The new Ottawa Fiction Writers Collection was launched last Thursday and Dan, along with a number of other local authors were there to lend their support.

The launch went very well … [T]he station (“A“ …) came down and did a small piece on the launch, but I was the focus … [I]t was a success … By the way, the poster looked great!  Thanks!  And there are now about 24 requests for the book through the library…

…And now there are 29!

Dan sent us some pics of the event:

Good job Dan!!

The following press release was sent out to Ottawa area media outlets including the Ottawa Citizen, the Ottawa Sun, CTV, and CBC Ottawa.

Library and Authors’ Association Team Up to Let Community Meet Local Authors

OTTAWA October 17, 2008 – In conjunction with the official launch of the newly-established Ottawa Fiction Authors Collection at the Ottawa Public Library (OPL), local authors will be on hand to meet and greet the public at the OPL this Thursday in a Showcase presented jointly by the OPL and the Canadian Authors Association (CAA).

Dan McNeil, one of the featured authors at the Showcase event, says he looks forward to opportunities such as this one. “I enjoy having a chance to meet people who have read my book. Writing and reading are usually such solitary activities, it’s great to have events like this to bring authors and people of the local community together.” Mr. McNeil’s novel, The Judas Apocalypse, has recently garnered rave reviews from hosts of both the A Channel’s Breakfast Television and Rogers Daytime.

Eighteen authors in all are to participate in this exciting event whose aim is to promote local arts and culture:

Barry Alder Chris McNaught
William Bezanson Dan McNeil
Jill Bobula Philip Nagy
Jennifer Cook Emily-Jane Hills Orford
Jean Mohsen Fahmy Esther Paul
Suzanne Glandon Francesca Piredda
George Laidlaw Maurice Richard
Michèle Matteau Gwen Smid
Patricia McCarthy JC Sulzenko

Those who have previously purchased books by these authors are encouraged to bring them to the Showcase to have them autographed.

This Showcase of local authors was made possible thanks to tireless volunteers from the CAA in partnership with the OPL. The Showcase will be held on Thursday, October 23 from 11:00 AM-1:30 PM, and from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM at the Reading Room area of the Main Branch of the OPL at 120 Metcalfe Street, Ottawa. The official Launch of the Ottawa Fiction Authors Collection will be held in the Auditorium of the OPL Main Branch at 7:00 PM that same evening. For more information visit http://www.canauthors-ottawa.org/booklaunch.shtml.

On Tuesday, September 16th, Dan McNeil will be appearing on Daytime on Rogers Television which airs weekdays at 11am, 3pm, 5pm and 11pm.

We’re pleased as punch that Dan McNeil, the author of The Judas Apocalypse will be on Ottawa television station A-Channel’s morning show on Monday, July 14th. This is what they say about the interview on their website:

Local author Dan McNeil drops by as he gets set to launch his debut novel, the Judas Apocalypse.  Already being hailed by some as the next Da Vinci Code, we’ll tell you why this is summer’s must read.

Break a leg, Dan!

I’m sure Vincent Lam was the most astonished person in the room when his book was announced as the Giller winner last night at a gala in Toronto. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I have yet to review two of the finalists, Carol Windley’s Home Schooling, and the book with the biggest pre-award-announcement buzz, Rawi Hage’s novel about Lebanon during the years of civil war, De Niro’s Game. However, of the books I have read I would have picked The Immaculate Conception over Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, but I did enjoy that one too. What I think I liked most about Dr. Lam’s win was the backstory. We’ve all heard over the past few weeks how Hage’s book was plucked from the almost certain death it faced in Anansi Press’s slush pile, and we’ve heard how Lam’s book was the only one of the finalists to have been published by a major house. Until now though, I hadn’t heard that Lam’s path to having his book published was even more an instance of spectacular good fortune than Hage’s.

It started with a chance meeting between a doctor on a cruise ship and literary icon Margaret Atwood. He told her he was an aspiring writer. She asked him if he wanted her to be nice or be honest. He said “honest” and she agreed to read the half-written manuscript of his first book. She e-mailed him back a few months later saying “Congratulations. You can write.” She helped him get a book deal and last night Vincent Lam won Canada’s most prestigious book award.

Governor General’s Literary Award nominees were announced today, and again the big literary celebrities were passed over (though it should be noted that icons Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood asked to be left out of consideration).

