The Biblioasis titles that first worked for me were by Rebecca Rosenblum and Terry Griggs. Onceand Thought You Were Dead had a younger urban focus and a lighter touch that I think are still a bit underrepresented in Canadian fiction. There's not a hell of a lot of mystery to getting introductory readers interested in a book. They need to see even a bit of themselves in it, and find something to identify with. It doesn't hurt when talent wins out in the process. With that in mind, Random House has apparently let Terry's book, Rogues Wedding, go out of print. It would look great in a Biblioasis reprint series.
- David Worsley, Words Worth Books
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Ange Friesen at the Toronto Review of Books interviewed Rebecca Rosenblum yesterday. Topics included how Rebecca writes, Libraries and short film.
"TRB: What kind of reader are you?
RR: Hmm, method-wise? I still read on paper whenever possible. I’m not against electronic reading–I’ve read hundreds of books on-screen as part of various jobs–but I prefer a book when the option is presented. When paper books become expensive and hard-to-find, I’ll get an e-reader too, and probably like it–until then, not.
If you meant genre, I read mainly fiction, poetry, a little bit of narrative non-fiction and criticism. The occasional how-to book. I’m basically obsessed with Canadian short stories and try to be current on new collections. I don’t always succeed, but the effort largely assures that I’m never current on what’s going on in other genres or other countries. I do try to read widely–I’m reading a British anthology right now–but there are too many books! Ack!
TRB: How does your reading life influence your writing life?
RR: I read for pleasure, first and foremost, but also to see how everybody else does it. Even if I’m not consciously noting lessons (I never do that), I feel like I can absorb good writing osmotically–the more good stories I read, the more I’m able to write them.
Very occasionally, I read for research, which I actually often dislike–I find the style of informational non-fiction very dry a lot of the time. But I’m just not an expert in most subjects, so I have to research–gotta get it right!"
The LA Review of Books reviewed Attack of the Copula Spiders this weekend saying "For the budding writer, Attack of the Copula Spiders offers an excellent primer on the basics; the practiced writer will glean so much more from Glover’s wonderful literary experience."
The Big Dream was featured on The Quarterly Conversationtoday: "The prose in these 13 stories," says Jeff Bursey, " contains rueful truths...swift portraits...and depths of feeling"
Alice Petersen's All the Voices Cry was reviewed on goodreports.net, the conclusion: "All the Voices Cry has to be counted one of the most assured short story debuts in recent years."
Here's a nice thing for a Wednesday afternoon: a podcast of our own Laura Boudreau reading from our own Rebecca Rosenblum's The Big Dream, as recorded by Steve Wasserman, who is at present having a love affair with the short fiction of our great nation. O Canada! O podcast! O Laura! Take a listen. Thanks to Steve Wasserman for doing this--and good luck wrestling with the dulcet tones of OC.
(Also the anecdote about RR, the smiley stickies, and the savage red pen work is pretty d*mn funny.)
Well, folks, it continued to be a good weekend for Malarky. The book didn't, like the rest of Windsor, file into Detroit and get drunk in Mexicantown, nor did it stumble home in the wee hours clutching a bag of tostadas and reeking of margarita salt ... but it did get a little drunk on love. FIVE reviews this weekend: count them. FIVE. Not only did we see some tenderness from The Vancouver Sun and The National Post, but Kassie Rose of The Longest Chapterraved about it, as did The Winnipeg Free Press and Sheryl MacKay on North by Northwest.
So. You can listen to Sheryl MacKay's interview with AK (approx. 22 min) here, and you can see how the rest of the salt shook out below.
In other news, Alex Boyd was yesterday's Sunday Poet on the vehicule press blog, tonight is Alice Petersen's Montreal launchandAlexander MacLeod is reading at the Rowers Pub Reading SeriesANDClaire Tacon goes viral at Grey Borders; then tomorrow Claire is reading at Palisades Garden in Cobourg and Rebecca Rosenblum continues to spread the Bibliobug at Virus in St Catharine's.
Lord. What a week! And to think it's only--well, a happy, yes happy--it's only Monday. More soon!
