Plain words, uncommon sense
Today was a day of tap dance. I have a class on Sundays that I take with the venerable Jim Hibbard. The class this morning was fantastic. Then this evening I attended a fundraiser and “thank you” dinner for the great Lynn Dally of Jazz Tap Ensemble.
Now here’s a little Fred Astaire for you to watch. I love this number.
Friday.
I had beer at lunch.
This makes for a good Friday.
I also was pointed towards Chocomap.com.
It is never too late in the day to drool over the chocolatey goodness that is a Google map indicating all sources of heavenly bites in my neighbourhood (as if I don’t know them already).
But it’s not all beer and chocolate.
I attended the SFU, Master of Publishing, Magazine Fair this afternoon.
Three magazine proposals were on tap, complete with trade-fair booths featuring business plans, schwag, bubbly and buttons. There were short presentations from the groups: Traffic, a mag for Vancouverites in transit; TBSP, a foodie mag for those of us who like messy kitchens, playing with our food and are just on this side of hip, “this is not your mother’s food & wine magazine”; and last but not least and online only mag, jibe.ca (I was paying attention but the correct name eludes me). Jibe is an entertainment filter–the best source for “have you seen that video? that article? that photo?”.
Geist magazine, Modern Dog, The Tyee were also in attendance with goodies, free mags and other promo pieces. I walked away with issue 63 of Geist, which features a fancy ad for SoMisguided.com (thank you Patricia and Siobhan).
P.S. Sio have you seen this?
This came firing over the transom this afternoon.
Books are hard. Watch the video.
I love it.
Canadians are notorious for our enjoyment of puns. Check out Social Signal’s technically sweet Valentine. I digg it.
Giles Slade, author of Made to Break, was on CNN last Sunday on “In The Money”.
Here’s a transcript of the segment:
http://ernestoche.blogspot.com/2007/02/romans-all-right.html
The stories we tell ourselves and others is how we make sense of the world.
In searching for who said the above quote I came across, “Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn’t be human beings at all” (Philip Pullman).
I was searching for the origins of these quotes in reference to Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods. Gaiman has written a book of stories, myths and legends that collide and at times are at war.
American Gods are the gods who have come to America in the minds of its immigrants. Odin, Easter, Ganesh, Anansi. The ancient gods are the left to their own devices, poised to disappeared as they are pushed out by America’s newest gods. The ones we make sacrifices to daily: TV, big cars, the internet, warfare in the name of liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
Both worlds become Shadow’s world. Shadow, who did time for assaulting his bank-robbing partners for cheating him of his share of the proceeds, who is hired by Wednesday to rally the old gods against the new, and Shadow, who represents our look into the shadows. Gaiman asks us to take a closer look at the things that sometimes catch the corner of our eye. The things that we hope not to be true, but deeply believe to exist.
As our protagonist, it is Shadow’s job to make sense of this world. To tell the story. To sort things out. To know under which cup the nut is, into which hand the coin drops.
I enjoyed this book.
Anansi Boys is still my favourite, maybe because I read it first. But American Gods is one of those novels that will hang in my mind like a remembered dream.
I wanted to write about the power of narrative, how it informs what we do, how we understand ourselves, our country, our beliefs. Instead of telling you my story, why don’t you read this one.
The fine folks at Random House have created BookLounge.ca, which I thought was fantastic from the beginning. It’s a bit of a virtual book club/library/aggregation of cool book things.
Today I received an email promoting new stuff on the site: podcasts, sneak peaks at upcoming publications, author interviews. It was an ok newsletter–clean design, easy to read. It’s a great way to remind me to check out the site. But what intrigued me to click through to the site was “Let our insiders give you a window into the publishing industry.” It’s a great set of blog posts from employees. The first is from Marion Garner, publisher of Vintage Canada, who writes about one of her titles being an Oprah pick, or “Oprahtunity” as she calls it.
Fun Stuff. Check out the site.
