Well, we’ve been as busy as that hive of bees on the roof of the CBC Mothership, by golly—buzzing here and there in great swarms to prepare our first book!

It’s called This is Edville, and as you can see from this cover shot, it’s very smart-looking, indeed. The design is by our dear office intern, Gladiola, who went to art school years ago. Dick promised her a decent letter of reference if she came up with something special. And you can see that she has. But now we’re thinking we can’t do without her and we may actually have to put her on the payroll.

And in case you don’t recognize it right away, that tangle of trees in the photo is on Lake Road—more or less across from the abandoned school bus (one of Edville’s most identifiable landmarks, I think you’ll agree). The Bingles’ youngest, Annie, took that in February, when the sunset was cutting into the birch. Isn’t it just lovely? She definitely has an eye.

So This is Edville is what they call a “curated collection.” Which basically means you take a good hard look at all of the words and paragraphs you’ve been piling up over the years, and you pick out the good stuff, and you organize it “thematically,” and you get some bigshot to write a “Foreword” saying how literary and important it all is. Then you edit out as many of the typos as you can lay eyes on, and you “package” it all up nice and blast it out to the unsuspecting reading public.

Now if you want to order the book for yourself or make a nice gift of it, we’d be just tickled. But you’re under no obligation. If the past couple of years have taught me anything, it’s that having someone tell me what to read is something I just cannot abide. — Edna