BOOK NEWS
Incite: An Exploration of Books and Ideas
Join us on Wednesday, April 10 for an evening with Ania Szado reading from Studio Saint-Ex, Billie Livingston reading from One Good Hustle and Patrick Taylor bringing his Irish country charm. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
A DRAM COME TRUE
Dust off your kilt, gather your friends and grab a glass, A Dram Come True is back!
Join us at the legendary Hycroft Manor on May 31, 2013 for a lively celebration of spirits. Our five whisky bars will cater to the true aficionado, with a variety of rare and distinguished single malts. You don't want to miss the special surprises and scotch whisky selection we've got in store for you this year, click here to buy your tickets today.
Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
Chrystia Freeland (New York City, USA) has won the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize for Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.
http://www.utoronto.ca/munk/gelber/media_release/2013_Winner_Press_Release.html
The longlist for the Orwell Prize, Britain's award for political writing, includes fourteen journalists and 12 books for investigations on subjects including Starbucks, torture, and the lives of the super-rich. The prize is awarded in both books and journalism for works that reflect George Orwell's ambition to "make political writing into an art."
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-george-orwell-legacy-orwell-prize-longlist-announced-20130320,0,3970643.story
Toronto writers Jeffrey Simpson and Noah Richler are among five nominees for the $10,000 John W. Dafoe Book Prize for non-fiction. The award, named after John Wesley Dafoe, a former editor of the Manitoba Free Press (later Winnipeg Free Press), is for a book about international affairs by a Canadian writer.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/20/dafoe-prize-shortlist.html
American author Junot Díaz has taken the world's richest prize for a single short story, the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story prize, written in the "Spanglish" for which the Dominican-born writer is known.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/22/junot-diaz-wins-short-story-prize
Annabel Pitcher's Ketchup Clouds, has won the Waterstones prize for new and emerging talent in the teen category.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/21/annabel-pitcher-waterstones-childrens-book-prize
Pitcher talks about her book in this podcast:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/audio/2013/jan/09/annabel-pitcher-ketchup-clouds-podcast
Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop has won Britain's Diagram Prize, for the year's oddest book title.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/goblinproofing-ones-chicken-coop-wins-diagram-prize.html
Eight illustrators are on the short list for this year's Kate Greenaway medal for 'outstanding illustration in a children's book'. A gallery of the books can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/gallery/2013/mar/12/kate-greenaway-medal-shortlist-2013-gallery#/?picture=405449369&index=7
Aminata, Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes in French, has won Le Combat des livres.
http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/category/arts/showbiz-chez-nous/
Toronto writer Becky Blake has won the CBC Short Story Prize, and a cheque for $6,000 for her story The Three Times Rule.
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Star+tracks/8157558/story.html
YOUNG READERS
I Scream! Ice Cream! A Book of Wordles by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Serge Bloch. I Scream! Ice Cream! takes the notion of the homonym, expands it and manages to make it fun. Krouse's wordplay is ingenious, paradoxically simple and complex, writes Andrew Kaufman. For age 5 and up.
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/kids-teens/genre/picturebooks/i-scream-ice-cream.html
You don't have to be a middle-grade student, or have a flair for the dramatic to enjoy Drama, Raina Telgemeier's most recent graphic novel, says Bernie Goedhart. Callie, a Grade 7 student, longs to try out for her school's spring musical production but is hampered by an inability to sing. She can, however, draw and paint. Ages 10 to 14.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Kids+drama+middle+school/8138583/story.html
Finn Maguire leads a pretty ordinary life —until he's forced to stay with his stepdad. With a dead-end job, and a drug-dealing crowd, Finn ends up in juvenile detention. One day, he runs home after his shift at Max Snax and discovers his dad: dead. Initially, a suspect, Finn becomes a sleuth. A page-turner, says Bernie Goedhart. Ages 14 and up.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Kids+Teenage+suspect+turns+sleuth/7959002/story.html#ixzz2OECq9PQg
NEWS & FEATURES
Tributes are pouring in from around the world following the news that Nigerian novelist and poet Chinualumogu Albert Achebe has died, aged 82, perhaps Nigeria's greatest ever writer. Things Fall Apart remains the best-selling novel ever written by an African author, having sold more than 10-million copies in 50 different languages.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/22/chinua-achebe-grandfather-african-literature-dies-aged-82
Slate tells the story of the near loss of Achebe's debut novel Things Fall Apart.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/03/22/things_fall_apart_by_chinua_achebe_was_almost_lost_by_london_typists_the.html
James Herbert, a British sci-fi and horror writer who sold 54 million books in his lifetime, beginning with The Rats, has died at 69. His latest book, Ash, was published last week.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/20/james-herbert-obit.html
The status of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis in Chicago's public schools has led to controversy. Initially, it seemed that the book was to be taken out of all school libraries and all classrooms; it's now removed only from seventh-grade classrooms. Satrapi's youth in Iran is chronicled in the graphic novel.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0318/Persepolis-removal-from-some-Chicago-classrooms-prompts-protests
Alexander Soderberg is the latest Swedish crime novelist to come to Canadians' attention, with The Andalucian Friend just published in Canada. Initially a TV dramatist, Soderberg is now completing Volume 2 of a trilogy. Soderberg says the story was triggered by "the idea of a woman in an escalating situation between a crime syndicate and the police.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/only+really+good/8113633/story.html
DH Lawrence was an infamous victim of the censor as his sexually explicit novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in Britain until 1960. Now a new edition of Lawrence's poems, many rendered unreadable by the censor's pen, will reveal him as a brilliant war poet whose work attacking British imperialism during the first world war was barred from publication.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/24/dh-lawrence-war-poetry-censorship
Oscar Wilde believed his success as a writer was due to his never relying on the craft as a source of income, a previously unseen letter by the author has revealed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9939664/Literary-success-Dont-give-up-the-day-job-advised-Oscar-Wilde.html
A new documentary doesn't unveil Philip Roth, but leaves one admiring the fearless ability to mine his psyche for his art. There are several surprising things to learn about Roth in the new PBS documentary, says Emma Brockes. The biggest reveal, given Roth's entrenched public image as furiously vain and terrifically grumpy, is just how charming and likable he is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/emmabrockes
However great Truman Capote's literary gifts, his promotional genius surpassed them. In the publicity campaign he engineered, the account of four brutal murders in Kansas was completely true. Almost from the start, skeptics challenged the accuracy of In Cold Blood. The last scene in the book, a graveyard conversation between a detective and the murdered girl's best friend, was pure invention.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/03/fact_checking_in_cold_blood_what_the_new_yorker_s_fact_checker_missed.html
Geist advice No. 169: Write a poem starting with the word 'eventually'. This week's piece of advice is from Geist reader Ann Kumar. Email advice@geist.com with your own piece of advice. One pearl of wisdom will be featured in the Geist newsletter each week.
BOOKS & WRITERS
Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being spins an enchanting tale about the struggle of the outsider caught between cultures. Ozeki says: 'This book is about the character creating a novelist'. Ruth Ozeki will be at Incite on April 17.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/ruth-ozeki-interview-time-being
A rainy encounter in London on the banks of the Thames unlocks a tale of loss and grief in Down to a Sunless Sea, an exclusive story from Neil Gaiman.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/22/down-sunless-sea-neil-gaiman-short-story
The myth of the cowboy: how did the lone cowboy hero become such a potent figure in American culture? In an extract from his final book Fractured Times, the late Eric Hobsbawm follows a trail from cheap novels and B-westerns to Ronald Reagan. Here is an extract from Fractured Times:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/20/myth-of-the-cowboy
The first authorized biography of the novelist JM Coetzee, will be published in the UK this summer. An intensely private man who twice declined to collect a Booker prize in person, and despite Coetzee's statement "all autobiography is storytelling, all writing is autobiography", this was the first time Coetzee gave his full cooperation to a biographer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/21/jm-coetzee-biography-jc-kannemeyer
Small-town America has found a chilling new storyteller in Missouri-born Gillian Flynn, writes Paul Harris. Flynn's Gone Girl is tipped by many to win the Women's Prize for Fiction, says Harris.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2013/mar/24/gillian-flynn-gone-girl-profile
Vera Brittain lost her fiancé, brother and two closest male friends in the first world war. She wrote Testament of Youth as a cry of outrage and agony, so that the futility of their deaths would be remembered. Eighty years on, it remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time, writes Elizabeth Day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/24/vera-brittain-testament-of-youth
For decades Willa Cather has been an enigma in 20th-century American literature: walled off from scrutiny by the tightest archival restrictions this side of J.D. Salinger. Cather was believed to have destroyed most of her letters and ordered that surviving correspondence never be published. Next month, "The Selected Letters of Willa Cather" will be published-a major literary event for scholars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/books/willa-cather-letters-to-be-published-as-an-anthology.html?_r=0
COMMUNITY EVENTS
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
AN EVENING OF POETRY READINGS
People's Co-op Bookstore presents poets Jan Conn, Zoe Landale, Jane Munro, and Pamela Porter. Thursday, March 28 at 7:30pm. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. More information at peoplescoopbookstore.com.
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
SOME POETRY, SOME PROSE ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC
Carole Glasser Langille (Church of The Exquisite Panic:The Ophelia Poems, Kate Braid (Journeywoman: Swinging A Hammer In A Man's World), and Sandy Shreve (Level Crossing) read from their works. Thursday, April 4 at 7:00pm, free. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive. More information at 604-253-6442 or www.peoplescoopbookstore.com.
