Book Launch 2.0

Russell Smith sent this to me this morning, and it was so funny, so painful, so damning, so ... well, I thought I should share it with you.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxschLOAr-s

Report on the Afterlife Review

Michael Bryson tackles -- with both arms and full body weight -- Stephen Henighan's new tome, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture. The review can be found here:

www.danforthreview.com/reviews/nonfiction/henighan.htm

London may not be calling, but Guelph, Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria, for starters, certainly are. Henighan will be launching Afterlife in Guelph at the Bookshelf on Tuesday, May 20th at 7 pm, as part of a Bookshelf Birthday Bash, alongside Pasha Malla, Claudia Dey, and Maggie Helwig. He'll be then heading off to Toronto to read with Charles Foran (Join the Revolution, Comrade) at Nicholas Hoare at 6pm as part of the great Biblioasis muckraking revival. We're going to exchange the usual Hoare blue hairs for the baklava wearing revolutionaries who seem to come out of the Toronto woodwork whenever there's free wine to be had (to be served, in the proper spirit, in paper cups). Henighan will next be in Vancouver in early June (TBA), and Victoria June 6th at the Black Stilt Cafe.

Bryson's review has filled my head with 1980s alt-rock anthems. Hopefully the next cup of coffee will wash them away. But until then I'll counter the Clash's London Calling with R.E.M.'s It's the End of The World As We Know It (and I feel fine.)

{Yes: I know: another instance of the triumph of the global over the local. Sigh.}

Toronto Reading for Foran and Henighan

Nicholas Hoare and Biblioasis are pleased to present:

an evening with

Charles Foran and Stephen Henighan

Join us at the Nicholas Hoare bookstore for food, drink, and a remorseless assault on the literary status quo. Novelists, travel writers, critics, Governor General Award nominees, and disputatious freethinkers, Foran and Henighan will read from their highly anticipated essay collections, Join the Revolution, Comrade and A Report on the Afterlife of Culture.

Readings will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing.

Where: Nicholas Hoare, 45 Front Street East

When: May 21^st, from 6 pm until after 8 pm.

Kindly RSVP: 416.777.2665

Another glowing review of boYs ...

... is due out this week in The Current, St. John's cultural paper, though it can be found in toto early here:

chadpelley.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/why-she-had-my-vote-for-the-winterset-award-a-review-of-kathleen-winters-boys/

An excerpt:

This book defies a nutshell summary. There is no genre that could encase this collection of short stories. It is too fresh, too new, too unique, and in the best way possible. This book is alive! Every sentence pops like firecrackers ... It is a book you read for it’s ultra-modern, punchy, lucid diction. ... Kathleen can portray the normalcy of things with a rare and gifted simplicity. As I read the pages I saw images, not words. It is one of few books I’ve read that appeals to all of the senses.

Oh yes: I should also include this one last tidbit. After all, it's not every day the publishing house gets kudos in a review!

Lastly, hats off to her publisher, Biblioasis, for taking a shot on this atypical collection of short stories, and I am glad to see it is working out for them! Biblioasis might be proof that the book industry is not so rigid after all.

The book industry rigid? Bah!!! And I thought we were all shining examples of dynamism!

Adam Getty, Al Moritz, Shane Neilson

Over the last few weeks a few books have made their way across the transom here at chez Biblioasis. Each is by a writer with press associations: two by poets we published as part of our chapbook series, and the third by a poet we expect to publish a first full trade collection by in the next couple of seasons.

The first is a new collection by Shane Neilson titled Exterminate My Heart. Another beautiful, beautiful Frog Hollow Press Production, wonderfully illustrated with wood engravings by George Walker. It's a lovingly produced volume of love poems to Neilson's wife, daughter and mother. But like all else by Neilson, this collection of love poems is not typical, neither sweet or saccharine. They are tensely dark and open and howling and beautiful and loving and generous and read true. Very powerful. What I have is number 15 of 25 cased copies, so there are not many left, though there's a trade edition I've not yet seen to boot. If you would like to take a further gander, please go here:

www.froghollowpress.com/catalogue.html#exterminate

The next two books arrived late this past week, and I haven't had enough time to do more than flip through them. But Adam Getty's 2nd trade collection, Repose, and A. F. Moritz's The Sentinel, both contain poems we published in chapbook form a couple of years ago. Adam is one of my favourite poets and procrastinators, and I look very much forward to getting into this collection. (And in some future issue of CNQ, I'll be publishing his essay Poetry in the Slaughterhouse: I've only had the chance to read half of it, and the threat of Windsor thugs with aluminum bats has not yet frightened the rest of it out of him, but what I've seen is proof enough to know Getty can write well about anything, in any form, whenever he puts his mind to it.) I've read many of the poems already in the Moritz collection -- he is also a Frog Hollow alumnus -- but look forward to revisiting them soon here, alongside other work.

Alas, neither of these two books are for keeps: I'll need to send them off packing to a reviewer for CNQ. But I'll soon be buying both, and along with Neilson's above, would recommend that those poetry lovers out there add them to their lists as well.

