Caroline

Woodward

About the Author

A West Caroline Woodward grew up on a Peace River farm in the
northeast region of British Columbia without electricity or

Coast
plumbing. No electric lights, no flushing toilets, no cell
phones, no TVs, no easy to use microwaves or stoves or cozy
heaters. There were hundreds of acres to explore though,

Summer and horses to ride to the riverbanks and chickens to look

Email the Author:
caroline_woodward@rocketmail.c
om
Author’s Website:
www.carolinewoodward.ca
after and little calves to feed and a big vegetable garden to
grow and wild berries to pick. The winters were long and
cold except for the welcome chinooks and the summers
were warm with long hours of daylight because it was so far
north.
Now, after a lot of adventures working with all kinds of
interesting people, young and old and in-between, in Sri
Lanka, India, Switzerland, and Canada, and running a village
bookstore in New Denver, B.C. and organizing all sorts of
festivals and teaching creative writing to all kinds of
interesting people, young and old and in-between, Caroline is
a lighthouse keeper and a writer near Tofino, B.C.
How the Author Began Writing
Caroline began her career as a writer in high school when
she worked as a reporter for the Alaska Highway News in
Fort St. John for two years and was paid for her writing
just like adult reporters. She wrote poems, stories and
plays, starring her friends, in elementary school. Caroline
loves reading and listening to stories since as far back as
she can remember. (I would like to be able to paint
beautiful pictures too but the sad truth is, I’m just not
that good at it. Author’s true confession. Signed, C.H.
Woodward) She sticks to telling stories and enjoys working
with wonderful artists when it comes to creating picture
books!

Author’s
Writing Tip:
Keep a journal of your thoughts and
write something in it every day,
maybe something you saw on the way
to school. Or count the number of
birds you saw on a telephone line and
imagine if those birds could talk.
What would they say to each other?
Write to figure things out for
yourself. Write so you don’t forget
the first time you ever saw snow.
Write to make your friends laugh. If
you like to draw too, go ahead and
make drawings to show what you saw
or wondered about or imagined might
be happening!
2019-2020
www.chocolatelilyawards.com
About the Book (and how it
came to be)
One day, Harbour Publishing, the book publisher who has
published Caroline’s last two books for adults, emailed her
some beautiful pictures of children playing and exploring
the beaches and docks and the ocean. The paintings were so
realistic that she thought they were photographs at first.
So there she was living with her husband and their dog on a
tiny island called Lennard Island looking at wonderful
paintings done by a Salt Spring Island painter called Carol
Evans and her publisher asked if she would think about
writing a rhyming story to go with the paintings! “Yes!” she
said, immediately, because she loved the paintings so much.
After many experiments with words and putting the
paintings in the right order and thinking that the best
chorus to repeat through the book would be, ‘To the sea, to
the sea, who or what waits here for me?’ This is because
when I was in elementary school, I listened to a big seashell
our teacher, who was from Burnaby, brought to our little
two-room school in the north. ‘Woosh, swish, woosh!’ I heard
inside the shell and to me this was the sound of the sea and
I always wanted to go there to hear that sound of the
waves on the shore and hear the gulls and eagles and smell
the salty, damp air and see the tall trees we didn’t have up
north and see and smell and touch all the different ferns
and flowers too.
What’s Next?
I’m working on a picture book about a smart and brave
lighthouse cat and I’m also finishing a novel for brave and
smart teenagers who are on a solar-powered boat in the
North Pacific Ocean set in 2060.
Other Books by the Author
Singing Away the Dark (Simply Read Books: 2010)
nominated for a Chocolate Lily Award
The Village of Many Hats (Oolichan Books: 2012) for
readers between 8-11 years of age.