Two Poems by Robert Melançon

For the poetry-lovers out there, last weekend brought two pieces by Robert Melançon to readers of Maisonneuve. They're numbers 21 ("All the light is radiating from the lemons") and 25 ("We walk through streets we know"). If you click the link you get about 80% of them. Otherwise, plug plug plug plug, you can subscribe to the mag for $20/year. Enjoy.

The Citizen Aesthete: David Mason in the Post

Morning all, and happy Monday. Just a quick note for those of you who missed it this weekend: David Mason's The Pope's Bookbinder had a lovely write-up in this weekend's National Post. "The Pope’s Bookbinder strikes a fine balance between impressing with insider lore and welcoming the outsider," says Paul Franz: "The chatty digressions and omissions — sometimes hinting at truly salacious tales sealed up for the principals’ lifetimes — invite you to learn more."

And you're all officially invited to do so at any number of new and used/rare stores across the country. David's book is now available for sale both in person and online. And, of course, as Franz points out, they're for sale "at David Mason Books. Beware, though: collecting is habit-forming."

Caroline Adderson wins Gold Medal for Fiction at National Magazine Awards

Canadian Notes & Queries is very proud to announce that this year’s Gold Medal for Fiction at the National Magazine Awards went to Caroline Adderson for her story “Ellen-Celine, Celine-Ellen,” published in issue 86. The Silver Medal went to Patrick deWitt for “The Looking-Ahead Artist,” published in Brick; Lynn Coady also received honourable mention for “Dogs in Clothes” (Canadian Notes & Queries 85). CNQ was the only magazine to be recognized twice in the fiction category, while Caroline Adderson (who received further honourable mention for “I Feel Lousy,” published in Eighteen Bridges) was the only twice-recognized story writer.

The National Magazine Awards Foundation is a bilingual, not-for-profit institution whose mission is to recognize and promote excellence in the content and creation of Canadian print and digital publications through an annual program of awards and national publicity efforts. It presented the awards for its 36^th annual celebration at a gala in Toronto at The Carlu, hosted by Canadian actor Zaib Shaikh. Gold, Silver, and Honourable Mention awards were presented in 47 categories. This year the judges received over 2000 submissions from nearly 200 Canadian consumer magazines.

On behalf of Canadian Notes & Queries we would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to all award recipients. For subscription rates and information about the magazine please contact Tara Murphy at tmurphy@biblioasis.com. 

The Dark Reality of Evacuation: Sonia Tilson in the Ottawa Citizen

Sonia Tilson and editor
John Metcalf, at the Plan 99
Reading Series last Saturday.

"Sonia Tilson has always been in the word business," begins the profile that ran yesterday in Sonia's hometown paper. Of The Monkey Puzzle Tree, Sonia's debut that launched a week ago at David O'Meara's Plan 99 Reading Series, the Citizen says: "[it's] no soft sell. It is a well-written, clear-eyed look at the evacuation of small children from British cities during the Second World War." For more on Sonia and her novel, check out the profile here. And remember, if you're by Books on Beechwood this afternoon, Sonia's signing books as we speak! She's there till 3. Happy Saturday, folks. 

Phil Hall and Jay MillAr in Windsor TONIGHT!

Remember when we told you to mark your calendars in ink? Well, today you should be reading in big bold letters PHIL HALL & JAY MILLaR AT BIBLIOASIS.

They've each released a new book of innovative and excellent poetry, and tonight we celebrate those books with good food, good company, and of course good readings.

The event starts at 7pm at the Biblioasis bookshop (1520 Wyandotte St. E., Windsor), so make sure to be there.

RSVP on Facebook here!

Mia Couto wins 2013 Camões Prize for Literature

Mia Couto, author of
The Tuner of Silences
and winner of the
2013 Camões Prize.