Nuptials

Two Biblioasis authors -- Zachariah Wells and Rachel Lebowitz -- are tying the knot this weekend. Congratulations! For any of you out there who are attending, please take plenty of photographs. I hear Z cuts a mean figure on the dance floor. There are those, of course, that think he cuts a mean figure most of the time, though anyone who knows him can vouch that this is simply not so: he's as generous a soul as I've met in this rather small world of Canned Letters, a poet and critic who longs to say yes, and needs it to mean something. He'll be both saying and meaning it this weekend, and I'm thrilled for him, for both of them. I haven't had the chance to get to know Rachael yet half-as-well, but I look forward to the time when I will.

So: best wishes to both of you! You'll both be in my thoughts this weekend. i'll look forward to listening to the audio record over at CLM later next week.

Words at Large

CBC has released Shelagh Roger's interview with Russell Smith about his pornographic novel Diana: A Diary in the Second Person as a Words at Large Podcast. It can be found here:

www.cbc.ca/wordsatlarge/

The Fun Begins: A Report on the Afterlife of Culture

Over the last few weeks, some advance excerpts and reviews of Stephen Henighan's new collection of essays, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture, have begun to appear in various journals and blogs across the land. Due back from the printer in 2 -2 1/2 weeks, it's probably safe to say that it is one of the most anticipated new collections of literary and cultural criticism of the year. Here's a quick run-down of what has been going on, and what will be coming up.

In the April Quill and Quire, Henighan is interviewed on the subject of translation publishing in Canada in an excellent article by Shaun Smith. I don't believe this is available online, but it is certainly alone worth the cover price.

In the same issue, there is an excerpt from Report on the importance of literary translation. This has led to the following article on the UTNE Reader's website:

www.utne.com/2008-04-07/GreatWriting/If-Canadians-Think-So-It-Must-Be-True.aspx

In the forthcoming issue of Quill & Quire (May), there is an advance review of Report by Steven Beattie. It is now online, and can be found here:

www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=6063

An excerpt: Fortunately, Canadian criticism can boast Stephen Henighan, a persistent thorn in the side of the Canadian literary establishment, but also a fearless and perceptive observer of our literary culture. Henighan’s criticism is not of the Dale Peck school of unthinking snark. He prefers a careful reading of texts and authors, and a deliberate analysis of how cultural forces in our society shape the kind of literature we produce. ... for his willingness to say the unsayable, and his enthusiastic piercing of the balloons of Canadian literary pretension, Henighan’s new volume is a welcome addition to the annals of CanLit criticism. ­"

(Beattie isn't completely positive about the collection, but I don't feel the need to excerpt that here. Follow the link for the full review.)

Beattie continues the discussion on his own blog, found here:

stevenwbeattie.com/2008/04/07/for-those-who-want-to-get-their-dander-up/

Looking forward, there is an excerpt in the upcoming translation issue of CNQ, which should hit shelves next month; there will be an interview with Stephen in Books in Canada in the April or May issue; an excerpt will also be appearing in Subterrain at the end of April. And I am certain that this is just the tip of the proverbial.

It's going to be interesting to see how this book gets read. There are those who will want it to be When Words Deny the World Part II, and though it certainly is related, and expands on many of the themes in that first collection, it was never intended as a mere follow up. I'm interested in how expectations will shape how this gets read, what gets focussed on, and what seems to get people's dander up most.

I've been using it these last few months to discover writers I may not have picked up otherwise: Roberto Bolano, Maria Vargas Llosa, Casares, Houllebecq. Henighan is a wonderful guide through world literature, and in the end, despite the attention that may get paid to his criticism of Canadian literary culture, this may be one of the most important things Report contributes: furthering our awareness of literature in other languages. Is there another Canadian critic out there who would even try to do so?

It's also interesting that those out there who would like to dismiss Henighan try to paint him as some small town and equally small-minded hick, when he is perhaps -- along with Manguel, and perhaps one or two others -- one of our most worldly, aware and cosmopolitan writers. How many other Canadian writers and critics out there can read and write in four or five languages, and are as well-versed in world literatures as Henighan? I can't think of many. We've seen otherwise intelligent writers sent into spasms of incoherent and reactionary rage over the past 12 months, with both rickets and racism invoked. I'm not quite sure how Henighan's criticism has led to an increased number of cases of rickets (!), but I can't think of anyone who is less deserving of being labeled racist. I have great respect for Michael Redhill, but he should have known better.

Anyway, the next few months should be fun. We'll be planning events in Guelph, Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor, and with Geist's help, Vancouver. We'll keep you posted.

Charles Foran & Rebecca Rosenblum

For those of you in Toronto tonight -- where I should be, if I was not so tired of travelling -- there's two Biblioasis-related events going on. First, Charles Foran will be reading with Pico Iyer at Harbourfront from Join the Revolution, Comrade, at 7:30 pm. Indigo's order came in a little slowly on this title, though it's through now, and copies of Charlie's collection of essays should be everywhere across the country no later than the middle of next week. It's already at any independent bookshop worthy of the name.