VERSES FESTIVAL OF WORDS
3rd annual Multimedia festival devoted to the spoken word features musicians, storytellers, artists, and poets from across Canada competing to become the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Champion. April 8-13, 2013. Complete details at versesfestival.ca.
JULIA LIN
Book launch and reading of the author's newest book, Miah. Tuesday, April 9 at 7:00pm, free. Brighouse branch, Richmond Public Library, 100-7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at yourlibrary.ca.
BOOKTOPIA
West Vancouver Children's Literature Festival, is an annual festival intended to promote literacy, celebrate language arts and cultivate creative thought amongst youth and families. Features Sarah Ellis, Barbara Reid, and Shane Koyczan. Registration begins April 9. For complete details, visit booktopia.ca.
MYSTERIES ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY
Meet the person behind the series about the classroom pet that so many children adore. Tuesday, April 9 at 7:00pm at West Point Grey United Church (4595 8th Ave. W.). Also, Wednesday, April 10 at 4:00pm at Lynn Valley Branch, NVDL (1277 Lynn Valley Road). Details and ticket purchase at kidsbooks.ca.
Upcoming
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
LITFEST
The 3rd Annual LitFest New West celebrates the literary arts at New Westminster Public Library and Douglas Collage. April 11-13, 2013. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.
ALIVE AT THE CENTRE ANTHOLOGY LAUNCH
Celebrate the Vancouver launch of Alive at the Centre: An Anthology of Poems from the Pacific NorthWest. The anthology includes poems from three cities: Vancouver, Portland, and Seattle. Poet Laureate Evelyn Lau will open the night and the host is Rob Taylor. Friday, April 12 at 7:00pm, free. Rhizome Cafe (317 E. Broadway).
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT'S 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
JENNIFER NIELSEN
Reading by the author of The False Prince and its sequel The Runaway Frog. Monday, April 15 at 7:00pm at Kidsbooks South Surrey (960 15033-32nd St., Surrey). Also, Tuesday, April 16 at 7:00pm at West Point Grey United Church (4595 8th Ave. W.). Details and ticket purchase at kidsbooks.ca.
LUNCH POEMS @ SFU
Readings by Betsy Warland and Mercedes Eng. Wednesday, April 17 at 12 noon, free.Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings. More information at sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.
ARTHUR ELLIS AWARDS SHORTLIST
BC members of Crime Writers of Canada will present a lively panel discussion about Canadian crime writing, followed by announcement of nominees for this years Arthur Ellis Awards. Thursday, April 18 at 7:00pm, free. Peter Kaye room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
FAN EXPO VANCOUVER
Second annual comicon featuring comic, anime, science fiction, horror and gaming. Authors scheduled to appear include Hiromi Goto, A.M. Dellamonica, Eileen Kernaghan and many more. April 20-21, 2013. Complete details a fanexpovancouver.com.
BOOK LAUNCH
Penticton writer Michelle Barker launches her debut Young Adult fantasy novel "The Beggar King" (Thistledown Press, 2013). Tuesday, April 23 at 6:30pm. The Establishment (3162 West Broadway).
JOHN VAILLANT
An evening of literary discussion, commentary, and slides as John discusses the history, ecology, and political intrigue behind his most recent work The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. Wednesday, April 24 at 7:00pm, free. Chilliwack Library, 45860 First Avenue, Chilliwack. More information at fvrl.bc.ca.
SUSAN JUBY
Reading by the best-selling author of the internationally popular Alice MacLeod books. Wednesday, April 24 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at vpl.ca.
IAN WEIR
Reading by the author of Daniel O'Thunder from his new novel The Resurrection Man. Thursday, April 25 at 7:00pm, free. Clearbrook Library, 32320 George Ferguson Way, Abbotsford. More information at fvrl.bc.ca.
RACHEL HARTMAN
Reading by the author of Seraphina, followed by short musical examples and light refreshments. Saturday, April 27 at 2:00pm, free but register by calling 604-299-8955. McGill branch, Burnaby Public Library, 4595 Albert Street, Burnaby. More information at bpl.bc.ca.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Book News Vol. 8 No. 6
BOOK NEWS
Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!
Join us on Wednesday, March 27 for an evening with Pat Morrow and Sharon Wood who share their gripping stories of climbing Everest and reaching the summit in distinctly different ways. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENT
Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
Armstrong's unflinching accounts of atrocities experienced by women around the world have mobilized readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146
In Ascent of Women, Sally Armstrong writes that women in the Congo, Senegal, India, and other countries are questioning their oppression, an extraordinary shift since speaking of their experiences is a taboo. Even in the jungle, women have begun to realize that if you can't talk about it, you can't change it.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Women+unite+rise+across+globe/8067358/story.html
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson
A DRAM COME TRUE
Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
The Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng has won the 2012 Man Asian prize, impressing judges with a tale about memory and forgetting, set in the shadow of the second world war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/14/tan-twan-eng-man-asian-prize
Eryn Green has joined Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin and Jack Gilbert on the illustrious list of winners of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, for an unpublished manuscript by an American citizen under 40 who has not yet published a full book of poems, includes publication by Yale University Press.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/young-poet-wins-old-prize/?ref=booksupdate&nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20130315
Junot Diaz's story Miss Lora is on the shortlist for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award ($45,000).
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-junot-diaz-lands-on-shortlist-for-45000-british-short-story-prize-20130225,0,7972901.story
The winners of Geist's Second Annual Erasure Poetry Contest who erased Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? into their own winning poems are Mark Petrie, Frank Beltrano, Patrick Grace and runners up.
http://www.geist.com/articles/announcing-the-winners-of-the-second-annual-geist-erasure-poetry-contest!/
Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? Is one of twenty books long listed for the women's prize for fiction. Stories and reviews are here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2013/mar/13/womens-prize-for-fiction-2013-longlist
Marie Ponsot has won the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize of $100,000, for lifetime achievement.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-ruth-lily-poetry-prize-for-100000-to-go-to-marie-ponsot-20130318,0,1270585.story
YOUNG READERS
Candace Fleming's Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart delves into Earhart's accomplishments and showmanship. Fleming resurrects the aviator and the times in which she flew. Ages 9 and up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/best-childrens-books-of-2011/2011/11/15/gIQAwyLfiO_story.html
Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning is a fantastic book. writes Awesome-Charlie. Three children learn that their parents and home have perished in a fire. The children are under the care of Mr Poe, who's in charge of their fortune, and they are moving in with their new guardian. Will he be nice? The answer is a definite NO!, says Awesome-Charlie. Ages 8 to 12.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/13/review-bad-beginning-by-lemony-snicket
Patricia Skidmore's Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry describes the experience of thousands of poor children (including the author's mother) sent to Canada and other British colonies/dominions. Some were orphans. Others' parents were persuaded that their children would have a better life in Canada. For many, being shipped overseas meant loss, "loss of country and records, loss of family and roots." Grades 11 and up or ages 16 and up.
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol19/no27/marjorietooafraidtocry.html
NEWS & FEATURES
One of the world's most popular writers, Paulo Coelho has survived being sent to an asylum by his parents and tortured by Brazil's ruling militia. The only thing that relaxes him is archery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/17/paulo-coelho-manuscript-found-in-accra
With the spread of digital technologies, dictionaries have become a two-way mirror, a record not just of words' meanings, but of what we want to know. Digital dictionaries read us, writes Jennifer Howard.
http://chronicle.com/article/In-the-Digital-Era-Our/137719/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The tiny letters TSE engraved on a gold band reveal the distinguished pedigree of the fountain pen used at the Royal Society of Literature when novelist James Wood signs the roll book as a Fellow. The pen is believed to have been given to the poet by his mother and has been left to the society by his widow, Valerie.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/17/ts-eliot-pen-society-literature
It's 40 years since Virago Books was set up to celebrate the work of female writers. How successful has it been? asks Kira Cochrane. The influence of the feminist publishing movement can be seen in the power of women in publishing and in the ongoing insistence that women's voices should be taken seriously, says Cochrane.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/14/virago-changed-publishers-attitudes-women
The noise on a mid-Manhattan street provoked Tracy Chevalier's interest in the value of silence. When she encountered communal silence at a Quaker meeting, she knew she had to build it into a novel. "I can hope that my imprecise attempt to describe silence will pique readers' curiosity," says Chevalier. It has prompted Chevalier's current novel, The Last Runaway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/14/tracy-chevalier-power-of-silence
In an interview with Robert McCrum, Chevalier says: "(slavery is) an issue that has to be raised in America, until it's put to bed. And that may be never."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/17/tracy-chevalier-interview-last-runaway
Toppan Printing printed a book the size of the eye of a needle. Insects and ants will probably be the only creatures that can read this. The 22 page micro-book is called "Shiki no Kusabana" (flowers of seasons) and contains the names and microscopic monochrome illustrations of Japanese flowers. The pages are 0.75 millimetres (0.03 inch) in size while the letters are just 0.01 mm wide.
http://japandailypress.com/needle-eye-sized-book-goes-for-guinness-record-for-smallest-printed-book-1425113
Search for a book using Toronto Public Library's online catalogue and you'll notice a little box that instructs you to "buy your own copy and support the Toronto Public Library." TPL's administration has entered into a "retail affiliate" relationship with Indigo, giving the library five per cent of the cost of every purchase made through its catalogue.
