June 11, 2011
Remarkable things about the NMAs
1) I was pleased to learn that I can be gracious in defeat, though it wasn’t difficult under the circumstances. From Twitter, I gathered that being excited about the National Magazine Awards isn’t cool, but maybe those people get out more than I do. It’s not every Friday night that I get to get dressed up, turn up at a fabulous venue, drink wine, eat delicious, and celebrate Canadian magazines with 600 other well-frocked individuals. It was wonderful. And then, on top of it all, to have my piece on display, to hear my name called and see it up on screen with the other nominees for Personal Journalism– it was completely overwhelming, and more than enough, I thought. And when the winner was announced, and it wasn’t me, I realized that it was really, really was enough, and was happy to remain extraordinarily happy.
2) I was also happy because I spent the evening with Kim Jernigan and Amanda Watkins of The 
New Quarterly, and (seriously) the only disappointment I felt was that I wasn’t able to bring home a prize to them and their magazine, which has always been so good to me. Thanks to them, I never once looked forlorn amidst the hubbub. They were splendid company.
3) Speaking of good company, I was also happy to meet and speak with DB Scott, who was recipient of the Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement.
4) I was also amazed to see that my postal phantom was nominated for a National Magazine Award. He also didn’t win, so there is still no confirmation that he exists apart from in the ether.
5) I saw Dani Couture, and Medeine Tribenevicius, met Priscilla Uppal, and Christopher Doda, knew the bartender from high school, and met Joanna from More Magazine who reads my blog (hello, Joanna!).
6) I really only showed up because I was promised a swim in the famous NMA chocolate fountain, but there was no fountain this year– the first discernible evidence I’ve seen that perhaps the magazine industry is dying. The ice cream sandwiches, however, almost made up for the loss. But maybe I just didn’t know what I was missing.
June 2, 2011
Slave Lake Library
Slave Lake Library Staff
As many people already know, when much of Slave Lake Alberta was destroyed by wildfire a couple of weeks ago, the town lost its library. The tragedy of this is underlined by the fact the library was less than two years old, and had been built after years of local fundraising efforts. And because we’re library enthuasiasts around here, and because we’ve been delivered much good fortune of late, we decided to pass some of that fortune along with a donation to the library and its reconstruction. I’d like to encourage the library-lovers amongst you to do the same, or perhaps make a bid in the Slave Lake Book Auction, which is a fantastic campaign run by Lavender Lines.
May 2, 2011
One good thing about today
One good thing about today was that my essay “Love is a Let-Down” was nominated for a National Magazine Award for “Personal Journalism”, which is wonderful. This is the little essay that really could… (and now I really have to publish something new and excellent just to prove it wasn’t a fluke). So pleased The New Quarterly saw its worth last year, and gave it a home in its pages. I’m also looking forward to having it appear (edited into an altogether different kind of creature, but still a useful one) in Readers’ Digest next month.
The New Quarterly is all sold out of their issue 116, but it’s available here in digital form through Magazines Canada (and at a very reasonable price as well). You’ll be able to read the abridged version in RD too, but I urge you to get a copy of the original if you’re interested.
April 20, 2011
Best book launch ever
We had the best time ever at the launch for Jessica Westhead’s story collection And Also Sharks. Jessica does most things as well as she writes stories, including throw parties, though she didn’t have anything to do with what, for us, was the evening’s best bit: a babysitter! But because of that babysitter, we got to indulge in fabulous company, drinks, an atmosphere redolent with popcorn and shark films as a backdrop. Jessica showed two awesome book trailers (you can see one here, from one of my favourite stories in the collection, which is also significant because it’s the only story I know that takes its form from blog comments), and read from her story Coconut. And then as a souvenir, Jessica’s husband turned us all into paperdolls.
April 20, 2011
Keep Toronto Reading video!
In which I make funny faces, over-enunciate and (quite obviously) talk without actually having prepared what to say. Hooray to Jen Knoch for once agan Keeping Toronto Reading over at the KIRBC. This year’s Keep Toronto Reading theme is books that have transformed you, and I chose Bronwen Wallace’s People You’d Trust Your Life To because it transformed me into a Bronwen Wallace devotee (and it did. I haven’t shut about this book since I read it). I know it will transform you similarly, and we’ll all be better for it.