Also going on tonight, Rebecca Rosenblum will be at the Writer's Trust Gala in anticiaption of the Journey Prize announcement. Rebecca is one of the three finalists for the 10,000 dollar prize, for her story Chilly Girl. Rebecca also, you might recall, won last year's Metcalf-Rooke Award. Her new collection, Once, in its final, edited state, has finally crossed the transom at chez Biblioasis, and I'll be looking forward to getting right into it. It's one of the books were most excited about this fall. Congratulations to Rebecca, and let's all keep our unused appendages crossed for her this evening in the hope of a Rosenblum victory!

Telling It Like It Is

For those of you who hate it when parents tell cute stories about their kids, read no further. Seems a fitting tale to tell here. If I ever get too big for my britches, I can always count on my boys to keep me in line.

This time it was Anson. No pictures on this computer, so you'll have to imagine him. 2 1/2, reddish blonde curls, a dirty, scratched and banged up cherub. Always getting into scrapes and trouble and as different from his older brother as siblings can be. Plenty of attitude, no fear, and never willing to back down.

He's also in love with Harry Potter. Since Christmas, we've watched the various Potter movies dozens of times. To his credit, he prefers Ronald Weasley. He's taken over my favourite pen as his magic wand and is constantly pointing it at me and muttering incantations, hoping I will eventually shut up.

This weekend we'd had enough Potter. One almost wishes Voldemort would whisper whatever word it is that can kill someone outright and put the bespectacled wizard out of his misery. "No more stinkin' Harry Potter," I told him. "Enough's enough."

He pleaded.

I refused.

He got angry.

"You," he told me, " you are not beautiful."

"You are not handsome."

"You are not smart."

He stopped for a second, trying to figure out what else was wrong with me.

"Your foot is stuck," he said.

"And your eyes are broke."

And with that he turned around and left the room, leaving me pondering my many, many deficiencies.

This, dear Zach and Rachael, is what you have to look forward to.

Kapuscinski's I Wrote Stone & the L.A. Times

An article about Ryszard Kapuscinski's I Wrote Stone appeared on the LA Time's Book Blog yesterday. The whole thing can be read here:

latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/03/kapuscinskithe.html

Here's an excerpt:

Although there was much fanfare around the appearance of Kapuściński's final book, "Travels With Herodotus," which was published not long after his death, it's disappointing that "I Wrote Stone," now published in English for the first time by Biblioasis, has come out with not so much as a single trumpet sounding.

Translated by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba, this slim volume gathers poetry Kapuściński wrote over 40 years. Slim, yes, but hardly insubstantial.

Big events -- such as the murder of the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba -- may have been treated lyrically in his prose, but Kapuściński's translators note that he believed poetry could "illuminate dimensions of human experience that otherwise would remain unknowable." These poems capture the moments between crises, impressions that carry a book-length argument in a few lines. ... I Wrote Stone shows us a chronicler of chaos in one of those moments when he has turned off his journalistic processes and given himself up to something else.

This follows last week's publication of the poem In Lieu of a Prayer in the Guardian (where it may soon be reviewed). Finally we seem to be getting somewhere.

Winter takes Winterset

Kathleen Winter has won the appropriately named Winterset Award for her short story collection boYs. Awarded to the best book published in 2007 by a Newfoundland-based author, it comes with a $5000.00 purse. The two other finalists were George A. Rose for his book Cod: The Ecological History of the North Atlantic Fisheries and Paul Rowe for the Silent Time. They each received a prize of $1000.

Congratulations, Kathleen!

Kathleen Winter shortlisted for Winterset Award

Kathleen Winter has been shortlisted for this year's Winterset Award. The winner, to be announced on March 27th, will win $5000.00 and everlasting fame. The two finalists will each receive $1000.00.

the other two finalists are:

George A. Rose, Cod: An Ecological History of the North Atlantic Fisheries, published by Breakwater Books, St. John's, NL

· Paul Rowe, the Silent Time, published by Killick Press, St. John's, NL.

On the day prior to the announcement of the winner, the three finalists will read from their works and answer questions from the audience at a public reading and reception at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 26, at The Studio, 272 Water Street in St. John's.

Congratulations to Kathleen!

Rosenblum makes the Cut

Rebecca Rosenblum, the winner of the most recent Metcalf-Rooke Award, has just made the short-list for this year's $10,000 Journey Prize for her story, Chilly Girl. Congratulations! The other two contenders are Craig Boyko and Krista Foss. Go, Rebecca! She's deserving: her stories are that good!

She's also going to be on stage with recent Giller winner Elizabeth Hay in June at the University of Toronto. And in Peterborough next week for a panel on Canadian fiction. And all this without a book to call her own!

We'll soon remedy that!

Congratulations again, Rebecca.

