Time to load up on summer reading.
The ebooks on sale include my novel Tower in the Crooked Wood, which makes excellent summer reading as a novel short enough to read while you can still remember the beginning. Or if you're into print copies, it's a book slim enough to fit into your lunch bag or beach bag.

For those who are more sports oriented, my bio of hockey hero Larry Kwong will score. King Kwong is also available in print copies that fit neatly into a sports bag for moments when you're sitting around waiting for the game to start or your ride to get there.

Kobo Sale of my books at Five Rivers!

Five Rivers Publishing has announced a Kobo Sale. All their titles are being sold at 50% off during June 25 to 27. This is an excellent opportunity to pick up e-book copies of my two books at Five Rivers. One is my novel Tower in the Crooked Wood. The other is King Kwong the biography I wrote of Larry Kwong, the Canadian hockey hero. Here's a link to Five Rivers Publishing's announcement of the Kobo Sale. Don't miss it!

Trudeau Biography Announced!

Good news came today! My biography of Pierre Trudeau is scheduled for release from Five Rivers Publishing. They've got a great cover for it, one that fits well into their series Prime Ministers of Canada.

What can you say about a prime minister for whom suspending civil liberties with the War Measures Act wasn’t even his most controversial decision? At least, it wasn't to those folk who are still stuttering mad about his National Energy Program or White Paper on Indian Affairs, forty years later and counting. This book was fascinating to write! I hope that canoeists and outdoor enthusiasts will like the focus on Trudeau's wilderness interests.

Click here for a link to their listing. The book will be available December 1st,  2016, but orders can be taken now.

King Kwong reviewed in Vancouver Sun

Good news! My biography of Larry Kwong, King Kwong, was reviewed in the Vancouver Sun today by Stephen Hume! As he says in his August 5 column:

B.C. writer and self-described lifelong hockey fan Paula Johanson reminds us of the ephemeral nature of sports history in King Kwong, her marvellous little biography of the whirlwind on skates who blew out of the dusty interior 75 years ago.

Hume gives a little context for Larry Kwong's sports career, and adds:

...Just as many Canadian kids before and since, Larry discovered the pleasures of playing shinny with a frozen horse apple. One of the most charming hockey photos of the many Johanson unearthed for her book is one of Larry, his sister Betty and a couple of neighbour kids playing shinny outside the Vernon family store.
Like many another hockey kid, he wheedled skates out of his mom with a promise that when he was a real hockey player, he’d buy her a house.

It's important to note that most of the photos which Stephen Hume calls charming were "unearthed" by Chad Soon, many of which came from the private photo albums of Larry Kwong. That particular charming hockey photo was contributed by Larry Kwong's grown daughter from her own family album.

Hume goes on to say:

On March 13, 1948, he was called up by the Rangers for a game against Montreal Canadiens. They only played him for one shift — less than a minute — but the China Clipper had ended the era of whites-only hockey in the NHL.
Johanson’s book with Five Rivers Publishing is aimed at young adults but I doubt there’s a hockey fan who will be put off any more than Larry Kwong was by his nickname as he dashed up the ice to score the winning goal for the Smoke Eaters in that long-forgotten B.C. Championship of 1946.

You can read Stephen Hume's entire column here at this link.There's a bio note and a listing of some of his books on a page of Harbour Publishing's website.

Book Launch on Saturday June 27

Just a reminder that for people in and around Victoria, you are all invited to attend the book launch for three authors on Saturday June 27 at 3pm in Britannia Branch of the RC Legion at 780 Summit Ave. There's parking and good bus access. See you there!

-Dave Duncan will be launching his 50th fantasy novel, The Eye of Strife. If you are one of the many fans of his Omar books or his Apprentice series, you'll appreciate the review at this link.
As well, Dave is announcing the release of the omnibus edition of his historical fantasy trilogy The Adventures of Ivor, which you can read about at this link.

-Nowick Gray will be launching his mystery novel set in 1960s Ungava in Canada' North, Hunter's Daughter. He was interviewed here in a podcast: http://www.fiveriverspublishing.com/2015/04/michell-plested-interviews-nowick-gray.html
The novel has already had an excellent review: http://www.fiveriverspublishing.com/2015/06/5-stars-for-hunters-daughter-at.html

-Paula Johanson will be launching her 30th nonfiction book, King Kwong: Larry Kwong, the China Clipper who broke the NHL colour barrier. The publisher has a cheery article about this book on their website.
As well, Paula is launching the new edition of her fantasy novel Tower in the Crooked Wood, a newly-expanded edition from Five Rivers Publishing. There's another cheery article at this link.