April 5, 2011
The Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers
Patricia Storms asked me to accompany her to the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards for Emerging Writers tonight, and I was happy to accept for various reasons, not all of which regarded drinks and hor doovras. It was a lovely event, and so great to listen to the three finalists read from their work. The winner was Garth Martens, who won me over with his absolutely perfect acceptance speech. I had to skip out before the mingling got out of hand, but I was so pleased to be there and watch goodness enacted.
And if you haven’t read Bronwen Wallace yet, do so. Here’s why.
April 4, 2011
Sarah Selecky is coming to visit
Hey! Sarah Selecky is coming to visit on April 16th as part of her This Cake is for the Party e-tour. Get involved in the discussion, and be entered for a chance to win an e-reader, or get involved anyway even if you’d rather not win an e-reader. Her other stops are:
Open Book Toronto – April 5
Book Fridge– April 8
Dana Deathe – April 9
Grace O’Connell – April 23 &
That Shakespearean Rag – April 30.
March 17, 2011
And a fourth remarkable thing
This year, I was one of the provincial judges for the Ontario Secondary School Teacher Federation’s Student Achievement Awards, which gives prizes for creative works (this year around the topic “Words into Action: Become the Solution”). It was heartening to read the finalists’ works, particularly after reading Lemon and becoming convinced that the whole world was going to hell. These students’ optimism, determination and spiritedness was uplifting, and I’ve been a bit in love with teenagers ever since.
I also learned a lot: one thing in particular from the story whose character suddenly turns up her music on her headphones, though there has been no indication she’s been listening to music or wearing headphones. Perhaps an slip-up in the story’s construction, though I wonder if the headphones’ presence is just entirely too standard to be mentioned. The same way a writer doesn’t need to explain that a character is wearing a shirt before he tugs on its sleeves, or that the house has a telephone before that telephone rings (or perhaps maybe you do now. Maybe the landline is now remarkable. But anyway…).
But anyway indeed, I loved reading these poems and stories, and I loved meeting the winners at the awards ceremony on Saturday. You can check out a video about the winners and their works here, and I recommend it in particular if you are interested in falling in love with teenagers too.
UPDATE: Booklet of the prize winning works is available here as a PDF.
February 6, 2011
I am reading at the Draft Reading Series "Bloggers Live!" event
It’s one week until I’ll be reading as part of the Draft Reading Series’ Bloggers Live! event, with my friends Julia Zarankin (of Birds and Words) and Maria Meindl (whose blog is brand new), and Diana Kiesners who writes The Accordian Diaries, which probably means there will be an accordian. Me, I’ll be sticking with prose, though anything is possible. In the spirit of whimsy, a convict riding a zebra.
The event is next Sunday, February 13th at 3pm at Merchants of Green Coffee (Queen and Broadview-ish).
Let me know if you’re coming, and I’ll save you a seat.
January 31, 2011
Found Press: Stories Everywhere
I am terribly impressed and very excited about Found Press which produces a quarterly digital literary journal whose contents can be purchased individually. They initially caught my attention because their first issue contains “Addresses”, a new short story by Cynthia Flood, whose The English Stories was one of my favourite books of 2009.
But they impressed me also because their issue is for sale at a price that makes sense for e-publications– short stories for 99 cents each. Seriously, it’s the next best thing to an actual book, and maybe it’s even better. And I love their treatment of the individual short story, each one with gorgeous cover art and an intriguing blurb. Cynthia Flood’s story was terrific, and I look forward to reading the other three by Danny Goodman, Kirsty Logan, and Lana Storey.
Downloads come from kindle or kobo, best-suited to one’s e-reader, but for those of us without such devices, a short story is still perfectly readable on a computer screen. And it’s such a good model, because we get to get what we pay for and pay for what we get, and then everybody wins. I love it.
If this is the future of e-pub, then definitely, sign me up.
