Great news: two Biblioasis short story collections, Cynthia Flood's Red Girl Rat Boy and Colette Maitland's Keeping The Peace, have been shortlisted for the 2014 ReLit Prize. The ReLit, whose mandate is "Ideas, Not Money," celebrates yearly the best new work published by Canada's indies, and The Globe and Mail has called it “The country’s pre-eminent literary prize recognizing independent presses." This year, the ReLit has mixed things up by eliminating longlists in favour of long shortlists. The shortlists are broken down by novels, poetry, and short fiction.
Red Girl Rat Boy was also included in TheNational Post's recent roundup, "2014 Things of 2014: 20 Books Plus 3 Comics," where it was distinguished as one of their top three short story collections of the year.
Best of luck to Cynthia and Colette and all the nominees!
Below in the first of a series of appreciations that have begun to come in from readers as part of Biblioasis's 10th anniversary highlighting the important writers and books from Biblioasis's past. More will follow, at 2-3 per week, over the next several months.
Biblioasis is a life boat, rescuing passengers from the sinking (always) ship of a culture steering headlong towards the tsunami of our murky future (the new). Some of the passengers rescued mean a lot to me as a writer, person and thinker. John Metcalf's hilarious early fiction, anything by the astonishing Leon Rooke, David Helwig (poetry, fiction, and that amazing Chekhov translation), Clark Blaise -- to tell the truth, not much of the new stands up to these giants. Of the newer variety, Caroline Adderson and Cynthia Flood will be read long after the deluge. I deeply admire the elegance and wit of Russell Smith and, of course, there is the often overlooked Mike Barnes, a Canadian original, a world original. And the holy poetry of Amanda Jernigan. These are my companions in the night. --Douglas Glover
Further appreciations can be sent to Dan Wells at dwells@biblioasis.com, and will be published on Thirsty and elsewhere in due course.
Over at the Malahat, Cody Klippenstein has conducted a wonderful interview with Cynthia Flood about reading, literary influences, the power of a good short story and much else besides.
In one of your past interviews about your latest story collection, Red Girl, Rat Boy, you mentioned that your ideal reader prefers to work themselves between the lines rather than being handed the literary equivalent of a grocery list. I like that. As a reader, then, what do you look for in a great piece of fiction? What makes a story sing for you?
For me, reading good fiction combines pleasure in character, incident, imagery, dialogue with simultaneous pleasure in seeing how these work together. A story = a design.
Suppose that in the early paragraphs fig-tree and spoil and gave the alarm turn up. When bloom rotting deafened appear, later on, patterns start to form, like those in a piece of weaving on the loom. Some readers will now stay alert for related words and phrases, to enjoy how they amplify the pattern, but even readers who don’t consciously pick up on such elements can experience something of the design’s quality.
Surprise always delights me. I love it when I haven’t foreseen what’s going to occur in a story. Happily I page back in search of clues, and often discover that I saw but didn’t notice. A second reading of the story can be even more satisfying, because the plot’s known and all the pleasure can rest in seeing how the writer made it.
Generally I prefer reading about people unlike me (gender era nationality class age ethnicity, etc.), because unfamiliar experience is likely to interest me more. (There is no Frigate like a Book/To take us Lands away.) But I’m drawn too by stories and novels about elderly people who have contorted emotional lives and sometimes irrational opinions. There’s lots of such fiction around, in literature written in English!
For the rest of this fabulous interview, please go here.
We're very pleased to announce that Cynthia Flood, C.P. Boyko, Kathy Page and K.D. Miller were just long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Worth €25,000, the award is the biggest prize for short stories worldwide.
Journey Prize-winning author, Cynthia Flood'sRed Girl Rat Boy is a precise collection of minimalist stories that explore the lives of innumerable wives, husbands, sisters, and in-laws vexed by short temper and insecurity and trying to navigate through upheaval with grace.
C.P. Boyko's Novelistsis a comedy of manners (and manuscripts), rivaling Vanity Fair for its satirical wit... though not, mercifully, for its length.