http://torontoist.com/2013/03/toronto-public-librarys-catalog-now-points-users-to-indigo-ca/
A new documentary doesn't unveil Philip Roth, but leaves one admiring the fearless ability to mine his psyche for his art. There are several surprising things to learn about Roth in the new PBS documentary, says Emma Brockes. The biggest reveal, given Roth's entrenched public image as furiously vain and terrifically grumpy is just how charming and likable he is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/emmabrockes
BOOKS & WRITERS
A series of letters between a man at war and a woman on the Russian homefront provide the narrative for a literary masterpiece, Mikhail Shishkin's The Light and the Dark, that interweaves the fantastical with the real. Sasha writes from the home front; Vovka's letters, mired in the unignorable present. One recurrent theme: "There will always be war for tomorrow."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/13/light-and-dark-mikhail-shishkin-review
A.S. Byatt launches an exclusive series of new stories inspired by water with Sea Story, a tale of love and environmental disaster.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/15/as-byatt-short-story-sea
Otto de Kat's Julia is a novel of love and war, and a life spent accepting other people's choices, writes Jane Housham. The doctor called to the scene of Christiaan Dudok's suicide pronounces it to have been "painless". An interrogation of whether or not this is true–not literally but existentially–underpins the rest of this short but satisfying novel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/15/julia-otto-de-kat-review
How far would you go to save your daughter? Andrew Pyper's The Demonologist provides a subtle answer. A mystery woman invites Professor Ullman to visit Venice. The Thin Woman, as Ullman calls her in the absence of a name, refers to him as a demonologist. The Demonologist is for readers who do not shy away from things that go bump in the night, says François Lauzon.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Chilling+supernatural+thriller+enthralls+intensity/8106589/story.html#ixzz2NkWjkuzs
Here and Now is a collection of letters between Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee, in which the writers attempt to "strike sparks off each other." In his first letter, Coetzee writes. "I've been thinking about friendships, how they arise, why they last so long, longer than the passional attachments of which they are sometimes (wrongly) considered to be pale imitations."
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/15/here_and_now_letters_2008_2011_by_paul_auster_and_jm_coetzee_review.html
In Turn of Mind, Alice LaPlante puts herself inside the mind of Dr. Jennifer White, a retired surgeon with Alzheimer's disease. The story progresses in the disjointed way LaPlante imagines a mind wracked by Alzheimer's would experience life: good days and bad; sometimes she remembers, sometimes she doesn't. A compelling mystery novel with an imaginative second layer, writes Tracy Sherlock.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Dementia+adds+twist+murder+mystery/8109430/story.html
COMMUNITY EVENTS
HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.
THE LINE HAS SHATTERED
Premiere screening of film documentary on the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, directed by Robert McTavish. Introduced by Canadian Poet Laureate (and '63 conference participant) Fred Wah. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30pm. Cost: $5/$3. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward's, 149 West Hastings. For reservations, email library@sfu.ca.
GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.
ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.
WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.
BOOK SALE
Fundraiser for the writer-in-residence program at Historic Joy Kogawa House. Lots of new and used books for leisure reading. Donations of books are welcome. Sunday, March 24, 10am to 4pm. Unitarian Church of Vancouver, 949 59th Ave. W. For book pickup or more information, email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca.
POETIC JUSTICE
Readings featuring Teo Dobre, Kyle Hawke and Sho Wiley with host Franci Louann. Sunday, March 24 at 3:00pm. Heritage Grill, 447 Columbia Street, New Westminster. More information at poeticjustice.ca.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
AN EVENING OF POETRY READINGS
People's Co-op Bookstore presents poets Jan Conn, Zoe Landale, Jane Munro, and Pamela Porter. Thursday, March 28 at 7:30pm. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. More information at peoplescoopbookstore.com.
Upcoming
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
VERSES FESTIVAL OF WORDS
3rd annual festival celebrating the transformative power of words. April 8-13, 2013. Complete details at versesfestival.ca.
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
LITFEST
The 3rd Annual LitFest New West celebrates the literary arts at New Westminster Public Library and Douglas Collage. April 11-13, 2013. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT'S 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
ARTHUR ELLIS AWARDS SHORTLIST
BC members of Crime Writers of Canada will present a lively panel discussion about Canadian crime writing, followed by announcement of nominees for this years Arthur Ellis Awards. Thursday, April 18 at 7:00pm, free. Peter Kaye room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
FAN EXPO VANCOUVER
Second annual comicon featuring comic, anime, science fiction, horror and gaming. Authors scheduled to appear include Hiromi Goto, A.M. Dellamonica, Eileen Kernaghan and many more. April 20-21, 2013. Complete details a fanexpovancouver.com.
Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!
Join us on Wednesday, March 27 for an evening with Pat Morrow and Sharon Wood who share their gripping stories of climbing Everest and reaching the summit in distinctly different ways. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENT
Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
Armstrong's unflinching accounts of atrocities experienced by women around the world have mobilized readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146
In Ascent of Women, Sally Armstrong writes that women in the Congo, Senegal, India, and other countries are questioning their oppression, an extraordinary shift since speaking of their experiences is a taboo. Even in the jungle, women have begun to realize that if you can't talk about it, you can't change it.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Women+unite+rise+across+globe/8067358/story.html
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson
A DRAM COME TRUE
Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
The Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng has won the 2012 Man Asian prize, impressing judges with a tale about memory and forgetting, set in the shadow of the second world war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/14/tan-twan-eng-man-asian-prize
Eryn Green has joined Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin and Jack Gilbert on the illustrious list of winners of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, for an unpublished manuscript by an American citizen under 40 who has not yet published a full book of poems, includes publication by Yale University Press.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/young-poet-wins-old-prize/?ref=booksupdate&nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20130315
Junot Diaz's story Miss Lora is on the shortlist for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award ($45,000).
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-junot-diaz-lands-on-shortlist-for-45000-british-short-story-prize-20130225,0,7972901.story
The winners of Geist's Second Annual Erasure Poetry Contest who erased Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? into their own winning poems are Mark Petrie, Frank Beltrano, Patrick Grace and runners up.
http://www.geist.com/articles/announcing-the-winners-of-the-second-annual-geist-erasure-poetry-contest!/
Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? Is one of twenty books long listed for the women's prize for fiction. Stories and reviews are here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2013/mar/13/womens-prize-for-fiction-2013-longlist
Marie Ponsot has won the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize of $100,000, for lifetime achievement.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-ruth-lily-poetry-prize-for-100000-to-go-to-marie-ponsot-20130318,0,1270585.story
YOUNG READERS
Candace Fleming's Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart delves into Earhart's accomplishments and showmanship. Fleming resurrects the aviator and the times in which she flew. Ages 9 and up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/best-childrens-books-of-2011/2011/11/15/gIQAwyLfiO_story.html
Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning is a fantastic book. writes Awesome-Charlie. Three children learn that their parents and home have perished in a fire. The children are under the care of Mr Poe, who's in charge of their fortune, and they are moving in with their new guardian. Will he be nice? The answer is a definite NO!, says Awesome-Charlie. Ages 8 to 12.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/13/review-bad-beginning-by-lemony-snicket
Patricia Skidmore's Marjorie Too Afraid to Cry describes the experience of thousands of poor children (including the author's mother) sent to Canada and other British colonies/dominions. Some were orphans. Others' parents were persuaded that their children would have a better life in Canada. For many, being shipped overseas meant loss, "loss of country and records, loss of family and roots." Grades 11 and up or ages 16 and up.
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol19/no27/marjorietooafraidtocry.html
NEWS & FEATURES
One of the world's most popular writers, Paulo Coelho has survived being sent to an asylum by his parents and tortured by Brazil's ruling militia. The only thing that relaxes him is archery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/17/paulo-coelho-manuscript-found-in-accra
With the spread of digital technologies, dictionaries have become a two-way mirror, a record not just of words' meanings, but of what we want to know. Digital dictionaries read us, writes Jennifer Howard.
http://chronicle.com/article/In-the-Digital-Era-Our/137719/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The tiny letters TSE engraved on a gold band reveal the distinguished pedigree of the fountain pen used at the Royal Society of Literature when novelist James Wood signs the roll book as a Fellow. The pen is believed to have been given to the poet by his mother and has been left to the society by his widow, Valerie.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/17/ts-eliot-pen-society-literature
It's 40 years since Virago Books was set up to celebrate the work of female writers. How successful has it been? asks Kira Cochrane. The influence of the feminist publishing movement can be seen in the power of women in publishing and in the ongoing insistence that women's voices should be taken seriously, says Cochrane.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/14/virago-changed-publishers-attitudes-women
The noise on a mid-Manhattan street provoked Tracy Chevalier's interest in the value of silence. When she encountered communal silence at a Quaker meeting, she knew she had to build it into a novel. "I can hope that my imprecise attempt to describe silence will pique readers' curiosity," says Chevalier. It has prompted Chevalier's current novel, The Last Runaway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/14/tracy-chevalier-power-of-silence
In an interview with Robert McCrum, Chevalier says: "(slavery is) an issue that has to be raised in America, until it's put to bed. And that may be never."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/17/tracy-chevalier-interview-last-runaway
Toppan Printing printed a book the size of the eye of a needle. Insects and ants will probably be the only creatures that can read this. The 22 page micro-book is called "Shiki no Kusabana" (flowers of seasons) and contains the names and microscopic monochrome illustrations of Japanese flowers. The pages are 0.75 millimetres (0.03 inch) in size while the letters are just 0.01 mm wide.