Malarky In Review
"Schofield’s brilliant storytelling in Malarky is among the most engaging I’ve ever encountered." - Kassie Rose, The Longest Chapter
"The love of a mother for her son is the central theme of this novel. But the book has much to ask and much to say about many other topics as well, among them empowerment through sex, loneliness in marriage, the futility of war, the strains of immigration and the margins of mental health. Schofield's ability to tie all these together in such an original, quirky, tender and eloquent way is to be commended ... Malarky is an alternately beautiful, brilliant, profound, poignant and comedic work of literary fiction." - The Winnipeg Free Press
"I loved this book Malarky ... I was gobsmacked." - Sheryl MacKay, CBC Radio, North by Northwest
"A challenging but rewarding look at what happens to a mother when the bottom drops out."—The Vancouver Sun
"Delightfully offbeat ... Schofield shows a deft - and altogether welcome - comic touch."—The National Post
"Malarky is an exemplary read ... I look forward to the next of Anakana Schofield’s novels."—Scott Esposito, Conversational Reading
"Irish-Canadian literary critic Anakana Schofield's first novel is a tumultuous ride. Malarky asks questions without providing answers, chronicling the emotional, mental, and occasionally menial anxieties of Our Woman as she struggles with her own agency and desire. Set in contemporary Ireland, the book overflows with subtle and sometimes subversive allusions to James Joyce's Ulysses, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, site-specific contemporary Irish art, and Catholic history. Yet Schofield's strong prose style and inventive approach to structure will likely reward readers unfamiliar with these cultural references."—Quill & Quire
"Malarky is like nothing else, and what everything should be … This is a book that will leave you demanding more of everything else you read."—Pickle Me This
"Malarky is a wacky, dead serious book, and what stands out more than anything is its freshness in a sea of same-old, same-old novels.“—The Telegraph Journal
Happy Friday, folks. We've taken a bit of a blog break this week, to--it seems--spend prodigious amounts of time at Canada Post, and then the USPS, and then in the warehouse, where a minor cascade threatened to and then in fact became a great ol' tumbledown disaster. (We always knew Stephen Henighan's Report on the Afterlife of Culture was a weighty book.) But no spines were damaged, nobody was unduly traumatized by what we'll politely call the 'customer service' at the Fort St. Post Office in Detroit, and we're back to blog another day.
This morning I'd like to highlight three interviews that happened over the course of this week, the first appearing just yesterday in The Rover; the next in Northern Poetry Review; the last on Allyson Latta's blog.
The Rover piece is especially specially special, since it's performed by ex-pat Biblio-author Kathleen Winter, and it's introducing Alice Petersen, who's launching her new collection of short stories this Monday at the Atwater Library. Here's what Kathleen had to say in her opening statement:
"I first read Alice Petersen when my friend, author Alice Zorn, sent me one of her stories in the mail, torn out of a literary magazine. I went online to find more of Petersen’s work because I loved the way her writing cuts with precision across dangerous emotional territory. I loved her subversive humour and sensuality of character and imagery. Now Petersen’s first collection, All the Voices Cry (Biblioasis) is set to launch this month in Montreal. Quill & Quire has already called it “a beautiful tribute to human fragility and the inevitability of change.” Authors David Bezmozgis and Mark Anthony Jarman have called it impressive, compelling and wise. I had the honour of asking Alice Petersen to share with Rover a little about the underground streams that nourish her work."
Not faint praise, huh? For the rest of the interview, you can go here. Alice will also be reading at Novel Idea in Kingston on May 11th, 7 PM, with Quattro poet Chantel Lavoie.
As for the others? NPR has done an interview with poetry wunderkind Amanda Jernigan about Groundwork, and Allyson's blog features Rebecca Rosenblum talking about what exactly her seven treasures are. Click the links above if you're interested. And keep checking back next week for fiction updates, and maybe even (if we're lucky and if you all behave very well) a few renegade poems. A bientot!