Orange Prize-nominee Kathy Page's Paradise and Elsewhereis a collection of dark fables at once familiar and entirely strange.
K.D. Miller has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for Fiction. Her short story collection, All Saintsis a moving collection of tremendous skill, whose linked stories illuminate the tenacity and vulnerability of modern-day believers.
Hearty congratulations to all the long-listed authors!
In the new Spring 2014 issue of The Fiddlehead, Rebecca Geleyn gives Cynthia Flood's Red Girl Rat Boy a rave review, calling it a "fateful and surprising" collection that "bristles with energy and wonder." Cynthia and her bold, psychologically fearless, nigh-pointillist collection are up for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize this Saturday, and we are enthusiastically rooting for her! Flood for the win!
Two reviews in the past week that are hard to come by online: one, a piece in the Welsh-American newspaper Ninnau & Y Drych, for Sonia Tilson's The Monkey Puzzle Tree, and another for Cynthia Flood's Red Girl Rat Boy in The Literary Review of Canada. Here's what Bob Roser had to say about Sonia's book: "I read several [passages] to my wife Cindy, who was very struck by the language ... The writing is flawless and I found myself drawn in from the beginning by the storytelling." It was also nice to get a more academic treatment of RGRB, with Joel Deshaye of Canadian Literature commenting on Cynthia's use of the politics of mythology (plus an entertaining digression on Rob Ford). Here's his conclusion:
Like metaphors, myths are nearly everywhere. Red Girl Rat Boy tells us that metaphor and myth are not separate from the so-called real world, but that they help to define its politics. And while critics may treat the words and actions of politicians with skepticism, Flood treats most of her characters nonjudgementally—a gesture of respect for them and for her readers.
Happy Thursday, everyone. If you're in Toronto don't forget to check out our poetry panel tonight at Ben McNally books; apparently last night in Montreal was a blast.
A Happy New Year to all our devoted Thirsty followers. We've hit the ground running here at Biblioasis after a delightful holiday hiatus: some of us were in Texas, some of us were in New Brunswick, one of us (*cough*ChrisAndrechek*cough*) may have caused a scene at the Gare Central by banging on a train window and hollering "HEY ZACH!", and a couple of us (*cough*Dan*cough*Jesse) saw the bookshop through its long snowy hours. A certain resident press shih tzu may have tried to take on a herd of urban deer. Altogether I'd say it was a smashing holiday (did I develop a cough?), but all in all we're glad to be back. In the interim a few nice media hits came in for our titles, and some lovely blurbs for Cynthia Flood and KD Miller especially. Congratulations to all. I also wanted to share a beautiful poem that seems appropriate as we sit here between Christmas and Epiphany, which is by our own Marsha Pomerantz and ran recently in Raritan. It's there if you scroll down. Onward, upward, 2014 ho!— T. 1. Strength of Bone review from The National Post syndicated by PostMedia News Which means you may have seen it in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Regina, Windsor, Ottawa, Canada.com, & more.
3. Red Girl Rat Boy makes Globe & Mail’s Books of 2013 Short Fiction List (Caroline Adderson) "In Red Girl Rat Boy Cynthia Flood has pared her style down to a clipped staccato that is at first jarring, then mesmerizing. How does she scrape the narrative so close to the bone, yet still manage to emotionally engage the reader? Because she’s a master, carefully maximizing the potential of each word."
4. Red Girl Rat Boy reviewed on The Coastal Spectator "These stories are told in a voice that navigates like an underground stream through the deepest channels of the psyche. These stories are felt in the marrow."
"Brown Dwarf ... creeps up on you with its increasing complexity and deft handling of an adolescent mindset. More than a mystery, it explores not only the limits of memory—how our perception of events shifts as we age and change into adults—but also the sometimes irrational dynamics of relationships between friends, and between child and parent … deeply affecting.”
“MacLeod so beautifully articulates everyday events that even the most normal (even mundane) occurrence becomes breathtaking. He takes his reader to a reality in which everything is nuanced. Every object, interaction and event has a beautiful poignancy to it, and it is in illuminating this beauty to his reader that MacLeod succeeds in breaking his reader’s hearts … a collection that should be consumed carefully."