http://japandailypress.com/needle-eye-sized-book-goes-for-guinness-record-for-smallest-printed-book-1425113
Search for a book using Toronto Public Library's online catalogue and you'll notice a little box that instructs you to "buy your own copy and support the Toronto Public Library." TPL's administration has entered into a "retail affiliate" relationship with Indigo, giving the library five per cent of the cost of every purchase made through its catalogue.
http://torontoist.com/2013/03/toronto-public-librarys-catalog-now-points-users-to-indigo-ca/
A new documentary doesn't unveil Philip Roth, but leaves one admiring the fearless ability to mine his psyche for his art. There are several surprising things to learn about Roth in the new PBS documentary, says Emma Brockes. The biggest reveal, given Roth's entrenched public image as furiously vain and terrifically grumpy is just how charming and likable he is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/emmabrockes
BOOKS & WRITERS
A series of letters between a man at war and a woman on the Russian homefront provide the narrative for a literary masterpiece, Mikhail Shishkin's The Light and the Dark, that interweaves the fantastical with the real. Sasha writes from the home front; Vovka's letters, mired in the unignorable present. One recurrent theme: "There will always be war for tomorrow."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/13/light-and-dark-mikhail-shishkin-review
A.S. Byatt launches an exclusive series of new stories inspired by water with Sea Story, a tale of love and environmental disaster.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/15/as-byatt-short-story-sea
Otto de Kat's Julia is a novel of love and war, and a life spent accepting other people's choices, writes Jane Housham. The doctor called to the scene of Christiaan Dudok's suicide pronounces it to have been "painless". An interrogation of whether or not this is true–not literally but existentially–underpins the rest of this short but satisfying novel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/15/julia-otto-de-kat-review
How far would you go to save your daughter? Andrew Pyper's The Demonologist provides a subtle answer. A mystery woman invites Professor Ullman to visit Venice. The Thin Woman, as Ullman calls her in the absence of a name, refers to him as a demonologist. The Demonologist is for readers who do not shy away from things that go bump in the night, says François Lauzon.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Chilling+supernatural+thriller+enthralls+intensity/8106589/story.html#ixzz2NkWjkuzs
Here and Now is a collection of letters between Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee, in which the writers attempt to "strike sparks off each other." In his first letter, Coetzee writes. "I've been thinking about friendships, how they arise, why they last so long, longer than the passional attachments of which they are sometimes (wrongly) considered to be pale imitations."
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/15/here_and_now_letters_2008_2011_by_paul_auster_and_jm_coetzee_review.html
In Turn of Mind, Alice LaPlante puts herself inside the mind of Dr. Jennifer White, a retired surgeon with Alzheimer's disease. The story progresses in the disjointed way LaPlante imagines a mind wracked by Alzheimer's would experience life: good days and bad; sometimes she remembers, sometimes she doesn't. A compelling mystery novel with an imaginative second layer, writes Tracy Sherlock.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Dementia+adds+twist+murder+mystery/8109430/story.html
COMMUNITY EVENTS
HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.
THE LINE HAS SHATTERED
Premiere screening of film documentary on the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, directed by Robert McTavish. Introduced by Canadian Poet Laureate (and '63 conference participant) Fred Wah. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30pm. Cost: $5/$3. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward's, 149 West Hastings. For reservations, email library@sfu.ca.
GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.
ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.
WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.
BOOK SALE
Fundraiser for the writer-in-residence program at Historic Joy Kogawa House. Lots of new and used books for leisure reading. Donations of books are welcome. Sunday, March 24, 10am to 4pm. Unitarian Church of Vancouver, 949 59th Ave. W. For book pickup or more information, email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca.
POETIC JUSTICE
Readings featuring Teo Dobre, Kyle Hawke and Sho Wiley with host Franci Louann. Sunday, March 24 at 3:00pm. Heritage Grill, 447 Columbia Street, New Westminster. More information at poeticjustice.ca.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
AN EVENING OF POETRY READINGS
People's Co-op Bookstore presents poets Jan Conn, Zoe Landale, Jane Munro, and Pamela Porter. Thursday, March 28 at 7:30pm. People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. More information at peoplescoopbookstore.com.
Upcoming
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
VERSES FESTIVAL OF WORDS
3rd annual festival celebrating the transformative power of words. April 8-13, 2013. Complete details at versesfestival.ca.
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
LITFEST
The 3rd Annual LitFest New West celebrates the literary arts at New Westminster Public Library and Douglas Collage. April 11-13, 2013. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT'S 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
ARTHUR ELLIS AWARDS SHORTLIST
BC members of Crime Writers of Canada will present a lively panel discussion about Canadian crime writing, followed by announcement of nominees for this years Arthur Ellis Awards. Thursday, April 18 at 7:00pm, free. Peter Kaye room, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
FAN EXPO VANCOUVER
Second annual comicon featuring comic, anime, science fiction, horror and gaming. Authors scheduled to appear include Hiromi Goto, A.M. Dellamonica, Eileen Kernaghan and many more. April 20-21, 2013. Complete details a fanexpovancouver.com.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Book News Vol. 8 No. 5
BOOK NEWS
Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!
Join us on Wednesday, March 27 for an evening with Pat Morrow and Sharon Wood who share their gripping stories of climbing Everest and reaching the summit in distinctly different ways. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENT
Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
Armstrong's unflinching accounts of atrocities experienced by women around the world have mobilized readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146
Listen to Sally Armstrong's inspiring interview on CBC Radio's The Current, http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/ID/ID/2340427936/.
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson
A DRAM COME TRUE
Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
The West Coast Book Prize Society has announced the finalists for the 2013 BC Book Prizes, honouring 38 authors in seven categories.
http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/news/article/2013-bc-book-prizes-shortlists-announced/
Contenders for the $46K Women's Prize for Fiction include Emily Perkins, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver and Sheila Heti, among others.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/13/womens-prize-longlist-sheila-heti.html
The Folio Society has been named as sponsor of a fiction prize to rival the Man Booker. The new £40,000 prize is to be awarded for the first time in March 2014, and will be open to American writers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/13/folio-society-sponsor-fiction-prize
Calgary writer Marcello Di Cintio was named winner of the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, a moving and vivid account of the cultural effects of enclosure.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/07/marcello_di_cintios_account_of_the_culture_of_enclosure_takes_shaughnessy_cohen_prize_for_political_nonfiction.html
Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press has announced that two Arsenal titles have been shortlisted for Lambda Literary Awards: First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon (transgender fiction), and The Lava in My Bones by Barry Webster (Gay General Fiction). The Lava in My Bones is also shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction by the Publishing Triangle Awards.
http://www.publishingtriangle.org/
Victoria writer Eliza Robertson is among five finalists in the CBC Canada Writes competition.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Victoria+writer+among+five+finalists/8083031/story.html
Having received two Bookers and a Costa prize, Hilary Mantel has now received the award described as the "British Nobel"–the £40,000 David Cohen prize, an award celebrating an entire career.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/hilary-mantel-david-cohen-prize
Booker prize-winner Roddy Doyle is in the running for the UK's most prestigious children's book prize, the Carnegie medal, for Greyhound of a Girl, a moving tale of four generations of women from one Irish family (including a ghost). Children's fiction prize-winner, Marcus Sedgwick, is on the shortlist with Midwinterblood.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/12/roddy-doyle-greyhound-carnegie
The inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes have been announced. The $150,000 prizes are awarded by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for outstanding achievement in fiction, nonfiction, and drama.
http://windhamcampbell.org/prize/2013
YOUNG READERS
Shaun Tan's The Bird King is a series of sketches and commentaries that trace Tan's approach to art. Even young children for whom the text might be a bit highbrow will find this book a source of wonder, writes Bernie Goedhart. Chances are they, even more than adult readers, will delve deeper and more easily into the art itself, says Goedhart. All ages.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Kids+Shaun+demonstrates+illustration/8070534/story.html#ixzz2N4tIenJv
Twelve-year-old Eliza Tok is an ordinary girl, but nothing is as it appears in Catherine Egan's Shade & Sorceress. The world of Tian Di protects the humans from enslavement and war with Mancers, benevolent magical beings. The Mancers locate Eliza and bring her to their Citadel to begin training as a sorceress. But there is a problem: Eliza cannot do magic. For ages 10 and up.
