Scoop and Scandal :: Kirsten Koza

Scoop & Scandal August 2008, Storm Chasing
(Kirsten is now an official member of the Tornado Club after seeing her 1st tornado in Nebraska!)

Kirsten is hoping to find some adventurous (fun, normal-ish as in not psychotic, eccentric is great though) trip partners to storm chase in the USA, August 24th-30th 2008 (and if you can't make that, again in April/May 2009) with Ron Gravelle, an Environment Canada NET controller, storm predictor, forecaster and certified chaser in both Canada and the USA. He is 1, of only 2 Canadians, to own Baron Threat Net and has seen 71 tornadoes. You might have seen Ron's video footage on CNN, or other projects on Discovery channel. The next departure date is August 24th 2008 (1 week tour). Airport pick-up is a possibility (from both Toronto Canada, or Tornado Alley USA). On my first week of storm chasing we crossed 17 states Click here to see photos from week-one of the chase and on the 2nd week Click here to see week-two storm chase images we crossed 14 states -- I travelled 19,900 km's in two weeks! During both weeks, Ron took us to the most powerful storms in North America. He doesn't advertise and that empty backseat in his intercept vehicle, on my first chase, seemed like an awful waste of space. Ron's prices ($1800.00 USD) include all hotels, breakfast, water, snacks, gas/transportation. If you purchase Ron's twenty-dollar T-shirt he will knock $200.00 off the price. If you share a room with a trip partner he will knock another $200.00 off the price for you both. For more information you can also contact Ron from his website www.stormchasing.ca It's an awesome opportunity to learn how to read the skies and predict weather, which comes in very handy for future paddling, biking or camping trips -- or it can just be an opportunity to take breathtaking photographs, on what has to be one of the most-ultimate road trips out there! Good bladder control and love of laughter are beneficial traits to the chaser. And yes, it is kind of like "Twister" without the flying cows.

Checking out the locals! Kirsten test drives 3 adventure tours -- in Romania, Peru and Guatemala -- to see if they live up to the adventure in their name. Click here to read Kirsten's article which is on page 3 & 4 of Leap Local news for travellers (best to use inside arrows to turn the pages).

Kirsten is home from kayaking where the alligators swim. Biggest gator count was 79 in one day!

Kirsten's highly amusing article, 17 days in Peru with 10 intrepid internet strangers can be read online by clicking here DreamScapes Travel & Lifestyle Magazine pages 38-43.

Kirsten found five gal-pal travel partners to go caving, kayaking and volcano-ing, in Guatemala. Click here to see the Guatemala pics. Luisa Zea, el Gerente General at www.adventureguatemala.com in Guatemala proved herself an excellent guide! Check out the prices and awesome itinerary.

Thanks to Mountain Equipment Co-op's trip partners listing, Kirsten found 9 women who happily left their boyfriends, partners, pets, families, a tuba and one imaginary-tortoise at home, to go mountain biking for 17-days in Peru. Click here for Peru pics. This mercury-mad-adventure started in Lima, then headed down the Pacific coast to Nasca for sand boarding on the highest dunes in the world, a flight over the mysterious Nasca Lines and some accidental handling of 2000-year-old human remains. Then over to Arequipa, up Misti Volcano, down into the Colca Canyon (where they ended up surprise guests inside a bullring with ten bulls and no matador. Oh, he was there but he was boozing it up outside the bullring). Then they gasped and barfed their way up to Puno, Lake Titicaca, Cusco, through the Sacred valley of the Incas, Santa Maria Jungle, Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, through cloud forests and all the while frequently sampling the leaves of coca plantations. Click to see the itinerary that their guide, Saul Ceron, designed for his favourite "chicas" at his Peruvian company Peru Adventures Tours.

Kirsten's new suspenseful comedy Meet the ~~Teacher~~ Creature received a week workshop at Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover. At the end of the process was the first public reading of the play.

