Bookninja

While I’m glad to see dub poetry getting some mainstream love, I’m sad Karen Solie didn’t make it. She’s our best working poet. Next time, Solie!

John Burnside formally announced Roger Robinson as the winner of the
T. S. Eliot Prize at an Award Ceremony in the Wallace Collection on Monday 13th January. Roger was presented with a cheque for £25,000 and each shortlisted poet was presented with a cheque for £1,500 in recognition of their achievement in winning a place on the most prestigious shortlist in UK poetry.

The award ceremony was preceded by the thrilling and varied T. S. Eliot Prize Readings on Sunday 12th January, held in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. In the largest event of the poetry year, all ten poets read to a sell-out audience in a fantastic evening of poetry.

Wow, I could read that last sentence aloud about 100 times and not get tired of hearing it.

The anniversary of his death is today. The anniversary of him huffing farts is, I imagine, every weekend. And perhaps Tuesdays through Fridays. And here’s his death mask. Wait, people still get death masks? Ooh, I’m starting to plan mine now.

The Giller Prize has announced its giant jury for 2020. Some wonderful folks here. Should make for an exciting list.

I know some writers who have gotten in deep doo-doo over the years by writing about their family –[cough]Michael[cough]– where do you draw the lines around what is “true” and what is made up for the sake of the tale? And that’s what this article explores.

In her 1955 essay “Place in Fiction,” Eudora Welty talks about the writer’s role in managing reality: “The business of writing, and the responsibility of the writer [is] to disentangle the significant—in character, incident, setting, mood, everything—from the random and meaningless and irrelevant that in real life surround and beset it. It is a matter of his [the writer] selecting and, by all that implies, of changing ‘real’ life as he goes.” Being a writer of a certain type of fiction, in other words, is about taking reality and making it make sense for the narrative at hand. Meaning sometimes a writer has to do a lot of altering to real things, real people, real stories; Meaning you ultimately disappear from the narrative even though your t-shirt remains on the bed in chapter four.

Vivek Shraya’s VS. Books wants to see your stuff. Exciting times in publishing.

The majority of literary awards and programs in Canada equate early-career authorship with being younger in age, often excluding those who begin forming their writing practices after the age of 35. While the age limits for previous VS. Books calls were much younger (18–24 in 2017 and 18–28 in 2018), Shraya says in a press release, “I also thought about how the resources and opportunities available to artists in marginalized communities, however few, tend to favour youth (and how I myself missed out on many opportunities for queer and trans youth because I came into these identities as an adult).”

I’ve been following this guy’s work for years, first through Facebook and now in print. Really amazing stuff and very important work contextualizing indigenous life through the lens of the indigenous eye. Text article with audio here of him talking to Canada’s erudite and beloved book mom, Shelagh Rogers.

After Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was released, Willow Cree writer, cultural activist and journalist Paul Seesequasis felt compelled to do something to contribute and understand what his mother, a residential school survivor, went through.

He began to collect and share never-before-published photos of Indigenous communities across North America, and learned the stories of those photographed. Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun shares some of the most compelling images and stories from this project. 

This is actually quite magical and lovely. Do they come a more…. ahem… robust size? Otherwise, I’ll be needing a tux. Original designer’s page here.

Quill says HC Canada and Harlequin have both pulled out of sponsoring the Romance Writers of America conference due to accusations of racism on the part of the organization. It’s a serious matter and I’m not even going to make a “pulled-out” joke. Nope.

HarperCollins Canada and Harlequin aren’t giving the Romance Writers of America any love, as they pull their sponsorship and participation from this year’s RWA national conference, scheduled to take place July 29–Aug. 1 in San Francisco. The two divisions join several other U.S.–based publishers in the boycott, including HarperCollins imprint Avon Books.

The decision follows widespread criticism that the RWA is not inclusive. In particular, the organization’s RITA Awards have been called out by the community for its lack of BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ nominees and winners. 

Britain, despite the sheer and utter stupidity of its political life, seems to be re-embracing the independent bookstore while the larger chains wane. It’s the Circle of Death.

At the Booksellers Association, managing director Meryl Halls welcomed the third year of growth in indie numbers, although she pointed out that it comes against a tough backdrop of online competition, rent and business-rate rises, and uncertainty around Brexit. And even with the increase, there are still less than half the number of independent booksellers in the UK and Ireland today than in 1995, when there were 1,894 stores.

“It is very heartening,” said Halls. “This is testament to the creativity, passion and hard work of our booksellers, who continue to excel in challenging circumstances, particularly those wider high-street challenges which so often see bookshops outperforming their high-street peers.”

Are you one of those literary-minded folks working at the coalface of children in the trenches of parenting and has fallen out of the habit of reading? This article is for you: How to read after becoming a parent. I read and wrote quite a bit as a stay-at-home parent. Mostly during naps and after I’d handed off the kid in the evenings. That said, if you’re a single parent… God love you.

Returning to reading isn’t only—or really at all—for the betterment of my children. Sure, it sets a good example for them, and yes, kids are likelier to imitate the actions of their parents than follow spoken instructions from them.