The Big Dream has also been reviewed in the lastest issue of Prairie Fire, which you should definitely check out, not least for its four new poems by Sylvia Legris. (See? I told you the poesy-break wouldn't last long). Here's what reviewer Bob Armstrong had to say:
"We tend to think that the American Dream, or its Canadian cousin, is a subject for a novel, rather than a work of short fiction. Portraying our great big world, bringing to life success and failure, youth and age, wealth and poverty – that’s the job for the novel, and not just any novel: the “social novel.” Toronto writer Rebecca Rosenblum may make us re-examine that assumption with her short story collection The Big Dream. Call it, perhaps, the “social short story collection” ... The Big Dream is real life. For readers who want fiction that engages with the world we live in, Rosenblum’s work matters."
Last but not least, ladies and gentlemen, and from the other side of the world: Rebecca Rosenblum and Amy Jones were on a Maritime Tour last week, where they read at St. Mary's, UNB, and Acadia. Thanks go out to our own Alexander MacLeod and Brian Bartlett at the St. Mary's Reading Series, as well as the many others who helped make this tour possible.
Biblioauthors Dine in Style: Alexander MacLeod, Amy Jones, Zach Wells, & Rebecca Rosenblum. Take that, Halifax!
Seven years ago today Biblioasis published its first book, Salvatore Ala's Straight Razor & Other Poems. So this past week we've been taking our birthday tour on the road. Tonight, it ends in Montreal, with a reading from the WOSS crew (Rebecca Rosenblum, Laura Boudreau & Cathy Stonehouse). Below please find a video from the start of the tour, which aired on Windsor Today.
So you didn't make Rebecca Rosenblum's fab launch, but you are still kind of interested in what the big deal is about The Big Dream. Well ... you're in luck. Over at Joyland they have just published a story from Rebecca's new collection, Waiting For Women. Go check it out, and then go and buy the book. There's plenty more where that came from.
It's always nice when a backlist title comes up again on the radar. While checking out the Writer's Trust site, I noticed that Caroline Adderson has recommended Rebecca's first book with us, Once.
Speaking of generations, Rosenblum is a new voice, a writer just over thirty years old, destined to take up where our current mavens of short fiction leave off. How refreshing to read about young people who aren't entirely messed up, but funny and perceptive and deeply human.Oncegives the middle-aged hope, as does Rosenblum's clean, singing prose. Don't believe what they say about illiterate youth, or about youth being wasted on the young. Rebecca Rosenblum has squeezed every bit of life out of her thirty-two years and put them in these delightful stories. - Caroline Adderson
Haven't read Once yet? Well, as it happens, we'll be launching her second collection, The Big Dream, this Tuesday at the Dora Keogh, 7 pm. I'll make sure we have copies of Once on hand: three years old this weekend, Once's pleasures remain well worth (re-)discovering.
For the rest of Caroline's choices, please go here.
On Tuesday September 20th we'll be launching our first title of the Fall publishing season: Rebecca Rosenblum's new collection of stories, The Big Dream. We're very excited. Rebecca's first book, Once (2008), remains in the top handful of books we've published here, and The Big Dream is, in every way, a worthy successor. If Once was, as Steven Beattie said, " the most exciting first book of short stories by a Canadian writer since Munro's Dance of the Happy Shades," then this may well prove to be 2010's Lives of Girls and Women. The Big Dream offers a suite of linked stories about a group of disparate workers -- from the cafeteria and telemarketing staff to the researchers and CEOs -- employed by a foundering publishing company, and chronicles its character's lives mainly between the hours of nine-to-five. These stories are, as one would expect, beautifully told, with a sharp, pitch-perfect ear for dialogue: funny, moving, frightening, surreal, fearless, generous and wise. If this is indeed the Year of the Short Story (YOSS), than The Big Dream should help firm up Biblioasis's reputation as the Press for the Short Story, and it should be a collection on every short fiction fan's reading list.
The Toronto launch will take place next Tuesday, September 20th, at the Dora Keogh (141 Danforth Ave.) at 7 PM. There will be an onstage interview conducted by Kerry Clare, and a short reading by Rebecca Rosenblum. Books will be for sale by Ben McNally. For you Facebookers there's a Facebook launch page (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=240321889344529).
