K.D. Miller in Maclean's and Globe and Mail: up for Writer's Trust Tonight!

Besides teaching me so much about writing, Alice Munro once taught me something about being a writer. It was 1986. She had just launched The Progress of Love and was doing a reading in a local library. I couldn’t afford to hand her one of the glossy new hardcovers to sign, so I took along my least-tattered Munro paperback – Lives of Girls and Women. She opened it tenderly, looked up and gave me a gracious smile before signing her name.I learned that night that the reader is to be honoured – even if she shows up with a second-hand copy of the wrong book.

A lovely anecdote from K.D. Miller about the graciousness of Alice Munro in The Globe and Mail as part of yesterday's feature on the Writer's Trust award, for which K.D. is up tonight. 

And speaking of influence and homage, K.D. was also featured in Maclean's this past Monday, where she spoke of her debt to Flannery O'Connor and her ability "as a religious person, to see beyond the borders of her faith and at times stare straight into the eyes of evil," something readers acquainted with All Saints and the character of Alice Vipond will no doubt be familiar with.

The Writer's Trust Award is announced tonight at 6:30PM at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.

Our fingers are crossed for you, K.D.!

We Learned it at the Movies

"Though it’s set in a different country, English readers might be reminded of NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names....In language laced with Cuban Spanish and Russian-accented English, the story is informed by its political context but still manages to evoke that magical form of thinking that children in particular possess." 

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret takes the lead in The Globe and Mail's most recent small press books round-up. 

And in case you missed it, Benjamin Woodart's recent in-depth and very smart reading of the novel over at Numero Cinq is well worth checking out. Especially recommended for film buffs, it highlights the many ways in which Ondjaki slyly references and deconstructs the Hollywood adventure story throughout the book, and it even includes a specific count of the number of times the word "movies" appears in the novel. So crack out the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy Woodart's performance. Here's a taste:

"These children know how movies work, and apply this knowledge to create an adventure...By constantly having his characters live out and reference moments from their favorite films, Ondjaki’s narrative succeeds on two fronts: first, a steady verbal rhythm is created. The word “movie” appears 26 times throughout the thin volume, and with each mention, the reader is simultaneously transported back to the previous mentions (a flashback-within-a-flashback, if you will) while also propelled forward within the narrative. This creates a wonderful looping rhythm to both the piece and the language within. Secondly, these moments reinforce to the reader the fantasy that is the novel: Only in a film would a ragtag group of youngsters take on a military force with nothing but their wits and courage. And this is where Ondjaki’s flashback structure also helps cleverly underline the narrative as that of playful, rambunctious popcorn. Knowing the mausoleum will be ruined at the beginning of the story allows the reader to fully embrace the events that lead up to the explosion." 

"I Was There" a Best in Small Press Book, Globe & Mail

If you're looking for yet another reason to pick up Ray Robertson's I Was There the Night He Died as that cool-man gift for daddy-o, well, look no further than the Globe & Mail: IWT was featured this weekend as a Best in Small Press Book.  Here's what they had to say:

"An uplifting read ... the style is writerly, self-conscious and poignant  ... a redemptive story about love despite the prevalence and certainty of death."

Call this the Father's Day frosting on the cake that was Shelagh Rogers's stupendous Next Chapter interview. Happy weekend, folks. Peace out! 

Boyko in Wall Street Journal, Globe & Mail

Who's that guy? D@*ned if I know.

It was a good weekend for Novelists, yes indeed, with wonderful write-ups in both The Globe & Mail and The Wall Street Journal. "Few writers in this country have a better poker face than C.P. Boyko," begins Michael Hingston in the Globe, going on to call him "vivid and wickedly funny," noting that "Boyko is at his best when documenting the ways in which writers insulate themselves from reality by adopting the trappings and jargon of the publishing world into their everyday lives." (He also, ahem, implies that authorship is a kind of terminal madness, and that writing short fiction perhaps lessens one's exposure, and thus the acuity of the condition. Could the same be said for the publishing short fiction? I wonder.)

Today, the same day, the very same day, our good friends over at The Wall Street Journal had this to say (noting that a review of Edward St. Aubyn's Lost for Words preceded it, and didn't fare quite so well):

The stories in C.P. Boyko's uproarious "Novelists" display authors in their many exotic varieties of misery and neurosis .... The signal trait shared by Mr. Boyko's dreamy wretches is egotism; they rarely have the faintest idea what is actually going on around them. (In "The Word 'Genius,' " the author of Edwardian-era melodramas sees a physician about his ulcers and turns out to suffer from hunger pangs, having forgotten to eat.) "The Prize Jury" calamitously throws a baker's dozen of novelists together to choose the winner of the Godskriva Prize, a one-time award honoring "the best novel of all time." (Being invited to serve as a judge gives one writer pause: "Wouldn't his being on the jury disqualify his own novels from being chosen?") Mr. Boyko's ensemble of absurd, inexhaustible narcissists is no more flattering than Mr. St. Aubyn's ship of fools, but it comes uncomfortably nearer to reality.

I'd say you could read the full review online, but really, that'd be a fib, since the WSJ security-monkeys are pretty fierce. You'll have to trust that I've given you the best bits. Happy Saturday, all, and happy long weekend. (Novelists go well with beaches & beer. I swear.)

Kathy Page a "Best in New Small Press Books," Globe & Mail

This week we're happy to report that Kathy Page's Paradise & Elsewhere, pictured below in this wonderful display at Salt Spring Books, has had its first two reviews: a short-but-sweet feature in the "Best in New Small Press Books" in The Globe and Mail, and a lengthy write-up in The Winnipeg Review. Here's what our media pals had to say:

THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“The intensely familiar and the strikingly odd combine here to form a reading experience similar to that of fable. Indeed, though Paradise is set in modern times, here we cover similar ground as that of Greek myth or Grimm … but rest assured, these contemporary tales are as insightful as their older counterparts.”

THE WINNIPEG REVIEW
“All at once the stories in this collection are realistic, feminist, apocalyptic … [Kathy Page] has got it all, and she is unapologetic about delivering the goods …  this book is full of beautiful intelligent writing that is sharp, raw and to the point. And it just might make us all better human beings.”

Not bad, huh? Kathy's got events coming up all over the place over the next few months, so keep an eye out for her in Vancouver (April 29), Salt Spring (May 1), Windsor (May 26), and Toronto (May 27-28). Books should be in stores any minute now, if they aren't already ... and if you want to know where you can find Paradise & Elsewhere in a town near you, drop us a line any time.

"It’s easy to become addicted to your product": The Globe & Mail on David Mason

This just in from today's Globe & Mail:

"Almost all booksellers are also book lovers which means antiquarian dealers are nearly inevitably divided souls, torn between the competing desire to collect what they love and the financial necessity to sell their wares. This tension between hoarding and retailing is both funny and sad, which explains the hilarious pathos that runs through The Pope’s Bookbinder, the sprightly but also melancholy memoirs of David Mason, a Canadian book dealer of international reputation ... A witty raconteur and compulsive gossip, Mason has written a book that will delight anyone who loves literary scuttlebutt."

But it doesn't end there. For a most suggestive conclusion check out the Globe website. Thanks to the Globe & to JH for their hard work, & have a great weekend, everybody. Peace & love from the Bibliomanse.