English Fiction

• The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens
• The Fearsome Particles by Trevor Cole
• Gargoyles by Bill Gaston
• De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage
• The Dodecahedron or A Frame for Frames by Paul Glennon

English Poetry

• Airstream Land Yacht by Ken Babstock
• Home of Sudden Service by Elizabeth Bachinsky
• Inventory by Dionne Brand
• Stumbling in the Bloom by John Pass
• The Good Bacteria by Sharon Thesen

English Drama

• The Optimists by Morwyn Brebner
• Cast Iron by Lisa Codrington
• I Still Love You by Daniel MacIvor
• Adapt or Die: Plays New and Used by Jason Sherman
• In a World Created by a Drunken God by Drew Hayden Taylor

English Non-Fiction

• The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal by Afua Cooper
• The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King
• Starlight Tour: The Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild by Susanne Reber and Robert Renaud
• The Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement by Michael Strangelove
• The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther by Christine Wiesenthal

English Children’s Literature – Text

• Ingrid and the Wolf by André Alexis
• Pirate’s Passage by William Gilkerson
• Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen by Glen Huser
• Me and the Blondes by Teresa Toten
• Friendships by Budge Wilson

English Children’s Literature – Illustration

• Earth Magic illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes
• The Birdman illustrated by Annouchka Gravel Galouchko and Stéphan Daigle
• Casey at the Bat illustrated by Joe Morse
• Let’s Go for a Ride illustrated by Maxwell Newhouse
• Ancient Thunder illustrated by Leo Yerxa

Translation (French to English)

• The Bicycle Eater translated by Sheila Fischman
• Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies translated by Linda Gaboriau
• Vetiver translated by Hugh Hazelton
• The Immaculate Conception translated by Lazer Lederhendler
• A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism translated by Fred A. Reed

French Fiction

• Le sort de Fille by Michael Delisle
• Sauvages by Louis Hamelin
• La rivière du loup by Andrée Laberge
• Jeanne sur les routes by Jocelyne Saucier
• La Cité des Vents by Pierre Yergeau

French Poetry

• Origine des méridiens by Paul Bélanger
• L’artisan by Jacques Brault
• Les îles by Louise Cotnoir
• Ravir: les lieux by Hélène Dorion
• L’Étang noir by Benoit Jutras

French Drama

• Venise-en-Québec by Olivier Choinière
• Août : un repas à la campagne by Jean Marc Dalpé
• Désordre public by Évelyne de la Chenelière
• Blue Bayou, la maison de l’étalon by Reynald Robinson

French Non-Fiction

• Le rêve et la forêt : histoires de chamanes nabesna by Marie-Françoise Guédon
• Le temps aboli : l’Occident et ses grands récits by Thierry Hentsch
• Paroxysmes : la parole hyperbolique by Michaël La Chance
• Condamner à mort : les meurtres et la loi à l’écran by Catherine Mavrikakis
• À force de voir : histoire de regards by Pierre Ouellet

French Children’s Literature – Text

• Les saisons d’Henri by Édith Bourget
• Je suis fou de Vava by Dany Laferrière
• Cauchemar aveugle by Fernande D. Lamy
• Poupeska by Françoise Lepage
• Nuits rouges by Daniel Mativat

French Children’s Literature – Illustration

• Le trésor de Jacob illustrated by Lucie Papineau
• Le petit chien de laine illustrated by Marie Lafrance
• Les cendres de maman illustrated by Lino (Alain Lebrun)
• Je suis fou de Vava illustrated by Frédéric Normandin
• Le gros monstre qui aimait trop lire illustrated by Rogé (Roger Girard)

Translation (English to French)

• Parlez-vous boro : voyage aux pays des langues menacées translated by Dominique Fortier
• L’Arbre : une vie translated by Dominique Fortier
• L’homme qui voulait boire la mer translated by Daniel Poliquin (in collaboration with Pan Bouyoucas)
• L’Odyssée de Pénélope translated by Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné
• Un jardin de papier translated by Sophie Voillot

The three judges of this year’s Giller Prize–Michael Winter, Alice Munro, and Adrienne Clarkson–have selected a shortlist of relatively unknown authors. This isn’t always the case with literary awards (after all, the bigger your authors’ names, the bigger the audience draw, thus the more prestige your award accumulates). So why no literary celebrities (like David Adams Richards or Douglas Coupland, both on the long list) this time?

“When we were choosing the books, we had no sense of choosing a writer who had a reputation … we just chose books that we loved,” Michael Winter explained. How great is that? If three icons can just choose books that they loved, there’s a chance for any Canadian writer to be the next Giller winner.

Another thing to note: four of the five finalists were published by small presses like I Publish Press. Only one was published by one of the big houses (Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures was published by Doubleday Canada). So not only can any Canadian writer win, any small press can produce a bestselling Giller finalist.