http://www.quillandquire.com/books_young/review.cfm?review_id=7749
Having a sibling with a serious intellectual disability changed Rachel Simon's life. The 10-year anniversary edition of "Riding the Bus With My Sister" recounts Simon's efforts to understand her sister's life. Now a staple text for anyone interested in the lives of people living with disabilities, it was adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie directed by Anjelica Huston. Age 12 and up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/with-10th-anniversary-edition-of-riding-the-bus-comes-subtler-understanding-of-mental-disability/2013/03/03/e36c2e5a-8441-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html
NEWS & FEATURES
The recently published Free Boy: A True Story of Slave and Master on Puget Sound by two U.S. historians, Lorraine McConaghy and Judy Bentley, sheds light on a young slave's 1860 rescue by abolitionists in pre-Confederation Victoria.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/historians+shed+light+young+slave+1860+escape+Vancouver+Island/8081268/story.html
What ho! It may be almost 40 years since their last appearance, but Bertie Wooster and his "gentleman's personal gentleman" Jeeves are due to return this November. Jeeves will carry on in Sebastian Faulks's Wodehouse sequel. Faulks is to publish the first ever authorized follow-up to the beloved Bertie Wooster novels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/jeeves-sebastian-faulks-wodehouse-novel
Mikhail Shishkin, one of Russia's most important contemporary authors, has pulled out of representing Russia in a major international literary event, stating he does not want to be the voice of "a country where power has been seized by a corrupt, criminal regime [and] where the state is a pyramid of thieves".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/mikhail-shishkin-russia-us-book-expo
Scientists who decode the genetic history of humans by tracking how genes mutate have applied the same technique to one of the most ancient and celebrated texts to uncover the date it was first written. Homer's "Iliad," and Homer–if there were such a person–probably wrote it in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years, the researchers found.
http://www.insidescience.org/content/geneticists-estimate-publication-date-iliad/946
The life and work of science fiction and comedy writer Douglas Adams has been marked by a Google doodle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/11/douglas-adams-celebrated-google-doodle
Some of Britain's most acclaimed authors and playwrights including Sir Tom Stoppard, William Boyd, Margaret Drabble, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie have called on the main party leaders to honour their pledge and implement a defamation bill aimed at transforming 170-year-old laws they say have silenced scientists and authors as well as journalists and activists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/mar/06/authors-party-leaders-libel-reforms
Male authors and reviewers continue to take a disproportionate slice of the literary pie, according to new research. Such publications as the London Review of Books and the New Yorker all show a considerable bias towards men. Vida, an American organization for women in the literary arts, has analysed the reviews and bylines for the last three years. The latest figures show that little has changed since 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/06/men-dominate-books-world-study-vida
In 2011, theatre director Jim Culleton asked Maeve Binchy to write a mini-play. She delivered Soul Mates, a play about a man and woman in the optician's waiting room who fancy each other but, waiting for glasses, can't read the signs—unable to seize the opportunity that is there." Maeve's play, one of 25 new 'tiny' plays—each 600 words long—lasts for less than four minutes.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/books-arts/the-fourminute-smile-its-maeves-swansong-29119121.html
Smart technology and the sort of big data available to social networking sites are helping police target crime before it happens. But is this ethical? Here is a link to an edited extract from To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don't Exist by Evgeny Morozov.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evgeny-morozov-extract
In an interview, Marilynne Robinson says that after Housekeeping, her greatest fear was writing "a fraudulent book simply to escape the embarrassments of having written only one novel."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/books/review/marilynne-robinson-by-the-book.html?ref=books
HarperCollins is embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with a former prisoner who spent 21 years in solitary confinement in the US for a rape and murder he did not commit. Nick Yarris, released from death row in Pennsylvania in 2004, is suing HarperCollins for breach of contract over his life story, Seven Days to Live, published in 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/12/harpercollins-death-row-nick-yarris
BOOKS & WRITERS
The destructive love affair captured in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept always puzzled Laura Barton, who reveals how she finally unravelled the mystery. This year is the centenary of both Smart and Barker's births—she, to a wealthy family in Ottawa; he, in Essex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/06/by-grand-central-station-radio-documentary
Sarah Gristwood's Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses tells the story of seven women whose strength, determination and influence changed history. The cunning and courage of seven women "created a new English dynasty" between 1445 and the early 16th century, writes Linda Diebl. These women should be legends, says Diebl.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/08/blood_sisters_the_women_behind_the_wars_of_the_roses_by_sarah_gristwood_review.html
An abusive husband, torture by Stalin's secret police, threats to her children. The tragic life of Lina Prokofiev, revealed in 600 unpublished letters, was made available to Simon Morrison by Prokofiev's son, Svyatoslav, whose "dying wish was for his mother's story to be told in unvarnished guise". The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev will be published 21 March.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/mar/10/biography-abandoned-prokofiev-wife-gulag
In the tradition of the heroine's journey, Kate Braid's Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man's World describes her becoming a qualified carpenter and the many concerns she addressed. The story sometimes beggars belief, writes Dennis E. Bolen. As well as being a living novel of a fascinating life, Journeywoman would be an apt primer for WorkSafeBC harmonic comportment, says Bolen.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Woman+journey+tells+story/7975742/story.html
A fine murder story is like a great love affair: an infinite catacomb of excitement, sorrow and desire, writes Robert McCrum. Javier Marías' The Infatuations, a haunting murder mystery, embracing all the big questions about life, love and death, is an instant Spanish classic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/10/the-infatuations-javier-marias-review
Scullery maids seen on TV are now frequently portrayed in books. Mary Beth Kean's Fever features a scullery maid who illustrates the life of Mary Mallon, an immigrant who worked her way up to being a cook and also, alas, one source of typhoid. Everyone in Mary Mallon's world is separated from despair by just one stroke of bad luck.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/fever-another-book-that-gives-us-a-peek-at-the-curious-lives-of-the-help/article9520397/
For three decades, the surveillance of Britain's supposedly communist writers and intellectuals was a comedy of errors. James Smith's British Writers and MI5 Surveillance, 1930-1960 is a scholarly attempt to tell the story straight. Most of the scoops were scoops of perspective, and often, a comedy of errors. Bureaucracy, inter-service rivalry and sheer inertia tangled things further.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/british-writers-surveillance-smith-review
COMMUNITY EVENTS
HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.
ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Andrew Kaufman, Camille Martin, and Barry Webster. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore at Robson Square. For more information and to register, visit http://www.rrs-mar2013.eventbrite.ca.
MEG TILLY
Meet the author and actor as she presents her newest book A Taste of Heaven. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm. Kidsbooks on Broadway. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.
DAPHNE MARLATT
Author reads from her new book of poems, Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now. Saturday, March 16 at 8:00pm. The Western Front, 303 8th Ave. E., Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.
JOEL DICKER
La Verite sur l'Affaire Harry Quebert is finally coming to Vancouver. Joel Dicker, a 27-year-old Geneva-born author, will present his second novel. The discussion will be in French. Monday, March 18 at 6:15pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.
BOOK LAUNCH
Features Prince George poet Al Rempel (This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For, Caitlin Press, 2013), Adrienne Fitzpatrick (The Earth Remembers Everything, Caitlin Press), and Daniela Elza (the weight of dew and new work). March 18, 7:30 pm, at People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Phone: 604.253.6442. Refreshments will be served.
LUNCH POEMS @ SFU VANCOUVER
Readings by Stephen Collis and Rachel Rose. Wednesday, March 20 at 12:00 noon, free. Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings Street. More information at www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.
PLAY CHTHONICS
Readings by poets Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. Wednesday, March 20. Piano lounge, Green College, UBC. More information at www.greencollege.ubc.ca.
THE LINE HAS SHATTERED
Premiere screening of film documentary on the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, directed by Robert McTavish. Introduced by Canadian Poet Laureate (and '63 conference participant) Fred Wah. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30pm. Cost: $5/$3. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward's, 149 West Hastings. For reservations, email library@sfu.ca.
GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.
ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.
WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.
Upcoming
POETIC JUSTICE
Readings featuring Teo Dobre, Kyle Hawke and Sho Wiley with host Franci Louann. Sunday, March 24 at 3:00pm. Heritage Grill, 447 Columbia Street, New Westminster. More information at poeticjustice.ca.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street.
Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
VERSES FESTIVAL OF WORDS
3rd annual festival celebrating the transformative power of words. April 8-13, 2013. Complete details at versesfestival.ca.
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
LITFEST
The 3rd Annual LitFest New West celebrates the literary arts at New Westminster Public Library and Douglas Collage. April 11-13, 2013. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT'S 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
FAN EXPO VANCOUVER
Second annual comicon featuring comic, anime, science fiction, horror and gaming. Authors scheduled to appear include Hiromi Goto, A.M. Dellamonica, Eileen Kernaghan and many more. April 20-21, 2013. Complete details a fanexpovancouver.com.
Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!
Join us on Wednesday, March 27 for an evening with Pat Morrow and Sharon Wood who share their gripping stories of climbing Everest and reaching the summit in distinctly different ways. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENT
Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
Armstrong's unflinching accounts of atrocities experienced by women around the world have mobilized readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146
Listen to Sally Armstrong's inspiring interview on CBC Radio's The Current, http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/ID/ID/2340427936/.