Cold-cocked: the Blogger's Take & Flirt:The Interviews

After beating the traditional bushes to try and get some play, we sent review copies of Lorna Jackson's Cold-cocked: On Hockey to some of the leading hockey bloggers in the land. Over the last few weeks, several of these have posted reviews. They can be found by following the links below:

On Frozen Blog: http://www.onfrozenblog.com/2008/02/25/cold-cocked-is-a-hot-read/

Hockey Blog in Canada: http://hockey-blog-in-canada.blogspot.com/2008/02/tbc-cold-cocked-on-hockey.html

Scarlett Ice: scarlettice.blogspot.com/2008/02/scarlett-ice-library-cold-cocked-on.html

Untypical Girls: /untypicalgirls.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/book-review-cold-cocked-on-hockey/

Women's Sports Blog: ftlouie.typepad.com/womensports/2008/02/le-book-review.html

There were a couple of others I can't seem to locate right now, but i'll direct them to your attention later. More also quite likely to follow.

Lorna's next book, Flirt: The Interviews should come back from the printer within the next week. There's three hockey-related "interviews" in this collection -- Bobby Orr, Markus Naslund, and Janet Jones-Gretzky -- to go along with Ian Tyson, Alice Munro, Richard Ford, Michael Ondaatje and Benjamin Britten. "Interviews", in quotation marks, because they are, of course, fiction, or a pastiche of fiction, interview, news articles and biographies, and lord knows what else. It's the oddest book we'll be publishing this year, the hardest to define, and perhaps the most enjoyable. A collection of linked fictions in interview form conducted by a woman who would much rather tell her own story than listen to those of her famous subjects, by a woman who simply cannot stop talking about herself. Everything is about her, from Richard Ford's feelings about landscape and Bobby Orr's oft-injured knee, to Ian Tyson's lyrics, Alice Munro's motherhood, Markus Naslund's spirituality. Janet Gretzky's curves. Flirt might be a comic essay on adolescent grief. Or a comic essay on creativity. But perhaps its best to leave it as a collection of linked comic short fictions that mock real interviews and question the sort of information we often find in them.

As I said earlier, the pitching begins. And this is certainly one of our spring books that y'all should make sure you pick up. It's as much fun as you're likely to have between two covers. Which, alas, may say something about those of you who tune into this blog semi-regularly.

Upcoming Biblioasis Events

A couple of events to bring to your attention:

David Hickey will be reading this Thursday with Elizabeth Bachinsky (Nightwood Editions) at the Landon Branch of The London Public Library, 167 Wortley Road on Wednesday, February 27th at 7:30 pm.

And Stephen Henighan and Ondjaki will be touring Ontario and (hopefully) Montreal between March 10th and 22nd in support of Henighan's translation of Ondjaki's Good Morning Comrades. More details to follow as we have them, but here's what is lined up thus far:

–March 12, 2:30 PM, Visit to Portuguese Class, University of Toronto.
-March 12, 7:30 PM, English-language Reading, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto.
–March 13, 12:00 Noon, Bilingual reading, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.
–March 15, 7:30 PM, Bilingual Reading, Collected Works Bookstore-Café, Ottawa, Ontario
–March 18, 2:30 PM, Bilingual reading, York University, Toronto.
–March 19: 1:30 PM, Bilingual Reading, University of Guelph, Ontario.

Sex, Literature and Video Tape

Someone at last week's Valentine's Day launch of Russell Smith's adult fairytale Diana: A Diary in the Second Person, has posted 5 minutes or so on YouTube, about the origins of Diana. You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVg8PSbzLOU

A Few Spring Covers

Early looks at a couple more of our Spring titles. Two of Spring '08's titles -- Russell Smith's pornographic fairy tale Diana: A Diary in the Second Person (#1 on amazon.ca's erotica lists at the moment (proof that smut(h) sells) -- part Story of O, part Molly Bloom, part Penthouse Letters (mainly Penthouse Letters) -- and Ondjaki's Good Morning Comrades (see below) are already out and available. Charles Foran's Join the Revolution, Comrade and Lorna Jackson's Flirt: the Interviews will be out April 1st; Stephen Henighan's A Report on the Afterlife of Culture min-April. The remaining list -- Patricia Young's Here Come the Moonbathers and the Zach Wells edited Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets, will be coming out towards the end of April. I'll have you covers for them as soon as we're a touch closer to being satisfied.

Ondjaki's Good Morning Comrades

Ondjaki's Good Morning Comrades is available now, the second official title in the Biblioasis International Translation series. This is the first title by Ondjaki available in english, beating out Aflame Edition's The Whistler, from what I gather, by a matter of days. Translated by Stephen Henighan, who's also stepping in as General Editor for the series.

Looks like we'll be launching Good Morning Comrades at Harbourfront March 12th. Ondjaki's coming into Canada for a whirlwind tour that will include several Toronto appearance, Guelp, Brock and elsewhere. More details to follow.