Last night Mia Couto received the 2013 Camões Prize for Literature, one of the most prestigious international awards honoring the work of Portuguese language writers. The announcement was made in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The prize, awarded annually, was created in 1988 to distinguish writers of the Portuguese language whose work has contributed to the enrichment of the literary and cultural heritage of the Portuguese language. And valued at 100,000 euros, it is one of the richest prizes in the world, comparable to the Nobel.

The awarding jury included writers José Eduardo Agualusa and Joao Paulo Borges Coelho, journalist José Carlos Vasconcelos,  professor Clara Crabbé Rocha, critic Alcir Pécora and Ambassador and member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters Alberto da Costa e Silva.

Congratulations to Mia Couto from all of us at Biblioasis. For more information please visit the Portuguese American Journal.

Words to Go, Pause for Breath

Now on Words to Go:
Robyn Sarah's
Pause for Breath.

Words to Go host
Carole Giangrande.

Happy Friday, all. A parting shot of poetry for the weekend: the final instalment of Carole Giangrande's Words to Go features Biblioasis's own Robyn Sarah. Words to Go is a showcase for new writers and the spoken word, and was heard in over twenty countries around the world. Podcast 50 is a lovely feature, but a sad one, as this is the final podcast in the series. A big thank you to Carole for her dedication to poesy and storytelling. And a good weekend to you all!

Pharmasaviours

Well this is a first for us at the Bibliomanse: we're on a billboard. Check out this fantastic display of Colette Maitland's new short fiction collection, and our heartfelt thanks to Daryl McElwain, proprietor of the Gananoque Pharmasave.

"Colette Maitland's New Book Now Available"

Possibly the very first aisle-end display in Biblio-history. 

Turner I, Turner II

For those of you keeping very close tabs on life in the Bibliomanse, you'll know that we for the past two days have been devoting ourselves almost exclusively to—wait for it—database design. Yes. Yes indeed. The technology is coming. Find, sort, report! Field matching! Import export ascend descend omit! It therefore was most welcome to hear that Marsha Pomerantz, Boston poetess and editor at Harvard Art Museums, has had two poems released on Berfrois. The mag's tag? International Jousting in the Republic of Letters. An excellent site, now with excellent poems, and for all the ekphrasis junkies out there Friday officially became a good day. Happy weekend!

VISIT BERFROIS

Poems: ‘Turner I’ and ‘Turner II’ by Marsha Pomerantz

Presenting The Pope's Bookbinder

The following ran in yesterday's issue of The Draught. 

We thought it was fun. 

(Maybe not so much fun as blackmail. We'll have to ask David.)

SPECIAL TO THE DRAUGHT

"Blackmail is Great Fun": An Interview with David Mason

Q. You’ve been a bookseller now for over four decades, and you’ve published short pieces about the trade in journals and magazines, but this is your first full-length book. Tell us about making the switch: how did bookselling prepare you for authorship? And is authorship what you expected it would be?

A. Nothing prepared me for writing a book. All antiquarian booksellers are aware that there are already way too many books in the world. Many booksellers would consider it a sin to add more. Writing a book was both exhilarating and humiliating, but in the end I loved doing it.

Unfortunately it also seems to be addictive, so I may commit some more sins.

Q. What’s your favourite story that didn’t make it into The Pope’s Bookbinder?

A. We ran out of space for all the stories about thieves. And also for all the tales of eccentric dealers and scouts I’ve known. There’s also a fair number of stories that can only be told if I outlive certain people.

Q. In your book you have advice about scouts, auctions, sleepers, employees, book fairs, and even on blackmail. What advice would you give to the reader who’s holding your book now?

A. I would advise any reader to take note of all the pleasure one can derive from collecting books, or just owning a library. But I would also advise them not ever consider becoming a dealer. My jokes about the small income a bookseller can look forward to are not really jokes. Many of our clients envy us all the pleasure we get from being booksellers but if they knew what we earned they wouldn’t envy that. I must also add that blackmail is great fun.