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson
A DRAM COME TRUE
Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
The West Coast Book Prize Society has announced the finalists for the 2013 BC Book Prizes, honouring 38 authors in seven categories.
http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/news/article/2013-bc-book-prizes-shortlists-announced/
Contenders for the $46K Women's Prize for Fiction include Emily Perkins, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver and Sheila Heti, among others.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/03/13/womens-prize-longlist-sheila-heti.html
The Folio Society has been named as sponsor of a fiction prize to rival the Man Booker. The new £40,000 prize is to be awarded for the first time in March 2014, and will be open to American writers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/13/folio-society-sponsor-fiction-prize
Calgary writer Marcello Di Cintio was named winner of the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, a moving and vivid account of the cultural effects of enclosure.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/07/marcello_di_cintios_account_of_the_culture_of_enclosure_takes_shaughnessy_cohen_prize_for_political_nonfiction.html
Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press has announced that two Arsenal titles have been shortlisted for Lambda Literary Awards: First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon (transgender fiction), and The Lava in My Bones by Barry Webster (Gay General Fiction). The Lava in My Bones is also shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction by the Publishing Triangle Awards.
http://www.publishingtriangle.org/
Victoria writer Eliza Robertson is among five finalists in the CBC Canada Writes competition.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Victoria+writer+among+five+finalists/8083031/story.html
Having received two Bookers and a Costa prize, Hilary Mantel has now received the award described as the "British Nobel"–the £40,000 David Cohen prize, an award celebrating an entire career.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/hilary-mantel-david-cohen-prize
Booker prize-winner Roddy Doyle is in the running for the UK's most prestigious children's book prize, the Carnegie medal, for Greyhound of a Girl, a moving tale of four generations of women from one Irish family (including a ghost). Children's fiction prize-winner, Marcus Sedgwick, is on the shortlist with Midwinterblood.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2013/mar/12/roddy-doyle-greyhound-carnegie
The inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes have been announced. The $150,000 prizes are awarded by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for outstanding achievement in fiction, nonfiction, and drama.
http://windhamcampbell.org/prize/2013
YOUNG READERS
Shaun Tan's The Bird King is a series of sketches and commentaries that trace Tan's approach to art. Even young children for whom the text might be a bit highbrow will find this book a source of wonder, writes Bernie Goedhart. Chances are they, even more than adult readers, will delve deeper and more easily into the art itself, says Goedhart. All ages.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Kids+Shaun+demonstrates+illustration/8070534/story.html#ixzz2N4tIenJv
Twelve-year-old Eliza Tok is an ordinary girl, but nothing is as it appears in Catherine Egan's Shade & Sorceress. The world of Tian Di protects the humans from enslavement and war with Mancers, benevolent magical beings. The Mancers locate Eliza and bring her to their Citadel to begin training as a sorceress. But there is a problem: Eliza cannot do magic. For ages 10 and up.
http://www.quillandquire.com/books_young/review.cfm?review_id=7749
Having a sibling with a serious intellectual disability changed Rachel Simon's life. The 10-year anniversary edition of "Riding the Bus With My Sister" recounts Simon's efforts to understand her sister's life. Now a staple text for anyone interested in the lives of people living with disabilities, it was adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie directed by Anjelica Huston. Age 12 and up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/with-10th-anniversary-edition-of-riding-the-bus-comes-subtler-understanding-of-mental-disability/2013/03/03/e36c2e5a-8441-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html
NEWS & FEATURES
The recently published Free Boy: A True Story of Slave and Master on Puget Sound by two U.S. historians, Lorraine McConaghy and Judy Bentley, sheds light on a young slave's 1860 rescue by abolitionists in pre-Confederation Victoria.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/historians+shed+light+young+slave+1860+escape+Vancouver+Island/8081268/story.html
What ho! It may be almost 40 years since their last appearance, but Bertie Wooster and his "gentleman's personal gentleman" Jeeves are due to return this November. Jeeves will carry on in Sebastian Faulks's Wodehouse sequel. Faulks is to publish the first ever authorized follow-up to the beloved Bertie Wooster novels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/jeeves-sebastian-faulks-wodehouse-novel
Mikhail Shishkin, one of Russia's most important contemporary authors, has pulled out of representing Russia in a major international literary event, stating he does not want to be the voice of "a country where power has been seized by a corrupt, criminal regime [and] where the state is a pyramid of thieves".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/mikhail-shishkin-russia-us-book-expo
Scientists who decode the genetic history of humans by tracking how genes mutate have applied the same technique to one of the most ancient and celebrated texts to uncover the date it was first written. Homer's "Iliad," and Homer–if there were such a person–probably wrote it in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years, the researchers found.
http://www.insidescience.org/content/geneticists-estimate-publication-date-iliad/946
The life and work of science fiction and comedy writer Douglas Adams has been marked by a Google doodle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/11/douglas-adams-celebrated-google-doodle
Some of Britain's most acclaimed authors and playwrights including Sir Tom Stoppard, William Boyd, Margaret Drabble, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie have called on the main party leaders to honour their pledge and implement a defamation bill aimed at transforming 170-year-old laws they say have silenced scientists and authors as well as journalists and activists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/mar/06/authors-party-leaders-libel-reforms
Male authors and reviewers continue to take a disproportionate slice of the literary pie, according to new research. Such publications as the London Review of Books and the New Yorker all show a considerable bias towards men. Vida, an American organization for women in the literary arts, has analysed the reviews and bylines for the last three years. The latest figures show that little has changed since 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/06/men-dominate-books-world-study-vida
In 2011, theatre director Jim Culleton asked Maeve Binchy to write a mini-play. She delivered Soul Mates, a play about a man and woman in the optician's waiting room who fancy each other but, waiting for glasses, can't read the signs—unable to seize the opportunity that is there." Maeve's play, one of 25 new 'tiny' plays—each 600 words long—lasts for less than four minutes.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/books-arts/the-fourminute-smile-its-maeves-swansong-29119121.html
Smart technology and the sort of big data available to social networking sites are helping police target crime before it happens. But is this ethical? Here is a link to an edited extract from To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don't Exist by Evgeny Morozov.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evgeny-morozov-extract
In an interview, Marilynne Robinson says that after Housekeeping, her greatest fear was writing "a fraudulent book simply to escape the embarrassments of having written only one novel."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/books/review/marilynne-robinson-by-the-book.html?ref=books
HarperCollins is embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with a former prisoner who spent 21 years in solitary confinement in the US for a rape and murder he did not commit. Nick Yarris, released from death row in Pennsylvania in 2004, is suing HarperCollins for breach of contract over his life story, Seven Days to Live, published in 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/12/harpercollins-death-row-nick-yarris
BOOKS & WRITERS
The destructive love affair captured in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept always puzzled Laura Barton, who reveals how she finally unravelled the mystery. This year is the centenary of both Smart and Barker's births—she, to a wealthy family in Ottawa; he, in Essex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/06/by-grand-central-station-radio-documentary
Sarah Gristwood's Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses tells the story of seven women whose strength, determination and influence changed history. The cunning and courage of seven women "created a new English dynasty" between 1445 and the early 16th century, writes Linda Diebl. These women should be legends, says Diebl.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/03/08/blood_sisters_the_women_behind_the_wars_of_the_roses_by_sarah_gristwood_review.html
An abusive husband, torture by Stalin's secret police, threats to her children. The tragic life of Lina Prokofiev, revealed in 600 unpublished letters, was made available to Simon Morrison by Prokofiev's son, Svyatoslav, whose "dying wish was for his mother's story to be told in unvarnished guise". The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev will be published 21 March.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/mar/10/biography-abandoned-prokofiev-wife-gulag
In the tradition of the heroine's journey, Kate Braid's Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man's World describes her becoming a qualified carpenter and the many concerns she addressed. The story sometimes beggars belief, writes Dennis E. Bolen. As well as being a living novel of a fascinating life, Journeywoman would be an apt primer for WorkSafeBC harmonic comportment, says Bolen.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Woman+journey+tells+story/7975742/story.html
A fine murder story is like a great love affair: an infinite catacomb of excitement, sorrow and desire, writes Robert McCrum. Javier Marías' The Infatuations, a haunting murder mystery, embracing all the big questions about life, love and death, is an instant Spanish classic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/10/the-infatuations-javier-marias-review
Scullery maids seen on TV are now frequently portrayed in books. Mary Beth Kean's Fever features a scullery maid who illustrates the life of Mary Mallon, an immigrant who worked her way up to being a cook and also, alas, one source of typhoid. Everyone in Mary Mallon's world is separated from despair by just one stroke of bad luck.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/fever-another-book-that-gives-us-a-peek-at-the-curious-lives-of-the-help/article9520397/
For three decades, the surveillance of Britain's supposedly communist writers and intellectuals was a comedy of errors. James Smith's British Writers and MI5 Surveillance, 1930-1960 is a scholarly attempt to tell the story straight. Most of the scoops were scoops of perspective, and often, a comedy of errors. Bureaucracy, inter-service rivalry and sheer inertia tangled things further.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/07/british-writers-surveillance-smith-review
COMMUNITY EVENTS
HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.
ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Andrew Kaufman, Camille Martin, and Barry Webster. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore at Robson Square. For more information and to register, visit http://www.rrs-mar2013.eventbrite.ca.
MEG TILLY
Meet the author and actor as she presents her newest book A Taste of Heaven. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm. Kidsbooks on Broadway. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.
DAPHNE MARLATT
Author reads from her new book of poems, Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now. Saturday, March 16 at 8:00pm. The Western Front, 303 8th Ave. E., Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.
JOEL DICKER
La Verite sur l'Affaire Harry Quebert is finally coming to Vancouver. Joel Dicker, a 27-year-old Geneva-born author, will present his second novel. The discussion will be in French. Monday, March 18 at 6:15pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.
BOOK LAUNCH
Features Prince George poet Al Rempel (This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For, Caitlin Press, 2013), Adrienne Fitzpatrick (The Earth Remembers Everything, Caitlin Press), and Daniela Elza (the weight of dew and new work). March 18, 7:30 pm, at People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Phone: 604.253.6442. Refreshments will be served.