You'll be seeing more Biblioasis translation titles beginning in 2009, as we hope to make translation a bigger part of our publishing program. We have Hans Eichner's Kahn & Engelmann lined up for spring '09; hopefully Horacio Castellanos Moya's Dances with Snakes in the Fall of '09. Also Goran Simic's next volume of poetry, The Tattooed Land. Lots of good stuff.

Speaking of translation, we're working on the next issue of CNQ, which will be focusing on translation. It's been a very difficult issue to assemble, though it's finally taking shape. Contributors include Mike Barnes, Alberto Manguel, Robyn Sarah, Steven Henighan, Goran Simic, Eric Ormsby and others. Also a few regular critical pieces, including a fabulous Giller Report by Alex Good.

So why haven't you subscribed? $14.00 won't even buy you a Danielle Steele paperback anymore, and we know how much that's worth. Come on: it'll make you feel smart. When's the last time that came so cheap?

Beyond the Blank Page

K.D. Miller may not be one of ours -- as in a Biblioasis author -- but she's one of mine, as in a writer I greatly admire. She has a new creative writing course, and I thought I'd post information about it here. Spread along to any who might be interested.


BEYOND THE BLANK PAGE

Do your plans for spring cleaning include dusting off a manuscript you put away months or years ago? Do you have a novel, memoir, play or film script, short story or poetry collection in the works? Could you use some positive, practical feedback? If so, you may want to sign up for "Beyond the Blank Page: A creative writing course to help you revise and revitalise your work-in-progress."

This six-week course will introduce you to a community of writers who, like you, have a work in progress. Come and share your writing, give and receive valuable commentary, and sharpen your self-editing skills.

When and Where: I will be teaching the course at Fairlawn Neighbourhood Centre (28 Fairlawn Ave. just a few steps west of Yonge St.) on the following Wednesday evenings from 7:30 till 9 pm: April 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 and May 7. The Centre is six blocks north of Lawrence subway station. Public parking is available just east of Yonge on Glenforest Ave.

Cost is $150.00 per person.

To register, phone the Centre at 416 - 488 - 3446 and ask about Course AE14

NOTE: Each participant is asked to submit to Fairlawn Neighbourhood Centre between 5 and 20 typed, double-spaced pages of their work-in-progress prior to the start of the course.

Please share this message with anyone else you think might be interested. Below my signature, I've pasted in the answers to some frequently asked questions.

Hope to see you there,

K. D. Miller
(416) 487-0966
kdmiller@sympatico.ca
Enjoy my books:
http://www.hips.com/kdmiller

BEYOND THE BLANK PAGE – Frequently Asked Questions

Q – I wasn’t able to take the first Blank Page course. Can I still take this one?

A – Yes. The only prerequisite for Beyond the Blank Page is to submit between 5 and 20 manuscript pages of your original, unpublished writing to Fairlawn Neighbourhood Centre prior to the first class, which will take place April 2, 2008. Your submission should be identified with your name, phone number and the words “Beyond the Blank Page.”

Q – What is meant by “manuscript page”?

A – 8 ½’ X 11”, typed, double-spaced, one side. The type should be clean, clear and legible, to allow for photocopying. Poets should allow one poem per page (length permitting.) Novelists or writers of other longer projects may submit a brief synopsis with their excerpt.

Q – What will a typical class involve?

A – A brief talk by the instructor on a topic related to revising and self-editing - characterization, structure, dialogue, etc. - followed by discussions of the writing of two of the participants. At the end of the class, copies of two more manuscripts will be handed out, for the next week’s discussion.

Q – Will people criticize my writing?

A – The class will have had a week to read and think about your submission. They will evaluate the strengths of your work, and offer constructive suggestions for making it stronger. You will have a chance to respond and ask for more specific feedback. At all times, the atmosphere will be courteous, supportive and professional. And remember – you will also be evaluating the work of your colleagues.

Q – What if I have more questions before the course starts?

A – You are welcome to contact the instructor, K.D. Miller, by e-mail: kdmiller@sympatico.ca or by phone: (416) 487-0966.

Posting and Punditry

This space, for those handful of you who check in on occasion, has been quiet for awhile. After the first few weeks I began to receive queries about my well-being. Was I all right? Had something happened, or was I in any sort of trouble? Even one person who feared the silence indicative of something they had feared bound to happen: we'd bitten off too much and it had finally caught up with us. Blog silence as a sign of impending doom.