Q. The title of your memoir refers to a white morocco volume that you helped to gild before it was presented to Pope John XXIII. Did you ever see that book again? Would you buy it if you could?

A. I sewed it and covered it too. I presume that book now resides in the Vatican Library. If the current Pope ever finds himself a bit short of cash I’d love to buy it back.

Q. What was the most difficult part of this memoir to write?

A. I sometimes felt – and so did my editor – that I should be nicer, more gentle, with a few of my colleagues, but since I probably won’t be writing another I felt I needed to tell the truth as I saw it, for the record.

Q. Your publisher says you’ve requested a few unbound text blocks of your memoir. Is it possible The Pope’s Bookbinder is going to strike again? Will there be one more David Mason binding in the world?

A. The Pope’s Bookbinder is retired, I’m afraid. I will commission one or two binders to create bindings for my book since I have a modest collection of design bindings. I never thought of returning to binding myself. I’d actually love to bind a copy myself but binding is a skill that needs incessant practice and I would certainly ruin it if I tried now.

Q. If you could hand-deliver The Pope’s Bookbinder to one person anywhere in the world, who would it be and why?

A. The person I’d love to deliver a copy of my book to is unfortunately no longer in this world. And that would be my father, the banker, who was certain I would never amount to anything and would end up in the poorhouse. Which I may very well do. But I’d love to be able to hand him a copy so I could say, “See. If I’d listened to you I’d still be selling insurance.”

Q. What book are you sitting on right now that you’d most like to sell?

A. A bookseller never cares about selling his good books. What I’d really like to sell is about 25,000 of my general books. All I ever wanted to do was buy good books, which I’ve done for forty-five years. Now I have way too many and not enough space to put them in.

I am, in fact, trying right now to sell a few collections I’ve formed over the last thirty or thirty-five years, in particular my huge collection of publisher’s bindings which, I believe, to be the best in the world. But, I collected so passionately that sometimes I fear I’ve priced myself right out of the market.

Q. What do you consider your worst mistake of your career? What do you most regret?

A. Not buying a building. I always bought books instead of a building and now after forty-five years I’m still at the mercy of landlords and the marketplace. And I’ve got too many books.

Q. What’s next for David Mason?

A. Myself and my publisher are to begin editing a book of essays on bookselling and collecting. Aside from that I’m just going to continue to buy books. And continue to read books.

To subscribe to The Draught, Biblioasis's free newsletter, please email tmurphy@biblioasis.com.

A Nice Thing in the Montreal Gazette

Dear Folks,

Just thought I'd share a delicious little news bite from last Friday. We've been deeply appreciative of all the congratulations that poured in after AK won the First Novel Award, but this one perhaps took the cake: Mr. McGillis, we staunchly agree. And thank you.

Cheers to all—
The Bibliomanse.


From The Montreal Gazette, May 3, 2013:

"Glasses were raised among fiction lovers nationwide last week when Anakana Schofield’s sui generis debut Malarky was named winner of the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. All temptation to say “I told you so” based on a rave review last summer and a year-end 10-best selection in a certain Montreal newspaper will be firmly resisted. The choice represents a triumph for both adventurous writing —Malarky’s Our Woman is about as unlike a standard Canadian fiction heroine as you could get—and for small literary publishers: Biblioasis has established itself with remarkable speed as a house of unerringly high standards. Congratulations all around."

Groundwork in PN Review

For those of you who've been charting the ins and outs of Amanda Jernigan's Groundwork, and for those of you who subscribe to the UK-based journal PN Review, keep your eyes peeled for Evan Jones's review in their latest issue. A few others Groundwork pieces that have turned up or are worth revisiting: one on The Winnipeg Review, and another, not online, from the summer 2012 issue of Fiddlehead. Three cheers to poesy—and good luck to Amanda as she launches All the Daylight Hours over the next month.

"We Are Made of Memories": Mia Couto speaks to Scott Esposito in The Paris Review Daily

This just in from The Paris Review's daily blog. Thanks to Scott Esposito for his thoughtful questions.