The co-host of Daytime TV was laughing when she interviewed Kirsten about "Lost in Moscow". It's something about that Soviet summer camp rectal-thermometer. It may be funny now when looking back on being forgotten in public with a rectal thermometer sticking out of one's bum---but it wasn't funny at the time

Kirsten donned her boxing gloves on the current events debate show, CTV's Final Round.

Radio Canada International, CBC recently reviewed Kirsten’s book “Lost in Moscow”. The host asked the book critic: “Is the book really that funny?”
And the critic (Geeta Nadkarni) replied:“Actually Mark, it IS. I wasn't sure at all when I first picked it up-- I thought, Gosh, how enjoyable a read could a glorified 'what I did last summer' type book be. Boy was I wrong. Kirsten Koza has an unusual gift. She's got this wacky sense of humour that completely caught me off guard. And it's very constant throughout the book- it doesn't just fade in and out.” Click here to read more of the review…

Kirsten survived being tattooed by Mokomae and riding her mountain bike over the volcanoes and past the monolithic stone heads that adorn Easter Island, in 2006. You can see photos and read right here, right now, about Kirsten's haphazard undertakings in her article Drinking & Riding on Rapa Nui which appeared in OUTPOST magazine.

More Reviews and Interviews about Lost in Moscow both hilarious and great:

NewCanadian Magazine said, "Some writers are famous for writing love poetry---Pablo Neruda, for instance. Others, like Scott Adams, have managed to pin to the page the preposterousness of corporate America. Rohinton Mistry is known for his poignant portraits of Mumbai; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle changed the face of detective novels by creating Sherlock Holmes. But no one can describe an unfamiliar bathroom quite like Kirsten Koza." They also declared, "Lost in Moscow: A Brat in the USSR is an excellent read. Touted by its publishers as 'a book about children, but certainly not for children', it is light, uproariously funny and will leave you feeling 10 years younger. From Russia with love---and lots of laughter!" Review by Geeta Nadkarni.

Uptown Magazine: Calls, "Lost in Moscow", very funny. They say, Koza winningly writes from the perspective of a teenage girl...This is a really fun book. Koza, who has a degree in theatre, knows how to tell a story.

Winnipeg Free Press: dubs "Lost in Moscow" a chatty, funny memoir. They say, Koza achieves that authentic-sounding pre-teen voice found in the better novels for young adult readers. They do appropriately mention later on that---The text is sprinkled with some four-letter words, references to an awkward understanding of sexuality and one underage drinking incident. But they recommend that it is fun to read and that it may well still be enjoyed by the younger set.

CBC’s Sounds Like Canada: Click here to hear Kirsten interviewed on Sounds Like Canada. Kirsten’s parents were not overly delighted that she basically stated on national radio that the reason they sent her to Soviet Summer camp for the whole summer was to benefit their sex-life...you see, their bedroom was next to Kirsten's childhood room.

CHRY’s Bound & Covered: Hear Sandra Polifroni say to Kirsten “You are like Judy Bloom on acid!” To catch this uproarious interview click here. Courtesy Sandra Polifroni, host/contributor CHRY radio and PhD student, York University.

In The Hills, a classy magazine that is delivered to all the people who are lucky enough to live in the hills, just wrote about Kirsten’s sweaty little hands in their winter edition. They said, Lost in Moscow is a funny and fascinating look at the Western World’s bogeyman of the day—communism—through the fresh eyes of a child. Click here to read the article which appears courtesy of the magazine and the reviewer, Tracey Fockler.

Prairie Books Now, interviewed Kirsten about "Lost in Moscow; A Brat in the USSR" in their piece titled "FORGET WEENIE ROASTS , an 11-year-old camps out in Moscow." Kirsten actually said in this interview at one point "You can't spank me now!" The article has been supplied courtesy of Prairie Books Now and Polly Washburn.

The Georgina Advocate used the word “turd” which was a first for this newspaper according to its managing editor. The best quote from this review has to be “Lost In Moscow -- A Brat In The USSR, is a delightful -- if occasionally scatological romp-- begging for a screenplay”. The article is riddled with hilarious tidbits.