I'm happy to report that not only am I well, but that the press is no closer to collapse than it was a month ago. Nor, alas, is it any further away from it. My reasons for quitting Thirsty for awhile were both personal and professional. I've too little time any more and keeping up the chatter seemed not worth it. I decided it would be more beneficial to read a book if I had a half an hour to kill, to get back to reading for pleasure, something I've had a hard time doing over the last couple of years. So I sat down with Roth and Houellebecq and Arthur Krystal; Grant Buday, Cormac McCarthy, Arturo Perez-Reverte. Most recently, Charles Foran's Last House of Ulster. Reading these seemed much more worthwhile than sitting for yet another half an hour a day trying to keep a blog current. If you're actually reading this, I expect it is because you're one of the few who still care about books and good literature; if you're like me, you're finding it harder and harder to find time to get to the books you want to, to keep up to date on what's new and worth reading, to get to the stack of classics sitting on your shelves or piled next to the nightstand. In my own case, the volumes of Clive James, including his latest, Cultural Amnesia, which I picked up this past week in Toronto; Bolano's Savage Detectives, Casares's Invention of Morel, The Best Canadian Stories and Journey Prize anthologies. This blog meant that I had that much less time to read, to remind myself why the hell I spend the time I do behind this computer in the first place. We'd all do better to spend less time with blogs, more time with books, so taking a break seemed a way to deal with this.

But it was more than that. When I started this blog it was the hope that it would be a press blog, with all of Biblioasis' many talented writers contributing. That lasted for about two weeks. It became a publisher's blog, news, reviews, views. I've been told, more than once, that it quickly developed into the best example of its kind in the country, which says more about how poor the rest must be than how good this one was. But the rule of blogging is that new content is essential. If you can't keep people coming back, there's no point doing it at all. So I tried to post regularly, every day for a while, and then at least several times a week. I posted reviews, announcements, the odd poem, editorial, rant. Some were good, some I later regretted. Some were posted in anger and frustration, and caused problems I'd not foreseen. One, unintentionally, caused a person a fair amount of embarrassment and pain. I became a touch careless, not checking up on things as I should, got in the habit of commenting on things in a way that, had I stopped for a few minutes, I probably wouldn't have. In my search for content and commentary, in my attempts to keep things fresh, I posted about things best kept a bit more under wraps. I began to feel less a publisher where this blog was concerned and more a pundit.

This focus on the new is part of the problem. It's a cliche to say that literature is not about the new. But in publishing, in literary publishing, it's getting damned hard to talk about anything else. It's hard to get anyone to even consider covering/reviewing/discussing a book that's even a couple of months old. Want to try and get a writer from last spring a few gigs in April? Forget it. Here we are, February, the Spring 2008 season hardly even begun, and I need to have all my covers and catalogue copy and everything else to my US distributor for Fall by tomorrow evening; to our Canadian sales force in less than two weeks. At the same time, books that were ordered 45, 60, 90 days ago are already being returned to the warehouse. The preparation for a season's titles begins earlier and earlier; the actual selling season seems shorter and shorter. And no one any longer is interested in backlist. The fact that Leon Rooke's Hitting the Charts remains one of the most important books we've published -- and are likely to for many a year -- is irrelevant. A master's selected stories, stories which, in the words of Russell Banks, "work out there in the terra incognita, mapping limits" and hardly anyone has read it; and now that it is backlist, relegated to the amazonian 3-5 weeks, unavailable on bookstore shelves across the land for the casual browser to trip upon, t'is unlikely anyone will. How many out there will find David Hickey's In the Lights of a Midnight Plow now? Eric Ormsby's Time's Covenant? Goran Simic's From Sarajevo With Sorrow? Pray for a course list, as it's the only chance of a book having a meaningful afterlife, and in the age of the coursepak even this is damn remote. No, alas. Rather, let's talk about what's new.

So I thought, in some sort of strange, tangential, way, this blog might be contributing to the problem. Punditry, by focusing on the new, on keeping the content fresh as opposed to the quality of it. Not sure that makes any sense at all, but t'was my thinking.

Anyway: I'm back at it again. New books to push, new frustrations to share. Though, as this semi-coherent rant has already taken much too much time, perhaps I should leave it here.

Cultural Amnesia. Clive James' volume, sitting an arm's length away. Says it all, really. Perhaps when I finish General Ludd -- perhaps a future Renditions book (the pitching begins) -- I'll pick up there.

Valentine's Day Launch at the Gladstone Hotel : 7 pm

Russell Smith - Diana: A Diary In The Second Person

The pornographic novel that the Globe & Mail's Russell Smith published ten years ago under the pseudonym Diana Savage is a notorious text which, till now, has been increasingly difficult to find. To launch a revised literary edition of Diana: A Diary In The Second Person (Biblioasis), Smith will have a frisky Valentines Day conversation with renowned sex columnist Josey Vogels about the voice as an instrument of seduction and other matters of the heart. — A This Is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Biblioasis and EYE WEEKLY.

Gladstone Hotel Gallery, 1214 Queen St W, Toronto
Thurs, Feb 14; 7:30pm (doors 7pm) free

No Sacrifice Too Great

Sunday's Toronto Star carried a farewell by Philip Marchand, who is changing beats at the Star, from book reviewer to film critic. He'll be missed. The best book reviewer in the country for nearly 20 years, you could count on Marchand to give you an honest appraisal of the books he was reviewing. "Be just to a book, by all means," Marchand writes, "is the credo of a book reviewer, but more important, be just to the reader." Too few seem capable of doing this, or understanding it when they see it.