We Are Made of Memories: A Conversation with Mia Couto

May 2, 2013 | by Scott Esposito

Born in 1955 in Mozambique to Portuguese immigrants, Mia Couto is widely considered one of the foremost wielders of the Portuguese language. He has written over twenty books that have been translated into at least that many languages, and those translated into English since 1990 have garnered him a dedicated Anglophone following. Although Couto’s fiction varies widely, he frequently deals with Mozambique’s civil war, which erupted in 1977, two years after he turned twenty and his nation gained its independence from Portugal. His recurrent use of surreal effects in his work has led many critics to liken his fiction to Latin America’s magical realism, a label at which he bristles.

The Tuner of Silences, brought into English by Couto’s longtime translator David Brookshaw and published this year by Biblioasis, tells the story of Vítalico, a father who has dragged his children to an abandoned Mozambican nature preserve after the horrifying death of his wife. As Couto explores the nature of Vítalico’s regime and its eventual collapse, he delves into frequent obsessions: the construction of identity, and the role that memory and language play in that process.

 Recently, over email, I discussed Tuner, influences, labels, and the curious provenance of Couto’s first name in email correspondence with him.

To read the full interview, go here. Mia Couto will be appearing in New York as part of PEN World Voices' Literary Safari on May 3rd, and in conversation with Anderson Tepper at powerHouse Arena on May 4th. 

CNQ shortlisted for National Magazine Awards

Congratulations are in order to Lynn Coady and Caroline Adderson, whose short stories published in Canadian Notes & Queries Magazine have been shortlisted for the National Magazine Awards.

Lynn Coady's "Dogs in Clothes," which appeared in CNQ 85 and Caroline Adderson's "Ellen-Celine, Celine-Ellen," which appeared in CNQ 86, both made the cut along with six other works of fiction published in Canadian magazines this year.

Further congratulations go to the numerous other Biblioasis authors who were shortlisted for various National Magazine awards, including Patricia Young in both the "One of a Kind" and Poetry categories, Lorna Jackson in the Fiction category, Russell Smith in the Personal Journalism category, and Robyn Sarah in the Poetry category.

The winners will be announced at the National Magazine Awards Gala June 7th at the Carlu in Toronto. For more information, head over to magazine-awards.com.

Good luck to all our finalists!

15 Reasons to Live Hits Theatres this Weekend

It was hard to envision, when it was first proposed to us so long ago, but it's finally here: the film adaptation of Ray Robertson's Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live.

Fifteen Reasons to Live, directed by Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig, debuts tomorrow at the city's Hot Docs documentary film festival.

Here's what The Globe and Mail has to say about the film:

"If this sounds inspiring, it is, and I say that as someone who is constitutionally suspicious of any triumphing of the human spirit on film. But 15 Reasons is a documentary, with that form’s inherent immediacy and humility. It homes in on small, human profundities."

Quill & Quire also ran an interview with Zweig yesterday, where he talks (amongst other things) about what it was like adapting essays into film. Last but not least, if you're in the T-dot, be sure to look for 15 Reasons to Live at these three venues:

Sat, Apr 27 6:30 PM
TIFF Bell Lightbox 1
Mon, Apr 29 1:30 PM
Isabel Bader Theatre
Sun, May 5 1:30 PM
TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

Tickets are available online here.

Anakana Schofield Wins Amazon.ca First Novel Award

Our heartfelt congratulations to ANAKANA SCHOFIELD, 

author of

malarky

and

Winner of the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel Award

                                                                                                               

On Wednesday, May 24th, Biblioasis author Anakana Schofield was the proud recipient of the

Amazon.ca First Novel Award for Malarky. “Malarky is a bold first novel from an author whose prose hums with electric wit and linguistic daring,” said Stuart Woods, head judge and editor of Quill & Quire magazine. “The novel traverses darkly comic territory with intelligence and poise, relating the story of an unnamed narrator whose resilience in the face of life’s disappointments will stay with readers long after the verbal pyrotechnics have dissipated. Anakana Schofield is a true original, and her novel is a delight.”