Saint Luke Paints the Virgin As soon as his brush lifted, the elixir of her withdrew, leaving her mud in small shaped phrases. He was painting his desire to hold her always and want her never. I’d trade always for an apple, said the assistant, stroking the arc of a cheek as his teeth marked minutes along his lips. Holiness is separation, pooling just beyond depiction in a single swimming thought. That Luke could ever get her down was either blasphemy or fantasy, and both options beckoned. Know me, he heard her say. Take my likeness, make me likely.
Pssst. For those of you out west, there's a little celebration happening on Thursday night in honour of Alice Munro; if you have a minute, or forty, or three hundred plus, I'd say it's worth going attending. Here's the description (courtesy of Rod Mickleburgh). Go! Fête! Celebrate!
To mark this wonderful moment in our literary history, a few of us have organized a night of appreciation and readings devoted to Alice Munro’s prodigious body of work. The list of speakers/readers is impressive:
Shaena Lambert; Hal Wake; Anakana Schofield; Sandy Garossino; Actor Tom Scholte; Caroline Adderson; Anne Giardini (novelist and Carol Shields’ daughter); Cynthia Flood; Cathleen With; Aislinn Hunter (Alice’s cousin); Betsy Warland; Fiona Lam; Elise Partridge; and me.
Host for the evening is the Globe and Mail’s superb arts correspondent, Marsha Lederman, while the tireless Kerry Gold has been chief motivator.
We are calling the event, Munro’s Books, with the kind permission of her ex-husband, Jim, who runs the great bookstore of that name in Victoria.
Afternoon, all, and happy Monday. We've had a lovely weekend chez Windsor, as (much to the balm of our Post-Holiday-Party Heads) there were a couple nice hits for Biblioasis titles. Nancy Jo Cullen's Canary was selected by Mary Ann Moore as one of her favourite reads for 2013 in The Vancouver Sun, while our own Cynthia Flood singled out Lucie Wilk's The Strength of Bone as her holiday gift pick on 49th Shelf. Both lists have lots of great suggestions, from presses big and small. Enjoy! Oh. And because it wouldn't be me if I didn't say something: Happy Birthday, Milton. Best wishes to that glorious Form, that Light insufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty—with love from all of us chez Biblioasis.
Morning, all, and happy (Cyber?) Monday. The National Post was full of Biblioasis this weekend, with a piece running on Lucie Wilk's The Strength of Bone, plus what I'd call an all-out love-song to Cynthia Flood's sparse, strange short fiction. Thanks to Steven Beattie for the latter (and for doing his best to debunk the phrase "writer's writer," which as we all know gives with one hand and slaps with the other). "Flood is a highly accomplished stylist," writes Beattie:
whose technique is tightly calibrated and precise ... Anything superfluous is ruthlessly pared away, resulting in a presentation that frequently resembles pointillism ... discrete elements congeal to create something recognizable and aesthetically pleasing, but the whole is utterly dependent on the interaction of its parts: change one thing and the entire piece suffers.
Pretty heady praise to begin with. But then he continues: "The stories in Red Girl Rat Boy are brief, but dense, requiring concentration and attention ... [yet are] as emotionally engaging as any flat-out storyteller."
As for the Wilk review, yes, it was more qualified, more cautious, it eventually moves past its hums and haws to call The Strength of Bone "masterfully literary." Keep an eye out for more Wilk reviews in the coming weeks.
What else is on the horizon? Our second annual Holiday Party is coming up this Friday, with a 10% store-wide discount; we've got hockey events coming out our ears (including Bob Duff at the Walkerville Tavern on the 10th); we have FLASHY NEW T-SHIRTS and more of our FLASHY OLD T-SHIRTS; we hear rumour that Anakana Schofield was positively resplendent at the GG dinner; and and we swear that copies of the new CNQ will be arriving at the doorsteps of subscribers, you poor dear patient much-enduring subscribers, within DAYS. Stay tuned!