If you can't catch Rebecca in Toronto this Tuesday, fear not: she'll be all over the country in 2011-12, including stops in Windsor, London, Hamilton, Toronto (again), Ottawa, Montreal, Peterborough, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Halifax, Wolfville, Fredericton (and likely many more places before she's through. For further information you can always check the press website calendar here.
In what I expect will be the first of many, many positive reviews for Rebecca Rosenblum's new collection of short stories - due to hit bookstores in mid-September -- Publishers Weekly praises Rebecca Rosenblum for The Big Dream.
In her spry, satirical new collection, Rosenblum (Once) presents 13 dialogue-rich and highly readable vignettes featuring a colorful cast of characters who work for Dream Inc., a foundering Canada-based lifestyle-magazine publisher. There's the Vice President of Human Resources, forced to lay off customer-service reps while her mother lays dying in a local hospital; the college student on the verge of a nervous breakdown who works in the cafeteria; the corporate-branding specialist experimenting with lesbianism; and the retired exec who can't quite let go of the dream. None of her main characters are editors; they come from other areas of the publishing industry, and they struggle with such mundane decisions as where to eat lunch and what to do after work. Rosenblum makes these challenges read like monumental events in her characters' lives (which they no doubt are), and deserves admiration for her well-chosen details and nuanced protagonists.
Over at OBT, Angela Hibbs interviews Rebecca Rosenblum about writing, Once, and her forthcoming second book The Big Dream:
AH: How was writing and publishing *The Big Dream* different for you than writing and publishing *Once*? Did you feel more confident having one well received book under your belt? More pressure?
RR: Since *The Big Dream* is still a stack of paper on my publisher's desk, I can't fully answer this. The writing process was a bit more focused and faster than for *Once.* I liked it that way—I felt like I lived inside the book a bit more because I was going right from one story to another. Another reason for this is that the stories in this collection are linked and there is even a small overarching narrative to the book--so I had a bit of scaffolding to fall back on when I lost track of what I wanted to do. I also really liked the feeling of working on a book as a book, as opposed to trying to write enough good stories to include. Both experiences are great, but this one was new!
I am certainly very curious as to how *The Big Dream* will be received by the wider world (wider than me, my writing group, my editor and my agent, I mean). I loved having *Once* in the world, and I feel very lucky that it was read by folks who were open to and enjoyed the things I was doing. But you are right, there is a touch of pressure that comes from having such a positive run--how to top it? What if people don't like *Dream,* or just don't like it quite as much? But in the end, it was the book that I needed to write, to move on and grow and challenge myself after *Once*, and I feel a like I became a better writer in doing it. I feel *The Big Dream* is a stronger, more complicated book than *Once.* So there really was never any other option...but I still hope people like it!!
AH: Who are some of your favourite writers?
RR: This is always so hard--whatever I've been reading recently always crowds to the front of my mind when I'm asked "favourite" questions. I read Michael Christie's *The Beggar's Garden* recently, and it was like he sat down and said, "What book would Rebecca like to read?" and then wrote that. Such tender, understated, funny descriptions of people who live on the margins of our perceptions. I felt this way, even more strongly, about Alexander MacLeod's *Light Lifting* last fall.
I love short story classics, of course of course. Munro and Updike, forever. I read novels too--the last great one was maybe Joshua Ferris's *The Unnamed.* I read an incredible collection of Dionne Brand's poetry not too long ago, and I'm halfway through Van Gogh's letters... I read a lot.
Received notice today that Frog Hollow is set to release the next installment in their short fiction chapbook series. Rebecca Rosenblum might be known to a few readers of this blog as the insanely talented writer of short fiction, including Once and (forthcoming) The Big Dream. Though I haven't yet had a chance to read these stories, I'm certain that they will be fabulous -- little I've read by Rebecca does not qualify as such. I've ordered a few copies of each edition -- surely this is one of those occasions where one copy is not enough. As there are only 70 paperbacks and 30 hardcovers, it might be worth getting your copy soon.
Over at That Shakespearean Rag, Steven Beattie has posted an interview with Rebecca Rosenblum on why she chose to stay with Biblioasis for her second book.