              As the award-winner Ms. Schofield will receive a $7,500.00 prize. She also appeared on CTV’s Canada AM, the most widely watched national morning show in the country.

              Biblioasis would also like to extend warm congratulations to all finalists for the award: Marjorie Celona (Y), Scott Fotheringham (The Rest is Silence), Pasha Malla (People Park), and Kim Thúy (Ru).

              The First Novel Award has been launching the careers of some of Canada's most beloved novelists since 1976. Previous winners include Michael Ondaatje, Joan Barfoot, Joy Kogawa, W.P. Kinsella, Nino Ricci, Rohinton Mistry, Anne Michaels, André Alexis, Michael Redhill, Mary Lawson, Colin McAdam, Joseph Boyden, Joan Thomas, and David Bezmozgis.

              For more about Anakana Schofield and the First Novel Award please read on.

Amazon.ca

CBC News

The Globe and Mail

The Toronto Star

Digital Journal

With Canadian Press material syndicated in:

The Victoria Times-Colonist

680 News Radio

The Winnipeg Free Press

Or watch Anakana live on CTV News:

Canada AM  

ABOUT ANAKANA SCHOFIELD

Anakana Schofield is an Irish-Canadian writer of fiction, essays, and literary criticism. She has contributed to the London Review of Books, The Recorder: The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society, The Globe and Mail, and The Vancouver Sun. She has lived in London and Dublin, and now resides in Vancouver. Her first novel, Malarky, was published by Biblioasis in 2012, and is scheduled for UK release by OneWorld in 2013.

Jessica Hiemstra at Poetry London

Jessica Hiemstra will be in London, Ontario to help Poetry London  cap off their 2012/13 season with a special poetry party at Organic Works Bakery.

She'll be joined by readers Sue Goyette, John Terpstra and Debra Franke, and there will be free snacks, a cash bar and possibly even a door prize or two!


Make plans to be there Saturday, May 4th (doors at 6:30pm and readings at 7:30pm).

Reviewers Flock to Canary

Hey, folks, and happy Monday. Just a quick mention of the two smashing reviews that have come in

for Nancy Jo Cullen's Canary (which, as you probably all know, is launching TOMORROW at Another Story Bookshop). The first from The Globe & Mail, the second from The Winnipeg Review. Enjoy, and see you tomorrow!

THE-UP-FOR-GRABS WORLD OF NANCY JO CULLEN'S CANARY

"The tawdry lower middle-class milieu of these stories, heavy with drinking and marital strife, calls to mind Raymond Carver, but Cullen’s stories have an open-ended resiliency very different than the sombre American master ... A taken-for-granted sexual transiency is the most strikingly contemporary feature of these stories; if it were written a decade ago the fact that many of the characters are gay, lesbian or bisexual would be seen as a political statement. But in Canary the sexuality of the characters doesn’t define their identity, and is in fact often as transitory and up-for-grabs as every other aspect of their unsettled lives. The quietly radical assumption implicit in the book is that sex isn’t a matter of fixed identity but of opportunistic action ... in story after story Cullen won me over. Their people and situations rang close to life ... Cullen deserves all the acclaim she’s going to receive."

CANARY, BY NANCY JO CULLEN

"Consider your most embarrassing moment, suffered because of your family or not. Go on, dredge up that ineradicable instant of humiliation when you were a child, adolescent or young adult, it doesn’t matter what happened, when or where. Nancy Jo Cullen has you beat. The denizens of Canary, her first book of fiction, have soared, crashed, relocated, compromised, given up and started over more often than most of us. This collection is very good … there is plenty here to satisfy, the narrative arc running high and long ... robust, with a wide, compassionate embrace."

Book Spotting is back! More impressive design at the Biblioasis bookshop!