Afternoon, all, and a spookalicious Hallowe'en. We're chomping rockets and handing out candy here at the Bibliomanse all day, in part because 'tis the season, and in part to sugar ourselves up for a big booky weekend here in Windsor. Yep, it's the one weekend in Windsor where the downtown is flooded with authors, including two of our own: Paul Vasey and David Mason will grace the stage of the Capitol Theatre on Saturday. Dates below. Also of note is this charming l'il tweet from a certain M.A., whom a certain P.V. will be introducing at a certain BFW keynote event; a super-duper blog post on The River courtesy of Kim Hutchinson and The Windsor Star; two reviews of our splendid (and entirely giftable) Original Six Dynasties, one on Sportsology.com and another on Hockeybookreviews.com; and charming pieces on Cynthia Flood from Chad Pelley of Salty Ink and Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This. And don't forget that Cynthia Flood has a couple of appearances this weekend at IFOA!
Paul will be involved at three events for Bookfest this year including a writing workshop and a panel discussion on historical fiction. He will also be introducing Margaret Atwood at the Bookfest keynote event. Saturday November 2nd, 2013:
10:30 am - 12:00 noonIt's All Write. Writing workshop with Paul Vasey. Joy TheaterCoffee, muffins, etc. *Ticket holders: please let Bookfest know if you are starting the day at this workshop - just for a head count:info@bookfestwindsor.com
David Mason, one of Canada's most respected and influential rare book dealers, will be appearing at Bookfest to discuss his recent memoir, The Pope's Bookbinder.
Saturday, November 2, 2013:
3:00 pm - 3:45 pmThe Pope's Bookbinder. Author: David Mason discusses the art of collecting antiquarian books and introduces his own book. Moderator: Dan Wells.Kelly Theater
The readings continue tonight in Toronto as Biblioasis brings you more of the authors you love.
Cynthia Flood, Norm Sibum, Andrew Steinmetz, Lucie Wilk, Richard Norman, Alexandra Oliver and Mauricio Segura are appearing on the next stop in their tour to bring you readings from their newest books.
Music will be provided by Massey Harris, and our wildly popular t-shirts will be available for purchase.
To make the evening more exciting the purchase of a book will give you the chance to win a limited edition leather-bound copy of David Manson's The Pope's Bookbinder. The drawing for which will take place in November.
So come down to The Garrison at 1197 Dundas St W, and let the words fly and the drinks flow.
Doors open at 7 pm, admission is free.
For more information call Biblioasis at 519-968-2206 or email info@biblioasis.com.
We're back from a tryptophan-tastic Thankgsiving and ready for the Montreal launch of our Fall titles tonight at Casa del Popolo.
Join Biblioasis, Mauricio Segura and Donald Winkler, author and translator of Eucalyptus, as we celebrate their hometown launch with a joint reading.
We've also got Andrew Steinmetz with his latest book of non-fiction, This Great Escape, which was recently shortlisted for the Writers' Trust Hilary Weston Prize.
Journey Prize winner Cynthia Flood will be in town, all the way from Vancouver, to read from her latest short fiction collection Red Girl Rat Boy, and Lucie Wilk, who practices medicine in London, UK, also travels from afar to launch her debut novel The Strength of Bone.
Check out Cult Montreal's launch preview, in which they call This Great Escape, "fascinating," The Strength of Bone, "a lyrical debut," and Red Girl Rat Boy, "compulsively readable."
If anything is going to wake you from your post-turkey day lethargy, this is the reading to do it.
Doors are at 7pm, and as always, admission is free.
For more info call Biblioasis at 519-968-2206 or email info@biblioasis.com.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
With Turkey Day fast approaching, we look forward to having our hunger satisfied by mountains of home cooked food (not to mention pumpkin pie!) but what about our hunger for knowledge? Our thirst for culture? Luckily, Dr. Lucie Wilk has the cure for our yearning minds.
