December 7, 2011

On being in a book (!)

In 2007, my friend Rebecca Rosenblum had her story “Chilly Girl” published in the Journey Prize Stories 19. And I will never forget how exciting it was to go into the Book City at Yonge and Charles (which is, like many other bookstores, no longer with us) and her buy her book off the shelf. Rebecca’s first story collection came out the following year, and the whole thing was so exciting, but to me, nothing ever topped the excitement of that first actual book with Rebecca’s story in it.

I also remember that a bird shat on my hand as I was walking down Charles Street toward the bookstore, and the good luck that I was wearing a mitten at the time, and I remember thinking as I contemplated good luck, “One day, I want to be in a book like that one, with binding, and editors, and everything.”

Last night, a crowd of some of the very best people I know came out to the launch of Best Canadian Essays 2011, and I proceeded to have 2 pints of beer and fall even more in love with everyone. (I had to stop at 2. At 3 pints, I get feisty and start offending people even more than usual.) It was really, truly a spectacular night, and I felt honoured that my essay was chosen, that it was published along with so many other wonderful pieces, and that so many faces in the crowd belonged to people I love as I read from “Love is a Let-Down.”

I’ve got a sense of proportion about these things. I know the pond is big and I am small, but I’m still in awe of the fact that I get to swim in it. And I really would like to publish a book of my own one day, but who among us doesn’t have a dream like that? In the meantime though, I’m feeling a tremendous amount of satisfaction about an accomplishment that bird-shit on my mitten may have portended years ago: I am in a book. And more over, it’s a pretty great book.

I’ve been revelling in every bit of all this, and it feels as wonderful as I imagined it would be.

November 27, 2011

Launch: Best Canadian Essays 2011, December 6

The Best Canadian Essays 2011 will be launching on Tuesday December 6 at the Dora Keogh Pub (Broadview and Danforth) at 7:00. I will be there and will be reading from my essay, and I’d love to see you there!

In other events, I’m also looking forward to hearing Rebecca Rosenblum (The Big Dream) and Anne Perdue (I’m a Registered Nurse Not a Whore) read this Thursday December 1 at the Lillian Smith Library at 6:30.

September 27, 2011

Banned Books Week: We're reading Katie-Morag

We didn’t have to go out of our way to find a book to read for ALA Banned Books Week, because Katie-Morag and the Tiresome Ted was already in our library haul. Our friend Melanie has written already about Katie Morag and her struggles with the censor (and it was actually Melanie who introduced us to Katie Morag in the first place, and her home on the Isle of Struay in the Hebrides). The main problem with the book is that Katie Morag’s mother feeds her babies during the narrative, and sometimes doesn’t put her breast away immediately. As you can see from the illustrations, Mrs. MacColl’s breasts are hardly sexualized, and neither is the rest of her really (except for in Katie Morag and the Riddles where Katie Morag tries her on her saucy nightie, but this just adds a marvelous new dimension to her character).

Mairi Hedderwick’s Katie Morag books have the kinds of illustrations (like Shirley Hughes’) that paint a household out to its very corners, and all the stuff tossed here and there, and picking out the details is fascinating for readers young and old. The breastfeeding and the breasts themselves are just part of the big happy mess, which also involves characters with complicated (and believable) gender roles, the good and bad of a close-knit community, the spirited Katie Morag with her huge emotional spectrum (also believable), and a story that doesn’t patronize its readers.

We’ve become Katie Morag devotees here in the couple of months, and it’s nice to mark Banned Books Week by reading a banned book that’s so wonderful. (Though a lot of them are, aren’t they? Do shitty books ever get banned? Do some books get banned, and liberals throw up their hands, and think, “Well, it’s probably for the best anyway…”)

September 25, 2011

Word on the Street: in the bookmobile!

Though it shames me to say it, we take Word on the Street a bit for granted in our family. Partly because the street in question is ten minutes down the street from our house, and also because we live and breathe books 365 days a year, and so it’s rare that a WOTS vendor can tell me something I don’t know already, or sell me something that I don’t want already. The second point being most important today, as after Eden Mills and the Vic Book sale, I’m all book-bought out. I have too many books, and I’ve spent a lot of money, plus I have a complex about visiting vendors’ booths at WOTS and not buying their wares. So I stayed back from the booths this year, and checked out some readings. Mostly just soaked up the vibe from the bookish crowd, and it was fantastic. We had a wonderful time, and the highlight was the Toronto Public Library Bookmobile, a marriage of Harriet’s two great loves of busses and books. It was the best, best bus we’ve ever boarded, and never has checking out books been more of a novelty. Almost as thrilling as when Harriet would meet Chirp about five minutes later. We had a wonderful afternoon.

September 19, 2011

I'll be there when Rebecca Rosenblum launches The Big Dream tomorrow. Will you?