The sun was pouring into the bookshop yesterday and beckoning me out of the back office into the front of the shop to enjoy a little bit of vitamin D. That also meant I had some time to look around for content for the next installment of our Book Spotting series, where I provide commentary and praise for the best book designs currently in store.

Andy Warhol Screen Tests by Callie Angell (Harry N. Abrams 2006)

Today, I'll start with a book that I've been meaning to talk about for months now. Ever since it first came in (it is a used copy), it struck me as a powerful cover. I put it on display almost immediately. Obviously, the photograph itself is quite engaging, with the direct eye contact and stark black and white. For this reason, the simplicity of the rest of the cover really works. The red provides a strong contrast and the clean block text is clear and bold but doesn't compete with the photograph for the viewer's attention. Plus, there's tonnes of the red equivalent of white space, and we all know how much I like white space. 

John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk (Bloomsbury UK 2012)

 

Sorry for the slightly blurry photo on this one. Clearly I was just too excited about the cover and couldn't keep my hands still. This cover at first glance seems to be the opposite of what I usually praise: minimal, clean, stark. The winding branches of the tree, the detail in the grasses, and even the throw-back style of the lettering, which has a slightly eroded look, should contribute to this cover feeling overwhelming and over the top, but it doesn't. The black and white saves it. High contrast silhouettes on a plain white background take this cover from distracting and confusing to crisp, clean and eye-catching.

First Novel by Nicholas Royle (Jonathan Cape 2013)

This book just arrived and it grabbed my attention as soon as I walked out into the shop yesterday. I'm a fan of books that find unusual ways to incorporate the title on the cover but I find that they can often get confusing or difficult to decipher. This cover escapes that trap by ensuring that the only major text on the cover is the title and the author's name. In fact, we get the title and author's name six times over. However, at first glance, my reaction was to wonder where the title was. That half-second hesitation drew me into the cover, into its clever and meta use of book spines. The car and plane infiltrating the line of spines gives the cover personality despite the plain serif type on the spines that lend it clarity.

incitements by Sean Howard (Gaspereau 2011)

More beautiful books, as expected, from Gaspereau. This one actually reminds me of a chapbook I designed for a creative writing class while at university. What happens to letter forms when you overlap them? They become less about letters and more about the letter forms. Sure, if you look closely, you can read the title, incitements, in the graphic on the cover. However, it seems less important that you can read the title and more important that the use of lettering is visually interesting. Yes, the title is the most important thing on a book cover (most of the time?) and I am all for legibility, but if you are going to have a difficult to decipher title, this is the way to do it: making the letters themselves the art. Plus, you've got a title page for anyone who gets too confused, right?

That's all for today's adventures in Book Spotting. More to come soon! 

Alex Boyd's The Lonely Offices features poetry by Jessica Hiemstra

Alex Boyd, author of The Least Important Man, also runs the blog The Lonely Offices: Poetry and Stuff About Poetry. Much to our delight, he recently featured a poem from Jessica Hiemstra's recent Biblioasis collection Self-Portrait Without a Bicycle. Jessica read "The Most Beautiful Things I've Seen in October" at the Windsor launch of the book this month at the Biblioasis shop. In case you missed it, here's the link to Alex's blog.

Sonia Tilson shortlisted for CAA National Capital Region Award

Congratulations to Sonia Tilson, who will soon be releasing her novel The Monkey Puzzle Tree with Biblioasis, as she has been named a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Natioanl Capital Region Writing Award.

The winners will be announced Tuesday, May 14th at 7pm at the Ottawa Public Library, Auditorium, 120 Metcalfe St. at Laurier.

Congrats and all our best to Sonia!

Amanda Jernigan: "intensity personified"

NOW has reported the results of their Poetry NOW Harbourfront contest, calling Amanda Jernigan "intensity personified."

While Peter Norman emerged from the fray with top honours, Jernigan's performance was enough to make her a strong contender. The energy of Poetry Month continues!