Jeffrey Simpson interviewed Kirsten for Nova Scotia’s Chronicle Herald. (Click here to read about Kirsten’s Grandma the “avid Communist” and “whole boiled tongue”!

Tough Drum Magazine did a 3-page piece (see page 1, 2, 3 or text only) on Lost in Moscow. This youthful edgy magazine used the word “ethnographical” in the first sentence of the article and Kirsten had to apparently look in her Oxford Concise to verify she knew the meaning.

Teachers and Librarians (public school, high school & university) allow Kirsten to talk to their students. Kirsten has read and spoken at the following schools:

Sutton Public School, Ontario (grades 5&6)
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia (third-year BA’s)
Westdale Secondary School, Hamilton ON (grade 9)
Beaverton Public School, Ontario (grades 4-8)
Peter Gzowski Library, Ontario
Black River Public School, Ontario
St. Bernadette Catholic School, Ontario
R.L Graham Public School, Ontario (ages 10-11)
Princess Margaret Public School, Ontario (4-8 but only the good grade 8’s)
Credit View Public School, Ontario (grades 4-7)

If you are interested in having Kirsten talk to your students about how a journal she kept when she was 11-years-old allowed her to write a book as an adult (or practically anything else), please email to see when she is going to be in your province.

Highlights from Past Issues:

Lost in Moscow had 3 vodka-sodden, jam-packed, launches in Spring 2005 at: Nicholas Hoare Books in Toronto, The Book Room in Halifax and Great Books on Main in Newmarket.

Kirsten read about being left in public, with a thermometer sticking out of her bare bum, at The Gallery on High’s literacy awareness event, titled Morphed By Literacy, Reading Should be Like Sex and Chocolate

Canada’s BookExpo: The Marketing Director of Turnstone Press said Kirsten was signing books at a rate of 50 copies in 15 minutes. He said it was a record. Of course the fact that not one of Kirsten’s autographs looked even remotely like her name was also astounding.

Kirsten wants to thank Academy Award Nominee Graham Greene for giving her rabbit ears behind her back on that sweltering day at The Gzowski Gala, which was captured by paparazzi and printed in the paper (Kirsten is relieved that everyone looked puffy and sweaty and not just her!)

Chatting with the staff and students of Princess Margaret Public School in Orangeville about Russian toilets and how much an author gets paid was entertaining for all. But dinner out in Orangeville at One99 with old school chums had Kirsten howling with laughter, especially when the four pals were reprimanded by an old lady….“I just wanted to tell you…you are VERY NOISY.” The old lady scolded and slipped away leaving the gals feeling like naughty teenagers once again.

The Peter Gzowski Library had Kirsten come read to a hundred students from Black River Public School and St. Bernadette Catholic School. A girl asked Kirsten if she felt bad about swearing in Lost in Moscow and Kirsten replied with a wink….”No. Do you feel bad when you swear?” And the girl said “No.”

Kirsten spoke to the students at R.L Graham Public School in Ontario for an hour and a half and was delighted by the unexpected gifts and card. A student shared her very bizarre Italian toilet experience from her trip to Italy last year. The girl was horrified by the fact that the toilet was co-ed but even more so by the fact that the seat of the toilet was on the floor. It wasn’t a hole in the ground; it was seat on the ground. This toilet was flushed in a very unique way. Two women with mops were standing by to give the bowl a swirl immediately after its use—what on earth is their job title—if anyone knows please email Kirsten.

Kirsten found her way to Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton, where the students kept her on the hot seat answering questions for over an hour and a half. They didn’t let her stop at just reading about the Moscow toilets but called out “parachute, parachute”. Kirsten tried to persuade them not to hear the parachute chapter due to the fact it takes twenty minutes to read. “Parachute, parachute” was her answer. She obliged and sincerely hopes the teachers didn’t mind the odd four-letter word. Kirsten was so delighted with the fabulous, jewelled East Indian bookmark, heady scented candles & handmade card that the students gave her that she really didn’t mind that she couldn’t find highway 403 for twenty five minutes after departing the school. Yes, Kirsten was Lost in Hamilton.