Tomorrow night, Rebecca Rosenblum launches The Big Dream at the Dora Keogh Pub on the Danforth. Rebecca has been my friend since I met her in Goldberry Long’s backyard in September 2005, though at that time I knew her as “the girl who worked at Harlequin” (this was before I discovered that everybody, in fact, has worked at Harlequin). Other important things about Rebecca are that one day I realized that “Becky” was written on her shoe, which is how I discovered that everybody calls her Becky, except for everybody she met after 2005 (perhaps she wasn’t wearing those shoes often enough?), and also that both of us had the same photocopied picture of Bob Geldof on our bedroom walls during high school.

Three years ago, when her first book came out, Rebecca was the subject of one of my first interviews, which makes it all the more poignant that I’ll be interviewing her as part of her launch tomorrow, all up in front of the crowd and everything. I’m honoured to be a part of the event, so excited to celebrate this wonderful book with her, and also, I’ve made cupcakes. We’ve even got a babysitter! This is a big deal.

If you can’t make it, do c heck out the book. Yesterday morning, Margaret Atwood tweeted that she was looking forward to it, and as someone who just finished reading it, I can promise that Margaret Atwood will not be disappointed. Neither will you.

September 18, 2011

Eden Mills 2011

Last year, our Eden Mills Writers Festival experience was diminished by the efforts we spent on trying to get Harriet to fall asleep to no avail. Today we accepted that there would be no sleep (highly controversial), and had a marvelous time. The weather was glorious. We also particularly like Eden Mills because it functions in accordance with our family philosophy of not leaving the house early in the morning, and so there were pancakes, and pajama lazing. Then we hit the road, and the traffic was easy. The leaves were not as autumnal as in year’s past, but I was also wearing capris and sandals, and that was nice. We rolled in Eden Mills around 12:30, and so the day of literary festivalling began.

It was my fourth Eden Mills, by the way, and Stuart’s and Harriet’s third. The first readings I wanted to see were the poets, but they were indoors in the Chapel, so Harriet and Stuart stayed outdoors with Harriet’s outdoor voice. And I heard Priscilla Uppall and Lorna Crozier, who were so, so wonderful. In exchange for missing the reading, H&S split a cupcake, so everyone was happy. Then we went to the children’s readings, where we heard Andrea Wayne von Königslöw, and Kari-Lynn Winters. I skipped out partway through Winters, however, so that I could hear my friend Julia read at the Fringe Stage, and she had her audience utterly engaged. It was a pleasure to see her there.

After that, I met back up with my family, and we went to hear Claire Tacon and Alison Pick. Then to the Organic Ice Cream sellers, who delighted everyone involved. We stopped on Publisher’s Way to do a bit of shopping, and to meet with our Biblioasis and TNQ friends. (It was a friend-filled day. Today Eden Mills was populated by some of our favourite people.) Must admit, was a little disappointed to see other indie presses missing, in particular Brick Books because I’d been looking forward to buying Stephanie Bolster’s new book. Alas, my heart was delighted by the new addition of Demeter Press, however, and the chance to meet the fine people there (whose work I’ve been a champion of in the past). We ended up buying Claire Tacon’s In the Field, Amanda Jernigan’s Groundwork, Rocking the Cradle by Andrea O’Reilly, and Andrea Wayne von Königslöw’s How Do You Read to a Rabbit?

We went to see the magician next, who was awesome (though Harriet went into a frenzy when he started making balloon animals, screaming, “I want monkey right now!” and we had to talk her down, because there weren’t enough to go around). And I wanted to stay for the last session to hear Johanna Skibsrud read from her new book, but Harriet was fading and we’re smart enough now to no longer push our luck. She’d been so good all day, and so Eden Mills was over while the going was still good. (I did get to sit across the aisle from Skibsrud at the poetry readings though, which was kind of cool).

Last night I’d googled “Places to Eat Near Eden Mills”, and discovered a small town called Rockwood about ten minutes away. We drove there, hoping something would be open, and stumbled upon The Heaven on 7 Bistro and Pub, which was so delicious, the perfect end to a perfect day. Harriet was on her way out and spent most of the meal under the table, but we delighted in our dinners, and Harriet came up to partake in cheesecake. Then home again, home again, and Harriet agreed not to tantrum as long as we listened to Elizabeth Mitchell’s “Freight Train” on repeat, so there was a lot of that. Fortunately, traffic was kind to us again. Then home.

September 6, 2011

My Library Matters to Me

I entered the “My Library Matters to Me Contest” because there might be someone left on earth to whom I haven’t yet told my tales of library love. The contest is run by the Our Public Library campaign, in defense of Toronto’s public libraries. If I am chosen as one of the winners, I’ll get to have lunch with one of the participating authors, which doesn’t bode well considering my record with author contact. (What if Margaret Atwood greets me with, “We meet again,” and then asks me why I’ve stopped wearing a visor?)

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because I would very much like not to win this contest in order to save myself a lot of social awkwardness. And the more people that enter, the less chance I have, so won’t you help a girl out and enter too? Because surely your library matters to you. The deadline is Friday, so you’ve still got time.