LUNCH POEMS @ SFU VANCOUVER
Readings by Stephen Collis and Rachel Rose. Wednesday, March 20 at 12:00 noon, free. Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings Street. More information at www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.
PLAY CHTHONICS
Readings by poets Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. Wednesday, March 20. Piano lounge, Green College, UBC. More information at www.greencollege.ubc.ca.
THE LINE HAS SHATTERED
Premiere screening of film documentary on the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, directed by Robert McTavish. Introduced by Canadian Poet Laureate (and '63 conference participant) Fred Wah. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30pm. Cost: $5/$3. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward's, 149 West Hastings. For reservations, email library@sfu.ca.
GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.
ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.
WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.
Upcoming
POETIC JUSTICE
Readings featuring Teo Dobre, Kyle Hawke and Sho Wiley with host Franci Louann. Sunday, March 24 at 3:00pm. Heritage Grill, 447 Columbia Street, New Westminster. More information at poeticjustice.ca.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street.
Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
VERSES FESTIVAL OF WORDS
3rd annual festival celebrating the transformative power of words. April 8-13, 2013. Complete details at versesfestival.ca.
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
LITFEST
The 3rd Annual LitFest New West celebrates the literary arts at New Westminster Public Library and Douglas Collage. April 11-13, 2013. More information at artscouncilnewwest.org.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT'S 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
FAN EXPO VANCOUVER
Second annual comicon featuring comic, anime, science fiction, horror and gaming. Authors scheduled to appear include Hiromi Goto, A.M. Dellamonica, Eileen Kernaghan and many more. April 20-21, 2013. Complete details a fanexpovancouver.com.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Book News Vol. 8 No. 4
BOOK NEWS
Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!
Join us on Wednesday, March 13 for an evening for poetry lovers, with John Barton, Nicole Brossard, and Catherine Owen. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Interviewing Nicole Brossard, Ian McGillis learns that "We translate all the time". "Even when two people are speaking the same language, each person is always wondering what the other person meant."
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Nicole+Brossard+forges+common+language/8019019/story.html#ixzz2MWLGGOU1
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
An empowering evening with Sally Armstrong, "the war correspondent for the world's women." As editor-in-chief of Homemaker Magazine, Armstrong's unflinching editorial accounts of the atrocities experienced by women from around the world mobilized her readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146
Listen to Sally Armstrong's inspiring interview on CBC Radio's The Current, http://vancouverwritersfest.cmail1.com/t/y-i-juldlkt-l-yd/.
The Vancouver Writers Fest presents its first special event of 2013, an evening with award-winning Canadian author, journalist and human rights activist Sally Armstrong. Armstrong is the author of three previous books, Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor and Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women. Her new book is Ascent of Women. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/sallyarmstrong
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson
Sayed Kashua in conversation with Marsha Lederman
Our friends at the Jewish Book Festival present hugely popular, award-winning Arab Israeli writer, Sayed Kashua, who brings us a fresh voice and perspective from Israel. Using humour and satire, Kashua tackles the often conflicting, interconnecting worlds of Arabs and Jews living in Israel. Details: http://www.jccgv.com/content/jewish-book-fest
Saturday, March 9 at 8:00pm (note new date!)
Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre
A DRAM COME TRUE
Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
Three Canadian book designers—Elizabeth Beaudoin, (Montreal); George Walker, (Toronto); and Leigh-Anne Mullock (Vancouver)—are among the 2013 award-winners selected by The Stiftung Buchkunst in an international competition in February. The awards will be presented at the Leipzig Book Fair in March.
http://www.alcuinsociety.com
Miss Lora, from the 2012 collection This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Diaz, is on the short list for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award, along with Sarah Hall, Toby Litt, Ali Smith, Mark Haddon, and Cynan Jones. The lucrative British prize has yet to be bestowed upon a Briton.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-junot-diaz-lands-on-shortlist-for-45000-british-short-story-prize-20130225,0,7972901.story
The finalists for the 33rd L.A. Times Book Prizes include Margaret Atwood and Kevin Starr who will receive special recognition. For her efforts to push narrative form, Atwood will receive the Times' Innovator's Award. Starr will receive the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-la-times-book-prize-finalists-announced-20130220,0,2764278.story
Ontario-born historian Andrew Preston has captured the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for his book Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. This year's other finalists were: Carol Bishop-Gwyn, Tim Cook, Sandra Djwa, and Ross King.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/andrew-preston-wins-charles-taylor-prize-for-book-on-us-diplomacy/article9265075/
The short listed titles for the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award have been announced. This award recognizes an illustrator of a noteworthy Canadian book that appeals to children up to the age of 12 years.
http://www.bookcentre.ca/news/shortlists_announced_2013_cla_book_awards
Shalom Auslander accepted his first literary prize with his trademark ambivalence. The Guardian muses on the ways in which authors accept awards, or not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/mar/01/author-reject-acceptance-speech-cliche?INTCMP=SRCH
YOUNG READERS
Seven intense story lines stretch from the near future to the distant past, together forming a story of love, sacrifice and blood in Marcus Sedgwick's Midwinterblood. Ages 13 to 18.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/books/review/midwinterblood-by-marcus-sedgwick.html?nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20130208&_r=1&
Angry Birds, the Book includes both trivia and stunning photographs: e.g., the hummingbird has to eat almost constantly or it will die; the northern fulmar kills by means of "deadly barf." Boys will embrace this book with enthusiasm, writes Bernie Goedhart. Ages 8 to 12.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Kids+Angry+Birds+book/8037414/story.html#ixzz2McSAZbJA
A lab assistant to a scientist; a sidekick of an Indian magician; and a samurai-trained Japanese refugee meet when they encounter a decapitated body on a foggy street. Anyone longing for a refreshing, inspiring cast of female heroes will find them in The Friday Society, writes Laura Godfrey. Age 12 and up.
http://www.quillandquire.com/books_young/review.cfm?review_id=7817
NEWS & FEATURES
Apple has rejected a book of vintage gay erotic drawings. Ironically, Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press received the news during Freedom to Read Week. Robert Ballantyne said this is the first time they have experienced this and that Lust Unearthed—the book under discussion--is currently listed as available in digital or print versions from Chapters, Indigo and Amazon.
http://www.straight.com/life/358371/apple-rejects-vancouver-publishers-vintage-gay-graphics-book
Canada has fallen to 20th place on Reporters' Without Borders' international Press Freedom Index. In a country where government scientists are prohibited from speaking about climate change, democracy is something we musn't take for granted, says Elizabeth Warkentin, who plans to read East of Eden, while enjoying her right to read freely. Freedom to Read Week began March 2.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/02/28/freedom_to_read_week_reminds_us_to_fight_for_our_rights.html
Chekhov's love life was complicated and very busy; he had no wish to settle down. William Boyd believes one short story reveals much about the Russian's sexual liaisons, and wrote the play Longing based on it, leaving us with as full a sense of his amorous life as can be realistically quantified.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/01/anton-chekhov-lifetime-lovers-play
Headlining this week's pick of Guardian readers are Life of Pi and Ian McEwan's Enduring Love.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/mar/01/reader-reviews-roundup
An epic story of men, gods, lost tribes, battles and kingdoms, loaded with ancient and modern religious philosophy, has won its author a million-dollar advance from an Indian publisher. The work is a trilogy that Amish Tripathi, a former banker turned bestselling novelist, will write when the marketing campaign for his most recent work, Oath of the Vayaputras, is over.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/04/indian-writer-record-advance-trilogy
Nobel prize (literature) winner Mo Yan has taken on critics who have dismissed him for being too close to the Chinese government, saying they envy him the award and are distorting the meaning of his work. The author, whose pen name means "don't speak", has spoken out on a number of issues.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/28/mo-yan-dismisses-nobel-critics
7.7 out of 10 readers agree that Philip Roth is the greatest living American novelist. A "panel of 30 literati"–the likes of Salman Rushdie, Nell Freudenberger, and Gary Shteyngart–were asked by New York magazine's Vulture site "to assess [Roth's] oeuvre" ahead of his 80th birthday next month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/feb/27/philip-roth-greatest-us-writer?INTCMP=SRCH
When the respected scholar, author and critic Sandra Djwa embarked on Journey With No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page more than a decade ago, she had no inkling of how challenging or far-flung the expedition would be. The St. John's, Nfld. native calls it "the most difficult book I've ever written."