One of Marchand's last pieces of book criticism, it would seem, appears in the current issue of CNQ. His 'The Problem with Alice Munro' is worth a gander, and has already generated some interesting reader response. Marchand would have it, I'm certain, no other way.

Marchand's entire farewell can be found here: www.thestar.com/article/291298

Here Come the Moonbathers

Poet Laureate John Steffler has published Patricia Young's poem Melt, from her upcoming Spring Biblioasis collection Here Come the Moonbathers -- her first poetry collection in over 8 years -- as the poem of the week of the Poet Laureate website. The website can be found here:

www.parl.gc.ca/Information/about/people/poet/index.asp?lang=e&param=4&id=1&id3=1

And here is Patricia's poem:

MELT

by Patricia Young

“We can’t even describe what we’re seeing.”
Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar conference.

One morning they appear in nameless droves.
Fabulous creatures flicking their silver fins and ancient jewels.

A long lost mythology? Weird migration?
They lurched onto the tundra like bawling infants,

announced themselves with the subtlety of a brass band.
Wave upon wave, antlers vibrating, tails ablaze.

Who? we asked. Who are you?
One day they weren’t there and the next

they were traveling toward us
with the speed of a birchwood forest.

We gathered to mourn those passing
swiftly into memory, the polar bear and arctic seal.

Time cracked.
The century was thinner than ice.

We had 1200 words for reindeer but not one
for hornet, robin, elk, salmon, barn owl.

Try to understand: we had never seen a barn.
Never stepped into such a cavernous space.

*

We have never stepped into a cavernous space.
Try to understand: we have never seen a barn.

Hornet, robin, elk, salmon, barn owl.
We have 1200 words for reindeer but not one

for a century thinner than ice.
Time cracks.

Swiftly into memory: the polar bear and arctic seal.
We gather to mourn those passing

with the speed of a birchwood forest,
the new ones travelling toward us.

One day they aren’t here and the next
we ask, Who? Who are you?

Wave upon wave, antlers vibrating, tails ablaze.
They announce themselves with the subtlety of a brass band,

lurch onto the tundra like bawling infants.
A long lost mythology? Weird migration?

Fabulous creatures flicking their silver fins and ancient jewels
appear one morning in nameless droves.

Prose for Puck Heads

Lorna Jackson's Cold-cocked was reviewed in the Globe this morn. It's part of a much longer review of 4-5 hockey books, so I'll just cut and paste what Steve Galloway said of Cold-cocked. This is the 3rd piece on Lorna's book in 8 days.: each of 'em said it's a book you should damn well read. So, if I haven't convinced you yet, perhaps Mr. Galloway will.

The review...

I am currently getting my lunch handed to me in a writers' hockey pool. If all my players were to double their point production, I'd still be a long way from contention. It's humiliating. And, in the interests of full disclosure, one of those who is metaphorically pantsing me is Lorna Jackson. I will exact revenge. But not here. Jackson's memoir, Cold-cocked: On Hockey, is fantastic. The only book of the five in which the writing is more than a delivery mechanism, Cold-cocked is sardonic, heartfelt, angry and passionate about hockey, life, the points where they intersect and the points where they don't.

Print Edition - Section Front

In one of my favourite passages, Jackson offers what some of the secondary characters in the book would do during a day with Todd Bertuzzi, vilified for a vicious on-ice attack on Steve Moore. From Carla Funk: "I'd take him to a watercolour lesson ... go to a poetry reading ... bake bread. But then I'd want to see some of that aggression, so I would get him to butcher some chickens, too."

From FUKT (the hockey pool code name of writer Bill Gaston): "I have a garage that really needs cleaning out, plus I'd want to see how many sandwiches he could eat. During his break, I'd get him to see if he could throw my old couch up on a neighbour I don't like's roof."

The notion of Bertuzzi painting a happy little green tree next to a frisky lake or eating a dozen ham sandwiches is both funny and sad. Could it be that these players are human beings, sort of? Though we all know this objectively to be true, we're generally more comfortable either deifying them or reducing them to racehorses. But in the same breath, let's face it, if you need to kick a little ass, it'd be nice to have a guy like Bertuzzi doing your bidding.

In other moments, Cold-cocked is deadly serious, pressing and urgent about a game that Jackson, unlike most authors of hockey books, pays her own money to watch. She's an outsider, like us, and her book should serve as a reminder that it is the fans, not the players or the media or the league itself, that own this game and will determine its fate.

Bookangst

An interesting post was sent to me today by a fellow publisher I thought I should share. It's a post by what appears to be a prominent-though-incognito New York editor in discussion with other editors about editing and marketing, and what authors can expect of a publisher (as well as what publishers may expect of authors). It's for writers they deem mid-list -- those with print-runs in the 7500-15000 range (imagine, if you will, the sound of one Canadian publisher choking). Still, interesting and worth reading.

I couldn't link directly to this post, but go here: bookangst.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_archive.html

and scroll down to the post of November 6th, 2004.