With her debut novel, The Strength of Bone, coming out, Lucie has scheduled a number of appearances throughout Ontario for readings and book signings. She will be in Waterloo on October 10 (tonight!! - poster below) with fellow authors Cynthia Flood and Alexandra Oliver. In the event you can't make it to see this trio of talent tonight, Lucie will also be appearing in Hamilton on October 16, in Toronto on October 17 and in Windsor on October 18.
She was recently interviewed on Open Book's website for their Writers as Readers (WAR) Series. She describes the books that have influenced her throughout her life.
There was a nice little opinion piece yesterday in The Georgia Straight from Cynthia Flood, who will be appearing this Sunday as part of Word on the Street Vancouver. For more on the book that changed her life, an unexpected afternoon at the VPL, and on emotionally political fiction, check it out!
From the launch of Red Girl Rat Boy:
Cynthia Flood and Betsy Warland.
For those of you who haven't seen it, there was a beyond-rave review of Red Girl Rat Boy in the Vancouver Sun this weekend, which was picked up by The Edmonton Journal. Here's a taste:
With rapid-fire narration, power-point prose, and darts of minimalist description, Flood nails her subject. Her characters are impatient to be heard, grabbing your attention, word bullets flying, hope and despair spilling over the pages. The subtext is anger, disappointment, hopelessness, cynicism, end of life ruminations, and what went wrong? Beloveds are suffering all over the place ... The best fiction challenges, enlightens, even disturbs and these qualities are evident in Flood's collection.
We'll be back soon with reports from the Brooklyn Book Festival, a bit on how Mark Kingwell's Unruly Voices became a banned book, festival appearance updates, and more!
Cynthia Flood has a new story over at Douglas Glover's online magazine Numero Cinq.
“Blue Clouds” deals up predatory males, mothers and daughters, betrayed and doubly betrayed women (an ancient story told with freshness and aplomb with just a hint of perverse eroticism), against an ironic backdrop of political engagement — even more ironic because it’s all told through the eyes of the cleaning help. Cynthia Flood writes like a telegram — terse, elliptical — but creates fictional worlds dense with character, drama and a sudden crimping of emotion.
A nice review in what I assume is the current Malahat of Cynthia Flood's The English Stories. Interestingly, the reviewer seems to treat it, at different times, as both a novel and as a collection. It works, I suppose, much as Ray Smith's Century does, as both. Here's to hoping -- come on you BC Book Award jurors! -- that Carol Matthews is right, and the book does indeed earn further distinctions.
Reading The English Stories ... one hears an echo of Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women in the steady voice and sharp eye of the main narrator, Amanda Ellis. uprooted from her predictable life in Toronto and Muskoka, Amanda is transplanted to England for a tw0-year stint while her parents conduct research for the "big book about the Romantic poets" that her father is ostensibly writing. They settle into a small residential hotel with tiny rooms containing obese or skeletal old ladies and men with scarlet knuckles and jagged nails. Called the Green House, the hotel is appropriately named for this time of growth and development during which Amanda experiences all the twists and turns of the classic bildungsroman: a move away from home, clashes of values, questioning of beliefs, awareness of sexuality, and a search for identity and an occupation. ... Disappointment resonates through most of these lives. Unrealized hopes, unrequited love, unsatisfactory careers, and unfinished books are take for granted and accepted without complaint but, surprisingly, the last word in the novel is joy. ... Flood is a gifted writer who combines intelligent description and poignant portraits to create a rich tableau of people, of places. ... The English Stories, a thoroughly enjoyable, well-crafted collection, deserves further distinctions.
Great news: two Biblioasis short story collections, Cynthia Flood's Red Girl Rat Boy and Colette Maitland's Keeping The Peace, have been shortlisted for the 2014 ReLit Prize. The ReLit, whose mandate is "Ideas, Not Money," celebrates yearly the best new work published by Canada's indies, and The Globe and Mail has called it “The country’s pre-eminent literary prize recognizing independent presses." This year, the ReLit has mixed things up by eliminating longlists in favour of long shortlists. The shortlists are broken down by novels, poetry, and short fiction. 