As the CBC points out, “a Giller nomination is often a ticket to bestseller status for Canadian books, as the prize draws the attention of readers across the country.”
Businessman Jack Rabinovitch created the Giller Prize in 1994 to honour his wife, literary journalist Doris Giller, who died in 1993. It is considered one of the top literary awards in Canada. The winner will be announced at a black tie event in Toronto on November 7th.

The authors and their books:

• Rawi Hage for his novel De Niro’s Game
• Vincent Lam for his short story collection, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures
• Pascale Quiviger for her novel The Perfect Circle, translation by Sheila Fischman
• Gaétan Soucy for his novel The Immaculate Conception, translation by Lazer Lederhendler
• Carol Windley for her short story collection, Home Schooling

Stay tuned for future reviews.

Read on.

The CanWest media company, owners of the former Southam newspaper chain as well as Global TV, has established the Raise-A-Reader campaign a day to raise money for local literacy programmes across Canada. The fundraiser started in Vancouver and first went national in 2002. More than $1 million was raised in 2005’s one day campaign.

“Teaching our children to read will ignite their intellect, imagination, and individuality. Giving back to our communities is an investment in our future. The gift of literacy empowers people and enhances our communities by creating opportunities to achieve success,” Leonard Asper, President and CEO, CanWest Global Communications Corp.

This year, well known Canadians such as Trevor Linden of the Vancouver Canucks and Laureen Harper (the PM’s wife) were among volunteers soliciting donations for Raise-A-Reader on the city streets.

I Publish Press encourages families to promote reading by making it part of their own traditions. Read out loud, entice kids to read rather than watch TV or play video games all the time, and make sure there is lots of interesting reading material around for every family member.

There are a plethora of stats that indicate how important reading and literacy are, and plenty of anecdotal evidence too (take a quick look at Jacques Demers’ interview with Global Television for just one example).

Read on.

I Publish Press is proud to be a Canadian publisher, and we’re especially looking forward to reading the Canadian entries for our 2006 Writing Competition.

It’s a great time for Canadian literature, with world wide recognition of our homegrown talent becoming more and more prevalent all the time. With Canadians winning of some of the world’s top literature awards in recent years (Yann Martel’s 2002 Booker for Life of Pi; Alistair MacLeod’s 2001 IMPAC Dublin Award for No Great Mischief to name just a couple) and big literary stars like Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro having had new books come out this year (in fact, Ms. Atwood has thrilled us all with three new books in 2006), the Canadian literary scene is vibrant and exciting.

But what about all those unknown literary masterpieces just waiting to be discovered? Could there be a Jane Urquhart, Miriam Toews, or Rohinton Mistry out there? We think so. We want to select at least two Canadian books to be among the twelve winning entries.

So if you’re a Canadian author, we encourage you to submit your manuscript.

Newcastle, ON, Canada September 26, 2006 — I Publish Press is inviting writers to enter its inaugural Fiction Writing Competition. Every entry will be individually considered for publication by I Publish Press. Winning manuscripts will launch the I Publish Press website and will be prominently featured and available for sale to the public. Original works of fiction written in English with a length of 60,000-120,000 words are eligible for submission through I Publish Press. The competition closes December 15, 2006.

“We want twelve great new books to showcase to all those eager readers out there,” says Michelle Noël, Editor and Co-Publisher of I Publish Press. “We think the way the conventional publication process works many talented authors are overlooked. We want to change that. After all, many of the greatest novelists had difficulties with traditional publishing. The Brontë sisters, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce all published through unconventional means at one time or another.”

I Publish Press is taking advantage of the latest in publishing technology and innovative marketing channels to create a fresh and progressive publication process. Conventional vanity presses, because they publish everything, can’t assure readers a minimum level of quality. At the same time, big traditional houses bank on publishing known authors, and smaller presses find it difficult to take risks.

“It can be frustrating for new authors trying to get their manuscript looked at by a publisher,” says Linda Noël, Director and Co-Publisher of I Publish Press. “After all the work that went into writing their book, they now have to find an agent or publisher who will look at a synopsis and solicit their manuscript. Then they have to wait with their fingers crossed, hoping a miracle will happen. Here’s a chance for them to get their manuscript over the transom.”

The competition will be judged by the Publishers of I Publish Press. Winning entries must conform to editorial standards for published works, and submissions will be judged on originality, quality of writing, readiness for publication, and literary merit. Winners will be informed by January 15, 2007 and will be featured on I Publish Press websites in the week following.

Full Competition guidelines can be found on the competition page. For more information, contact competition at ipublishpress.com.