Oh yes: happy new year.

The Anti-Cherry: An Inimitable Look at our Sport

Roy MacGregor in this morn's Globe and Mail writes about Lorna Jackson's Cold-cocked: On Hockey. Not in the book sections, boys and girls, but on page A2 of our national paper. As if this book might actually be newsworthy.

It's too long to type in, and the Globe has pulled its Globe Insider Pay-per-View trick, but for those of you who have access it can be found here:

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FLAC.20071231.MACGREGOR31%2FTPStory%2F%3Fquery%3Dcold-cocked&ord=919614&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true


For those of you who don't, here a sampling of what Roy says of Lorna and her book:

AN INIMITABLE LOOK AT OUR SPORT

"The anti-Cherry is alive and well and living on the west Coast. She is a shepherd who names her sheep after hockey players ... And she knows her hockey. ... {Cold-cocked} may be the most unusual book ever written on the game ... a book that stretches from medieval literature ... to pop culture. "

Jackson, Hockey, & the holidays

I've been taking a bit of time off this past week, but thought I'd check in on a few things before heading off to the show this afternoon: No Country For Old Men, pairing perhaps my favourite directors in the Coen Bros. with one of my favourite novelists, Cormac McCarthy. All indications are it will be fabulous. One of the things I checked in on was Lorna Jackson's blog, Cold-cocked, where I discovered a few recent posts. I've pasted in the most recent below, though another excellent post can be found here:

//lornaj.blogspot.com/2007/12/captain-emos-wrister.html

Here's her post from yesterday. And, incidentally, Lorna will be nationwide on Sounds Like Canada with Shelagh Rogers January 9th.

The winter solstice brings back the light, sure, and not a moment too soon. It also brings lots of salt and butter and crabbiness and, phew, World Junior Hockey from far away lands.

Yesterday against the Czechs and this morning versus Slovakia—the wee nation that has already given us Hossas, two magic Marians, a pre-concussion Richard Zednik—the Canadians were snoozy and robotic. Great (fascistic) coaching is one thing, and “yay, we win again!” but must our junior tourny teams all play the same way and look like table hockey on big ice? Positionally sound, okay, but also predictable and machine-steady. Blame the salt and butter, but I nodded off—this was before 8 o’clock in BC, home of Kyle Turris—during the first two periods.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht teaches the aesthetics of sport at Stanford and is the author of the neat little book, In Praise of Athletic Beauty. He's an egghead, sure, but Gumbrecht talks about how the greatest pleasure in sport (or in art), why we watch and cheer, is when the unexpected happens. Seems kinda duh put that way, but I like how it explains that faster heartbeat and instant call to attention when a mistake happens on ice, or a spasm of uncontrolled creativity. This morning, Drew Doughty (great name for a Canadian, or in the case of westcoasters, Self-Doughty) decided to spinorama in the neutral zone when we all thought (cause we know the game's usual rhythms and patterns) he was going to retreat and regroup. He’s long practised that move and apparently had been told by coaches to tone down such hotdoggery for this tournament, to take fewer chances. Even before the move led to the Turris goal, it was thrilling to see the game stop in its tracks and to watch imagination and spark—things we value in all teenagers—squeeze the game off those tracks and send it bumping and grinding toward the net.

So far, things seem controlled and interesting and maybe we’ve moved beyond this as a nation (since the Super Series last year and the ’72 series before it) but: please. I don’t want to see the Canadians headshot the other team’s best forward so he can’t play, possibly ever again.

And speaking of spinoramas: anyone remotely interested in Canadian sports writing should be sad that John Burns has announced he will soon be leaving the Georgia Straight. Over the last ten years, Burnsie has always let me review the sports books I wanted to, has always given sports writing a place to be considered and criticized as legitimate cultural commentary and as literature. During the writing of Cold-cocked: On Hockey (and also my forthcoming book, Flirt: The Interviews), he listened, cared, encouraged and let me read and review many of the books that informed my take on hockey and how we feel, read and write the game. Let’s hope he’s not feeling too Self-Doughty and knows that extreme change (aka “the old spinorama”) is truly the only way to become better and more.

Merry Christmas!

Off for the holidays. Going to try and take a week more-or-less off here at maison Biblioasis, so there's unlikely to be any additional posts until the new year. Best wishes to all!

Amazon, continued...

The last amazon post I made -- see below -- got picked up by a Pete Cattlin on a blog called Optimizing Amazon. It can be found here:

//optizon.blogspot.com/2007/12/understanding-amazon-on-site.html

We've started a bit of a discussion about amazon and various issues and practices which may be of interest to some of you. I've already learned a fair bit from the exchange. Some of you other publishers, in particular, might have other thoughts about all things amazon, and it would be great to have you air them. It's not often you get the ear of someone associated with the company who's willing to discuss things with you in a knowledgeable, reasonable fashion, though Pete seems happy to do so. There's also some other good information regarding bibliographic data and other issues, so the site itself might be worth a gander.