Author: Monique (Page 26 of 123)

A limited number of signed collectors’ editions of Alice Munro’s Dear Life and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi have been printed on straw paper and are being sold for $250-500. The special sale is a campaign to demonstrate the versatility of straw paper developed by Second Harvest Paper in partnership with Canopy. At present, 50% of forests cut in North America currently become paper. This new straw paper contains only straw left over from grain harvesting and recycled paper, with no virgin forest materials used at all, and therefore no damage to our limited forest ecosystems.

Quote:
Press Release (Vancouver) Celebrated authors Alice Munro and Yann Martel have collaborated with award-winning environmental group Canopy to print collectors’ editions of their bestselling books Dear Life and Life of Pi. Printed specially on forest-saving paper made from straw rather than trees, the books highlight a viable solution to logging carbon-rich forests for paper. Published by Random House of Canada, a limited number of signed copies of each book will be available from these printings. All proceeds go towards Canopy’s continued forest conservation work and development of alternative paper sources.

“Future generations will only know bears, tigers, orangutans and caribou as fictional creatures unless we protect their habitat in the Boreal, tropical and temperate forests now,” said Yann Martel, after last week’s Oscars win by the film based on his novel. “Using straw paper for my book demonstrates that there are elegant solutions that keep the world’s towering trees standing.”

Canopy arranged the production of these rare special editions with Random House of Canada as part of their campaign to diversify the North American paper fibre basket. Kick-starting commercial-scale development of straw-based papers will significantly reduce the stress on endangered forests.

“Now more than at any other time in our history, we need to bring our intelligence and imagination to sustain our life support systems,” said Alice Munro. “With a pure passion and unwavering conviction Canopy has been working to protect the world’s forests and inspire innovation. This is exactly the kind of practical solution required.”

Both Alice Munro and Yann Martel, and their respective publishers, McClelland & Stewart and Knopf Canada, have worked closely with Canopy since 2000 when the organization first started its work to green the book publishing industry. At the time, no publisher was consistently printing on environmental papers.

“A decade ago Alice Munro and Yann Martel were amongst the first authors to work with Canopy and their publishers to curtail books being printed on paper from ancient and endangered forests,” said Nicole Rycroft, Canopy’s founder and executive director. “Today, they are yet again helping to pioneer solutions that will keep more than 800 million trees standing in North American forests every year.”

Every year millions of tonnes of wheat straw and flax straw, left over after the grain harvest in Canada, could be used to make commercial-quality paper. As of February 2013 Canopy’s ongoing market survey quantified an annual North American demand for more than 1 million tonnes of straw paper. The paper used in Alice Munro and Yann Martel’s titles is made from wheat straw, flax straw and recycled paper, and has half the ecological footprint of conventional paper. It is the product of a unique partnership that Canopy forged with paper producer Cascades Fine Paper, technical collaborators at Alberta Innovates, and printers Friesens and Webcom.

Signed special editions of Life of Pi will be available for purchase beginning March 6, 2013. Signed special editions of Dear Life will be available for distribution as of mid-April 2013, in time for Mother’s Day, but can be preordered today. Both books are available exclusively at canopyplanet.org.

Canopy is a not-for-profit environmental organization dedicated to protecting forests, species and climate. Canopy believes collaboration is the key and that businesses can be a powerful force for solutions, and work with more than 700 companies to help ensure their supply chains are sustainable. Canopy’s partners include Sprint, The New York Times, Random House, Hearst, Scholastic, and Lonely Planet. For more information, visit http://canopyplanet.org.

Congratulations to author Chad Pelley, winner of the inaugural Salon Fiction Prize.

[Press Release] Saint John, N.B., February 21, 2013. The Telegraph-Journal, New Brunswick’s provincial newspaper, telegraphjournal.com, is ecstatic to announce that Newfoundland-based author Chad Pelley has won the inaugural Salon Fiction Prize for his short story, Second Look at Nothing.’

Launched July 2012, the Salon Fiction Prize awards $1,000 for a previously unpublished work of Canadian short fiction. The winning piece is also published in the Telegraph-Journal’s weekend fine arts and culture section, Salon. Second Look at Nothing is running in the Feb. 23 issue of Salon.

Chad Pelley’s short story was selected from more than 100 entries from across Canada by an esteemed Atlantic Canadian jury empanelled for the new prize: Giller Prize-shortlisted short story writer Alexander MacLeod; Halifax-based Atlantic Poetry Prize-winner Sue Goyette; and Universite de Moncton professor Thomas Hodd.