Now available -- Tower in the Crooked Wood

Tower in the Crooked Wood
Five Rivers Publishing
ISBN 9781927400913 $12.99

eISBN 9781927400920 $4.99

available as a paperback or an e-book 

 -click here for a link to the publisher's website, where this book can be ordered-

-click here for a link to Kobo, where new customers are offered a $5 credit-

-click here for a link to Amazon-

They were stolen in the dark to work for a night and a day, building a tower for the wizard Krummholz on faraway Copper Island, in a place where the trees grow twisted in a poisoned bog. Some of the unwilling workers were returned bewildered, bruised and marked by whips — others died as the uncaring wizard called new workers to his tower. Now Jenia is the only one left of her family willing to leave her orchards and walk five hundred miles in search of her abductor, and the answers to questions burning inside her.
Why was she stolen out of the dark? What is wrong at the heart of the tower? And why does the magic twisting the very trees strike a strangely familiar note? All Jenia knows for sure is that she will not let herself be made a prisoner again, not by magic nor by force of arms. When a soldier tries to trap her in a lord's garden, and a village of gentle people tell her to give up her hopeless quest, Jenia has to choose where to place her trust: in friends, in strength, or in the cunning in her own two hands.
And then the wizard Krummholz sends his call out again….

Review of Tower

A wealth of realistic detail lends authenticity to this engrossing tale of a young arborist, “a scholar of trees.” Paula Johanson has created a magical alternative world both mythic in feel, and hauntingly evocative of our own.

— Eileen Kernaghan, author of The Snow Queen

New edition of Tower in the Crooked Wood -- released today!

Just a quick note to be enthusiastic about today's release of the new edition of my novel Tower in the Crooked Wood, from Five Rivers Publishing. You can read about it here!

Review of Tower in the Crooked Wood

It was so good on May 25 to see Ursula Pflug posting on Facebook a link to her review of the first edition of Tower in the Crooked Wood back in 2009 for the Peterborough Examiner. That review is excerpted below. The new edition of Tower in the Crooked Wood is due for release from Five Rivers Publishing in early June 2015!      

Tower in the Crooked Wood is a female lead tale set, as are so many fantasy novels, in a vaguely medieval forested land. High Fantasy has changed in the decades since the publication of Tolkien's LOTR trilogy; contemporary readers want to know more about the lives of ordinary folk: what they eat, what they wear, how they raise their children and make a living.
Johanson is brilliant at this kind of local colour. For example, in her travels Jenia relies on her training as an arborist to rehabilitate a martial lord's neglected orchard and later to recognize the dark magic afoot in the crooked wood. The trees within are not what trees should be, and because of it Jenia recognizes that she is close to her goal.
As in all the best quest novels, Jenia learns about herself, about others, and about her place in the world. Just like in real life, work, friendship and storytelling are important parts of Johanson's beautifully built world. The author is an avid kayaker and her love and knowledge of the outdoors imbues her narrative with a rich verisimilitude. As well, the reader will remember spunky, sympathetically drawn Jenia for a long time.

Ursula Pflug is author of the novel Green Music and the story collection After The Fires. Visit her on the web at: http://ursulapflug.ca

King Kwong

My thirtieth book is now available in in print and as an e-book from Five Rivers Publishing. It's a very Canadian story -- the biography of a Canadian hockey player who was an international star in several leagues. The cover art shows a photo of Larry Kwong when he was playing for a team in Nanaimo, BC.

King Kwong: Larry Kwong, the China Clipper who broke the NHL colour barrier
Five Rivers Publishing 2015
ISBN: 9781927400753 $11.99

eISBN: 9781927400760 $4.99

Available as a paperback and an e-book
Includes: black & white photographs, Timeline, References.
 -click here for a link to the publisher's website, where this book can be ordered-

or, click here for a link to Kobo, with a $5 credit for new customers
or, a link to Amazon

Chad Soon, Director of the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives and Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame, says of the biography:

Author Paula Johanson brings justice to Kwong’s extraordinary life.  All the elements of classic fiction are here, and yet this is riveting history. We follow the ultimate long shot as he chases the 'impossible'…and triggers a shift in his society.