Most recently Kirsten had the pleasure of reading/speaking with the grade sevens and eights at Holy Family School in Bolton. A grade seven boy while rifling the pages of Lost in Moscow (looking probably for bad words) was astoundingly adept at finding the chapter titled, The Kids from the USA are Sex Maniacs. But the question that made Kirsten’s day was when another boy asked “when you got in trouble in Russia, did you get the whippin’s?”--- In fact none of the Canadian teens ever received the whippin’s in the USSR the summer of 1977. But driving up the highway 400 on her way back to Lake Simcoe this boy’s question made Kirsten realize that it was a really good thing that her parents didn’t send her to summer camp in Singapore. For certain then, when chewing illegal gum, the Canadian kids probably would have had stinging bottoms due to all the canings.

A visit to the students at Credit View Public School was of course a must since this school is in Lost in Moscow whether it wants to be or not. A student recounted his toilet experiences in India and with glee he painted images of green slime and facilities without doors. Kids that Kirsten went to school with now have their kids in Credit View and KK was told that her name is still on public speaking trophies there. Speaking of which Kirsten received this incredibly wild and amazing email not long ago:

Speech About Bees

Hello Kirsten

Some thirty years ago you visited Floradale Junior
Public School in Mississauga, Ontario and gave a
speech in a regional finals. You won the competition
with your speech on bees, and I recall your remark
about some male bees, likening them to "playboys" gave
the audience quite a roar.

I am sorry to have missed your Lost in Moscow launch
over the weekend. I travel extensively myself and have
written some personal adventure stories. It would be a
pleasure to read about your travels in Moscow.

We have never met, yet I never forgot the name of the
winner nor the topic of her speech.

Craig Rowland
Mississauga, Ontario

Lost in Moscow had a very successful launch on March 6 2005 at Nicholas Hoare Books in Toronto with a hundred people in attendance plus vodka and caviar for all. Rumour has it Kirsten regrets her last two shots of vodka.

Kirsten had lunch with a producer from CBC’s Canada Reads on March 12. Restaurant was his choice so when Kirsten ended up crunching down on something suspicious she couldn’t say anything. Instead in mild horror she removed the cockroach from her mouth and hid it under her butter chicken. The food however was great and Kirsten will return.

Turnstone Press flew Kirsten to Halifax, Nova Scotia for the Maritime launch of Lost in Moscow at The Book Room. Did you know that’s the oldest bookstore in Canada? Kirsten read about a Moscow public toilet and found it to be an across-the-boards bonding-experience when an Engineering Professor she’d never met (a Rhodes Scholar no less) flew across the store after the reading to share his very own horrifying European toilet experience with Kirsten.

While in Halifax, Dalhousie University allowed Kirsten to come back and talk to the Theatre Department’s 3rd years. When students asked her what had changed most since she graduated in 1988, she replied, "We used to chain smoke during classes… and our professors got drunk and threw chairs at us." Some things actually do change.

April 2nd, Newmarket Ontario's Great Books on Main had a dynamite jam-packed launch party for Lost in Moscow despite horrendous weather. Even media turned out for the vodka and caviar bash and all attendees were greeted with ice, snow, hail and wind on their white-knuckle drive home.

In April Kirsten read and talked to the grade 4’s through 8 at Beaverton Public School. Her favourite 2 questions asked by the students were. “If they couldn’t own houses in the USSR---what did they live in?” And “Have you ever been to Pennsylvania?” Kirsten answered politely, “No, why have you?” The student responded, “No.” Kirsten was surprised that the teachers were engaging in topics from her book like “Sex” (because they’d just finished teaching a section on sex-ed) and “Vodka” (because they’d just done lessons with the students on alcohol abuse).