Read the full blurb here.

New Reviews for Nadine McInnis and Robert Melançon

It always feels good to brag about the positive reviews Biblioasis authors are getting, and this afternoon we have lots to boast about.

Both Nadine McInnis and Robert Melançon have been in the news lately, picking up reviews from The Literary Review of Canada and The Montreal Review of Books respectively.

Here's a sample of what these publications are saying about these recent books:

"[With] lean and lyrical language...and arresting images…Blood Secrets is a deceptively gentle book, a desperately tender succession of tales that bruise the heart with their sadness, while at the same time offering the salve of kindness". — Literary Review of Canada

"One hundred forty-four poems of acute observation: Melançon's invention is impressive. Judith Cowan's rendering of the poet's work into English is adroit and fully idiomatic."— The Montreal Review of Books

 What a great way to start the weekend!

4 Biblioasis Titles on Frank O'Connor Longlist

Congratulations to C.P. Boyko, Nancy Jo Cullen, Colette Maitland, and Nadine McInnis, whose short fiction collections were just longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Award!

About the Frank O'Connor Award

The 2011 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize is worth €25,000 to the winning author of a collection of short stories published for the first time, in English anywhere in the world, between July 2011 and June 2012 (selecteds, collecteds or books containing stories published in a previous volume of stories by the author will not be eligible). Translations are eligible.

This prestigious international short story award in the memory of Frank O’Connor is the single biggest prize in the world for a collection of short stories.

In honouring Cork’s literary genius and its most famous short story writer, it is hoped this award will achieve international recognition for the short story and highlight Cork’s important contribution to this literary art form.

This major international prize celebrating the city’s intimate relationship with the short story was established as part of the literary programme of Cork’s tenure as European Capital of Culture. Since then it has made possible through the generous support of Cork City Council.

It is hoped the Award, for a complete collection of previously unpublished stories in a book collection, will play a significant role in establishing parity of esteem for the short story collection alongside the novel.

Tomorrow Night in Windsor, Sal Ala, Robert Melançon and Jessica Hiemstra Celebrate Poetry Month!

We've been working hard here at Biblioasis getting everything ready for our Poetry Month Celebration tomorrow night. There'll be food, drink, three fantastic poets and brand new work from all three!

Join Sal Ala, Robert Melançon and Jessica Hiemstra at Biblioasis (1520 Wyandotte St. E., Windsor) at 7pm tomorrow night as we mark National Poetry Month with readings, socialization and general good literary fun.

Acclaimed local poet Sal Ala will have two new limited-edition broadsides available (sneak preview here!). We'll also be holding the Windsor launch of Robert's latest book For As Far As The Eye Can See, and Jessica's Self-Portrait Without a Bicycle, so there will be lots of new poetry to get your hands on.

One of the two new broadsides from Sal Ala available tomorrow night

"My America," the second limited-edition Sal Ala broadside available at Biblioasis

 Hope to see you tomorrow night!

A load of Malarky!

Some good news for Malarky author Anakana Schofield: along with nods from the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the B.C. Book Prize, Malarky has been nominated for the CBC Bookie Awards.

Anakana is up against Terry Fallis, Lynn Crosby, Linda Svendsen, and Miranda Hill for the Ron MacLean Award for Most Hilarious/Witty Canadian Book. The award is decided by the public so make sure that you show your support! You can vote for Malarky here.

You can also read Brendan Riley's review from The Review of Contemporary Fiction over at his blog where he calls Malarky "a smashing debut." We agree!

Tonight at the Dora Keogh, POETRY!

Toronto Bibliofriends and poetry lovers,
Head down to the Dora Keogh Pub on the Danforth tonight at 7pm for a celebration of National Poetry Month with Robert Melançon and Jessica Hiemstra.

Want to know more about Jessica? Like how she saved a drunk fisherman? Check out her feature on the Dirty Dozen from Open Book Ontario.

See you tonight!