Chad Pelley is a multi-award-winning writer, songwriter and photographer from St. John’s, Newfoundland. His debut novel, Away from Everywhere (Breakwater Books) was released in 2009, and his follow-up, Every Little Thing (Breakwater Books) hits bookshelves in March. Recipient of the Newfoundland and Labrador Art Council’s CBC Emerging Artist of the Year award, Pelley is president of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and runs the CanLit blog saltyink.com. See Chad Pelley’s author bio and book links on 49thShelf.com

About Salon
Published every Saturday in the Telegraph-Journal, Salon is home to some of the best arts and culture writing in Canada, honoured with both national and regional newspaper awards. As space and resources devoted to books continues to dwindle, and the CanLit landscape disappears from Canadian newspapers, Salon remains dedicated to supporting our nation’s writers and their words.

My last read of 2012 and it was written by friend and colleague Julie Wilson. A lovely end to a year of fine reading.

Source: jhgordonbooks.com
Also on the Globe and Mail’s top 100 books of 2012 list!

Seen Reading is a collection of microfictions written by Julie alongside literary voyeur spottings from her SeenReading.com heydays.

Quote: READER: Caucasian female, late 30s, with strawberry-blond hair, wearing brown skirt and lime-green blouse with sleeves rolled and buttoned at the elbow. Sunglasses sit in lap.

The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
(Anchor Canada, 2004)
p 157

On the opposite page is “Ends” a short (short) story about a couple sitting at opposite ends of a couch and one of them noticing all the little age marks of the other before noticing her own flaws. When did this happen?

The book itself is a beautiful little object worth keeping on a coffee table or bookshelf. The paper and production quality is lovely and the contents are witty, quirky and worth savouring.

Seen Reading
by Julie Wilson
Freehand Books

I joined author Annabel Lyon in a live chat today as part of the Vancouver Sun Book Club.

Annabel Lyon is the author of The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl.
Annabel Lyon’s Books on Amazon

Here are a few highlights from the chat with Annabel Lyon on The Sweet Girl

On how The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl work together
I was really drawn to Aristotle first and foremost, his intellect, and then I was stuck with the fact that he happened to be an ancient Greek – it was the philosophy that drew me first, the history second. But after I finished writing The Golden Mean, I knew my project was only half-finished. That was such a male book, but I wanted to look at the female world also.

Tips on writing dialogue
always, always, always read it aloud. That’s my first instruction to students. If it doesn’t sound natural aloud, it’s not going to read like natural dialogue. I also encourage students to make the dialogue do the work, and not rely on what are known as dialogue tags (she shouted menacingly, that kind of thing). Those are like stage directions, and for me they dilute the power of the line itself. And finally, in historical fiction, make sure your characters still sound like real people. I don’t think “Zounds, my liege, thou hast verily captured it” is nearly as good as “You got it,” even if you’re working with ancient characters.

In response to my question about routine in writing (whether for fiction, or in my case business writing)
Thanks for your question about routine, Monique. I’m not a big believer in the Romantic image of the writer–alone, suffering, pirate blouse in a garret somewhere, waiting for the muse. It’s a job, and I treat it like a job: dress professionally, go to the office, do your work. You wouldn’t procrastinate relentlessly if you were a lawyer or doctor or drywaller or barrista, and you shouldn’t let yourself do that as a writer, either. I like to compare creative writing to journalism, partly because my dad was a journalist, but partly also because there’s a huge overlap between the skill sets. A good non-fiction sentence and a good fiction sentence have a lot in common. A good opening to a short story and a good lede in a news story are playing on a lot of the same principles. And, similarly, I believe strongly that good creative writing can be taught, just as journalism can be taught. Inspiration, no, but craft, yes.

On factual references in the novel, in particular midwifery and stillbirths being buried with puppies
The puppies: yes, this was something I learned about on my trip to Greece. I was fortunate to travel with a university class from Carleton and U Winnipeg (I made friends with some academics, who let me tag along), and one of the things we got to do was learn about the work of Maria Liston, who teaches at Waterloo and also works at the American School in Athens. I joke that she could be the star of CSI: Ancient Athens, because her work focuses on things like bone remains. She can look at a bone and tell you what it is, how the person died, etc. She told us about her research into the remains of babies found in wells with puppies, and concluded that these were drops midwives used for babies who hadn’t survived. The puppies were one of those touches that was so bittersweet: awful, and yet you could imagine someone grieving the baby’s death and (in their belief system) wanting to send something cuddly with them, to keep them company. You can’t invent this stuff! And of course, as a fiction writer, you can’t pass it up either. I got her permission to use this.

On why I included The Sweet Girl in my Shoebox Project for Shelters package
Related to Golden Mean as a male world and The Sweet Girl as a female world, I’m participating in The Shoebox Project this year (final dropoff day is Monday!), where you put together a shoebox of gifts that are delivered to women in shelters. I felt that Pythias’ story was a good survival story, or at least showed how you need to keep your wits about you even when the world seems against you. So it’s included in my shoebox. http://www.shoeboxproject.com/

If you’re looking for a great gift this season for a reader then I highly recommend The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl. A combo pack or singles.

Related Links:
Annabel Lyon’s website
Published by Random House
Amazon.ca