Finalists for the Writersí Trust Awards were announced today. The nominees include my picks: Rawi Hage, Kenneth J. Harvey, and Noah Richler.
The Writersí Trust Awards are one of the largest awards moneywise that fiction and non-fiction writers can receive. There are 8 awards in total and they will be presented on Wednesday, March 7, in Toronto at a gala-gala do.
Total prize money is $123,000. Bang zoom.
Quote: The press release says:
“This yearís nominated titles chronicle the richness of life in Canada and around the globe. The novels are set amidst Tokyoís vibrant nightlife, Lebanonís civil war, and Ireland during the calamitous Potato Famine. There are memoirs that take readers back to a 1930s Mennonite farming community, to the destabilization and eventual collapse of Yugoslavia, and to 1949, when a fearless young woman travelled on horseback from Quebec to the West Coast.”
Book lovers have the chance to win a set of this yearís nominated titles by visiting www.writerstrust.com. Goodness knows where on the site you go to find out how to enter. It’s a poorly designed site with a lot of images and crazy navigation.
If you want to enter, let me save you to the trouble of finding the details: To enter, email your name and address to info@writerstrust.com
More about the Awards
THE ROGERS WRITERSí TRUST FICTION PRIZE ($15,000)
Peter Behrens (Brooklin, Maine) for The Law of Dreams, published by House of Anansi Press
Rawi Hage (Montreal) for DeNiroís Game, published by House of Anansi Press ** I want Rawi to win. **
Catherine Hanrahan (Vancouver) for Lost Girls and Love Hotels, published by Viking Canada
Kenneth J. Harvey (Burnt Head, Newfoundland) for Inside, published by Random House Canada ** I want to read this book.**
Mary Lawson (Kingston-upon-Thames, United Kingdom) for The Other Side of the Bridge, published by Knopf Canada
THE NEREUS WRITERSí TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE ($15,000)
Charlotte Gray (Ottawa) for Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, published by HarperCollins Publishers: A Phyllis Bruce Book
Barbara Kingscote (Innisfail, Alberta) for Ride the Rising Wind: One Womanís Journey Across Canada, published by NeWest Press
Noah Richler (Toronto) for This Is My Country, Whatís Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada, published by McClelland & Stewart **Great event at the Vancouver Writers Festival. Go Noah. **
Dragan Todorovic (Coventry, United Kingdom) for The Book of Revenge: A Blues for Yugoslavia, published by Random House Canada
Rudy Wiebe (Edmonton) for Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, published by Knopf Canada
THE WRITERSí TRUST OF CANADA/McCLELLAND & STEWART JOURNEY PRIZE ($10,000)
(The Journey Prize recognizes the best short story or excerpt from a novel-in-progress by a new and developing writer.)
Heather Birrell (Toronto) for ìBriannaSusannaAlana,î published in The New Quarterly
Lee Henderson (Vancouver) for ìConjugation,î published in Border Crossings
Martin West (Calgary) for ìCretacea,î published in PRISM international
I am one of six lucky recipients of a CAN $500 Northern Voice (NV) travel bursary.
Here’s the NV post, which links to me and the other 5 recipients.
Here’s my original post requesting the busary for safe travel for Northern Voice attendees. If you have booze, come see me. No, I won’t drink it or take it away. I’ll just make sure that you have a taxi card to get you home safely.
The Evolution of Reading and Writing in the Networked Era
Wednesday February 21, 2007 at 5.00 pm
Room 3875, SFU Surrey Campus, 3rd floor Central City Tower
More details here.
Thinkubator, the SFU Master of Publishing’s website, announced this event. Bob Stein is the director of the Institute for the Future of the Book
Digitization and the Future of Canadian Publishing
Toronto, Canada — 20 & 21 March, 2007
Register by February 9 for only $75 + GST!
More details here
BookNet Canada, the publishing industry body that finally brought us point of sale data, is presenting this talk.
© 2024 So Misguided
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