Rebecca Rosenblum is the author of the 2008 collection Once. That book, published by the small Ontario-based press Biblioasis, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and received almost universally positive reviews. In the wake of her success with her debut, Rosenblum was in a perfect position to jump ship to a larger house. But, for her second book, the upcoming collection The Big Dream, the author decided to stay with Biblioasis. In its ongoing series inquiring into the gulf between large and small presses, TSR asked Rosenblum about her decision to remain with her originating publisher, and her feelings about how her association with Biblioasis has benefited her as an author.
Why did you choose to stay with Biblioasis for your second book?
1) Because I had a really good editorial relationship with John Metcalf – he pushed me, but only in the directions I wanted to go, and it was exciting to be challenged like that. I think the book is better than it would have been – much better – without that relationship.
2) Because I liked the “book-creation process,” for lack of a better term. I got to lay down a piece of art on a table with Dan (Wells, publisher) and John and say, can this be my cover? And the answer was yes. A lot of work was done to make sure I didn’t have to cut the book’s length at all. The copy edit was solid. I like the title page design. These things matter.
3) Because the promotion of Once exceeded my expectations. I was really thrilled with the review coverage Once got – more like shocked, really. I got to go to a few festivals, I got to be on the radio, do readings, do interviews. I am very much aware that not every unknown author of short stories gets to do this stuff. Some of it was luck, sure, but some of it was because Biblioasis worked really hard for me.
Did you ever consider the bigger payday you might have received from a larger house?
No. I mean, I should make it clear that I think I was paid decently for Once and will be for The Big Dream. My agent, Samantha Haywood, negotiated the latter deal and was very positive about it – she would never have let me sign anything inappropriate. Beyond that, no, money was not a factor.
or so says the National Post. Today, they interview one of our own, Rebecca Rosenblum. It can be found here.
Here's one of her answers:
Q: Who are your favourite short story writers? And what did you learn from them, as it applies to the craft of writing short fiction? A: Oh, you know, Hemingway and Updike did all right, by the world and by me. They don't have all that much in common, but the small salient details, the clues to character that I feel are at the heart of a lot of the stories of both helped me and inspired me deeply. When I was quite young, I was a fan of Colette for the same reason: the penetrating look, the small weirdness. More recently, of course there's Leon Rooke, from whom I'm still trying to learn fearlessness...
SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR THE DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD
The Writers’ Union of Canada is pleased to announce the shortlist of nominees for the twelfth annual DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD. The Award recognizes the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2008.
Judges Merilyn Simonds, J.J. Steinfeld,and Rudy Wiebe shortlisted the following nominees:
Ian Colford:Evidence (The Porcupine’s Quill)
Pasha Malla:The Withdrawal Method (House of Anansi Press Inc.)
Rebecca Rosenblum:Once (Biblioasis)
Ahmad Saidullah:Happiness and other Disorders (Key Porter Books Limited)
Betsy Trumpener:The Butcher of Penetang (Caitlin Press)
"The five shortlisted books exhibit an exhilarating array of voices and styles, presenting stories ranging from the idiosyncratic and fanciful, to the satirical and exotic, to the hard-edged and realistic; these works comment on the human condition in insightful, inventive ways that show the short story is thriving in Canada."
The DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD is a celebration of the life of Danuta Gleed, a writer whose short fiction won several awards before her death in December 1996. Danuta Gleed’s first collection of short fiction, One of the Chosen, was posthumously published by BuschekBooks. The Award is made possible through a generous donation from John Gleed, in memory of his late wife, and is administered by The Writers’ Union of Canada.
The Award consists of cash prizes for the three best first collections, with a first prize of $10,000 and two additional prizes of $500. The winners will be announced in Calgary, Alberta on May 23, 2009, during the Alberta Literary Awards at the joint Annual General Meetings of The Writers’ Union of Canada and The Writers Guild of Alberta. Their names will be posted on the Union’s website (www.writersunion.ca).
The Writers' Union of Canada is our country's national organization representing professional authors of books. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing in Canada, and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well-being of all writers. For more information, please visit www.writersunion.ca.