September 6, 2011

On the Giller Long-Long List

I wrote a post last winter called “Ephemeral, yet eternal” in which I celebrated the good-but-not-great book. I wrote: “That [such a book] didn’t win prizes is not to say that it’s not a worthy book, but that a worthy book didn’t win a prize is also not to say it was robbed. Prizes are not the sole determinate of worthiness. And I’ve been thinking of this lately, considering the number of books I read that are considered unrecognized because they’re not short or longlisted by Giller and the like. The notion of the “snub”, the entitlement behind that notion, as though everyone deserves to be a winner. As though prizes were handed out on an assembly line, when really sometimes it’s the books that seem to be produced that way, so can you really be surprised when yours isn’t a winner?”

This year, as part of their mandate of bringing the public closer to the judging process, the people at the Scotiabank Giller Prize published a list of all the books that were eligible for the award. I had a bad feeling about this immediately. “My book has been nominated for the Giller Prize!” was how the spin went on a few posts on my Twitter feed, and it made me squirm with embarrassment, because of course the books hadn’t been. Books were on that list because they’d been submitted by their publishers for consideration  they’d been published in Canada within the eligible time period for submission. (Thanks to AJ Somerset for his correction.) I’d read a few books on that list and some were terrible. Some others were the good-but-not-greats I’d been talking about earlier. One was a non-fiction book, and therefore not even eligible to be there in the first place, which goes to show how much screening had really gone into the submission process. (Some were wonderful books. A few of those have even made it to the longlist, which looks like a really interesting one.)

My problem with this is that there are 120-some writers who this morning were made to feel like they’d lost something. Now some of these writers might have felt this way anyway, but this time they were really set up to have done so. That they had their chances at the Giller Prize publicized, when some of them really never had that chance in the first place. To the others who did have the chance, I suppose, it’s just proved mainly a disappointing exercise, because I bet they didn’t get too many book sales out of the experience (except for those lucky writers whose names happened to start with A or B and showed up on the front of the website).

Awards-culture has its benefits, it does. I’ve discovered some wonderful books because of it, so many books have been sold on its coattails, and it’s a fantastic chance for unknown writers to take centre stage (Hello, much of the Giller shortlist from last year!). But the downside is that awards continue to be the standard by which success is gauged, even when those of us who’ve read widely know that, speaking critically, this is not really the case. Because a) terrible books win awards and b) really wonderful books don’t. This happens all the time.

And yet regardless, there is this assumption of entitlement. When a longlist is revealed, the first thing so many authors think is, “Why aren’t I up there?” An author who publishes a good-but-not-great book is made to feel like he has failed by not being nominated for prizes, even if that good book is a real harbinger of wonderful work to come. (And sometimes even when it isn’t.) Even if that good book has connected strongly with so many readers who are looking forward to see what he does next. (And sometimes even when it hasn’t.)

There aren’t enough prizes to go around. If there were, they would cease to be prizes. Very few books are truly extraordinary. And prizes are subjective, by the way. They matter, but they don’t matter. For sixteen writers, today is a wonderful day, but it really has no bearing on the status of any Canadian writer who is not among them on the Giller list.

PS: If I ruled the world (which would be a dictatorship, certainly), first books would be ineligible for book prizes…

August 27, 2011

Toronto Saturday (and books)

We’re kind of allergic to crowds, so we tend to go to where they don’t go. But perhaps another way to honour Jack Layton is to spend a good Toronto Saturday, and that’s what we did. We hauled ourselves out of bed (which was difficult. We’d spent last night watching The Long Good Friday, which is the best movie we’ve seen in ages, and it was hard to fall asleep after that) and walked through Little Italy down to Queen Street West, and met our friends in Trinity Bellwoods Park for some caffeine and Clafouti croissants. And then we crossed the street to Type Books to attend the launch of This New Baby, a book by Teddy Jam with new illustrations by textile designer Virginia Johnson. Which meant that Virginia Johnson read us stories, and we got to eat yummy cheese.

We bought a copy of the book for ourselves, a few for friends, and somehow a copy of Lynn Coady’s The Antagonist fell into my purchases. Then we walked home via Kensington Market where we had a good lunch. Also via a yardsale just up the street–the best thing about my neighbourhood is that it’s full of writers and university professors, so the book selection at the yardsales is always top-notch (if not a bit weird/specialized. A lot of Holocaust Studies, Lesbian Short Fiction Anthologies, and Irritation Bowel Syndrome books at this one). I got Toronto Noir, All the Anxious Girls on Earth, and Acquainted With the Night.

June 16, 2011

Introducing Canadian Bookshelf!

For the past few months, I’ve been thrilled to be part of the amazing launching the website Canadian Bookshelf. The site is a work-in-progress, which is pretty wonderful, because it’s fabulous already. It’s the largest-ever online assemblage of Canadian books of all kinds, with author pages and a reader community. A big feature of the site is reading lists, which I’ve had a great time soliciting from writers and hand-picked expert readers (and also writing my own– here is my own list of favourite bookish novels). I’m also pretty happy with the Canadian Bookshelf blog, with guest posts like this one by Anne Perdue, or my new post today on great books for Dads on Father’s Day. To learn a bit more about Canadian Bookshelf, you can read my introductory blog post. And if you’ve got some time to kill, kill away merrily with the Canadian Bookshelf Cover Shuffle.