http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/15/breaking-conventions-2/
BOOKS & WRITERS
People interested in the cultural dynamics at play in Israel today would be wise to read Second Person Singular, a novel by Sayed Kashua, a Palestinian-Israel writer, writes Tracy Sherlock.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/compelling+storylines+intersect+with+complex+nuances/8027984/story.html
Rian Malan's tales in The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Other Stories of Africa create a grimly realistic picture of a nation clinging desperately to hope. It would be hard to find a writer more heroically committed to that particular archetype than Malan, writes Tim Adams.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/03/the-lion-sleeps-tonight-review
Maurice Sendak's My Brother's Book is both beautiful and a devastating tribute to his brother, writes Helen Zaltzman. Like Sendak's works for children, My Brother's Book has a primal feeling of terror.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/02/my-brothers-book-maurice-sendak-review
It has always seemed to me that graphic literature features a higher proportion of coming-of-age stories than any other literary form, writes Ian McGillis. Geneviève Castrée's Susceptible, a graphic novel about a girl growing up with a single mother in the Quebec of the 1980s and '90s, is an exemplary new case of this tendency, says McGillis.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Graphic+novel+captures+hard+grow/7959084/story.html
Sunila Deraniyagala was holidaying with her family on the coast of Sri Lanka in 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami came ashore. Her husband, two sons and her parents all died in the wave. Deraniyagala's book is all epilogue, a meditation through grief and on grief, writes Sunila Galappatti. It is courageous, truthful and above all, generous, says Galappatti.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/how-to-survive-the-loss-of-your-children-your-parents-and-your-husband-all-at-once/article9211776/
Jodi Picoult's new novel, The Storyteller raises questions of guilt and forgiveness. The novel centers on the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who befriends an elderly man. After revealing that he served as a Nazi officer, the man requests that she help him die—and to forgive him, too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/jodi-picoult-wrestles-with-questions-of-guilt-forgiveness-in-the-storyteller/2013/02/26/9f3b4776-7955
Emily Bazelon's Sticks and Stones charts the experiences of three bullied children, and scholarship on how to contain or prevent such harm. She focuses primarily on an African-American girl; a gay boy; and an Irish girl. Bazelon includes chapters on anti-bullying measures, and examines both the virtues and the pitfalls of treating bullying as a crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/books/review/sticks-and-stones-emily-bazelons-book-on-bullying.html?nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20130301&_r=0
It's always been hard to keep up with George Bowering, writes Tom Sandborn. He's published more than 60 books and his latest Words, Words, Words: Essays and Memoirs delivers a feast of pleasures, says Sandborn.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Bowering+words+sure+please+readers/8040384/story.html
COMMUNITY EVENTS
HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.
POETS AND THE SOCIAL SELF
Join Wayde Compton, Joanne Arnott, and Michael Turner with Renee Sarojini Saklikar as they discuss and read from their work. Thursday, March 7 at 7:00pm, free. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU's Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W Hasting St. More information at sfuwoodwards.ca.
INHABITING WOMEN'S SPACE
Four women writers explore how women inhabit space, metaphorically. Join Kate Braid, Marilyn Bowering, Sandra Djwa and Kathy Mezei as they present their recent work. Friday, March 8 at 7:00pm, free. Lower level, Alice MacKay room, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
NATIONAL INDIGENOUS WRITERS CONFERENCE
A day-long, participant-driven panel on the representation and recognition of Aboriginal writers in Canada. Cost: $30/$15. Saturday, March 9 from 9am to 5pm. SFU Vancouver, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.
E. PAULINE JOHNSON/TEKAHIONWAKE
Mark your March 2013 calendars for two special upcoming events honouring the life, work, birth date and 100th Anniversary of the death of E. Pauline Johnson/Tekahionwake with The City of Victoria's Poet Laureate Janet Rogers. The Inspiration of E. Pauline Johnson, Rhizome Cafe, Saturday March 9, 7:00pm and Poetry in the Park for Pauline: Poetry Offerings, Stanley Park, at Johnson's Memorial, Sunday March 10, 1:00pm (Johnson's birthday). For complete details, visit http://www.herstorycafe.ca/.
DEAD POETS READING SERIES
Next reading features Rob Taylor, Bren Simmers, Susan MacRae and Aislin Hunter. Sunday, March 10 at 3:00pm. Entry by donation. Project Space, 222 East Georgia. More information at www.deadpoetslive.com.
SEVEN THE SERIES
Four accomplished writers, Eric Walters, Ted Staunton, Richard Scrimger and Sigmund Brouwer, present their books. Monday, March 11 at 7:00pm. West Point Grey United Church Sanctuary, 4595 8th Ave. W. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Features Bren Simmers and Timothy Shay with open mic and Cascadia Review guest/s. Wednesday, March 13, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street, Vancouver. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Andrew Kaufman, Camille Martin, and Barry Webster. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore at Robson Square. For more information and to register, visit http://www.rrs-mar2013.eventbrite.ca.
MEG TILLY
Meet the author and actor as she presents her newest book A Taste of Heaven. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm. Kidsbooks on Broadway. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.
DAPHNE MARLATT
Author reads from her new book of poems, Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now. Saturday, March 16 at 8:00pm. The Western Front, 303 8th Ave. E., Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.
JOEL DICKER
La Verite sur l'Affaire Harry Quebert is finally coming to Vancouver. Joel Dicker, a 27-year-old Geneva-born author, will present his second novel. The discussion will be in French. Monday, March 18 at 6:15pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.
BOOK LAUNCH
Features Prince George poet Al Rempel (This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For, Caitlin Press, 2013), Adrienne Fitzpatrick (The Earth RemembersEverything, Caitlin Press), and Daniela Elza (the weight of dew and new work). March 18, 7:30 pm, at People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Phone: 604.253.6442. Refreshments will be served.
Upcoming
LUNCH POEMS @ SFU VANCOUVER
Readings by Stephen Collis and Rachel Rose. Wednesday, March 20 at 12:00 noon, free. Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings Street. More information at www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.
PLAY CHTHONICS
Readings by poets Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. Wednesday, March 20. Piano lounge, Green College, UBC. More information at www.greencollege.ubc.ca.
GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.
ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.
WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street.
Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT's 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
Incite: Our free, bi-weekly reading series continues!
Join us on Wednesday, March 13 for an evening for poetry lovers, with John Barton, Nicole Brossard, and Catherine Owen. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite. Register here: http://incitevpl2013spring.eventbrite.ca/.
Interviewing Nicole Brossard, Ian McGillis learns that "We translate all the time". "Even when two people are speaking the same language, each person is always wondering what the other person meant."
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Nicole+Brossard+forges+common+language/8019019/story.html#ixzz2MWLGGOU1
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library. Incite is sponsored by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and supported by the R.J. Nelson Family Foundation.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Sally Armstrong in conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
An empowering evening with Sally Armstrong, "the war correspondent for the world's women." As editor-in-chief of Homemaker Magazine, Armstrong's unflinching editorial accounts of the atrocities experienced by women from around the world mobilized her readers to become involved in global issues. In her new book, Ascent of Women, the award-winning journalist, author, and human rights activist comments on recent studies by economists and social scientists that claim women hold the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries. Click here to get your tickets today, https://secure.artsclub.com/tickets/reserve.aspx?type=rentals&performanceNumber=8146
Listen to Sally Armstrong's inspiring interview on CBC Radio's The Current, http://vancouverwritersfest.cmail1.com/t/y-i-juldlkt-l-yd/.
The Vancouver Writers Fest presents its first special event of 2013, an evening with award-winning Canadian author, journalist and human rights activist Sally Armstrong. Armstrong is the author of three previous books, Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor and Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women. Her new book is Ascent of Women. Details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/sallyarmstrong
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard at Nelson
Sayed Kashua in conversation with Marsha Lederman
Our friends at the Jewish Book Festival present hugely popular, award-winning Arab Israeli writer, Sayed Kashua, who brings us a fresh voice and perspective from Israel. Using humour and satire, Kashua tackles the often conflicting, interconnecting worlds of Arabs and Jews living in Israel. Details: http://www.jccgv.com/content/jewish-book-fest
Saturday, March 9 at 8:00pm (note new date!)
Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre
A DRAM COME TRUE
Tickets are on sale now for our popular single malt tasting A Dram Come True. Join us at Hycroft, the elegant Shaughnessy mansion, for an evening of great fun and good spirits. Enjoy the superb, complex flavours of a variety of rare and distinguished single malts, a premium silent auction, Cuban cigars and great company. A Dram Comes True is a fundraiser for the Writers Fest. Event details: http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.
AWARDS & LISTS
Three Canadian book designers—Elizabeth Beaudoin, (Montreal); George Walker, (Toronto); and Leigh-Anne Mullock (Vancouver)—are among the 2013 award-winners selected by The Stiftung Buchkunst in an international competition in February. The awards will be presented at the Leipzig Book Fair in March.
http://www.alcuinsociety.com
Miss Lora, from the 2012 collection This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Diaz, is on the short list for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award, along with Sarah Hall, Toby Litt, Ali Smith, Mark Haddon, and Cynan Jones. The lucrative British prize has yet to be bestowed upon a Briton.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-junot-diaz-lands-on-shortlist-for-45000-british-short-story-prize-20130225,0,7972901.story
The finalists for the 33rd L.A. Times Book Prizes include Margaret Atwood and Kevin Starr who will receive special recognition. For her efforts to push narrative form, Atwood will receive the Times' Innovator's Award. Starr will receive the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-la-times-book-prize-finalists-announced-20130220,0,2764278.story
Ontario-born historian Andrew Preston has captured the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for his book Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. This year's other finalists were: Carol Bishop-Gwyn, Tim Cook, Sandra Djwa, and Ross King.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/andrew-preston-wins-charles-taylor-prize-for-book-on-us-diplomacy/article9265075/
The short listed titles for the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award have been announced. This award recognizes an illustrator of a noteworthy Canadian book that appeals to children up to the age of 12 years.
http://www.bookcentre.ca/news/shortlists_announced_2013_cla_book_awards
Shalom Auslander accepted his first literary prize with his trademark ambivalence. The Guardian muses on the ways in which authors accept awards, or not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/mar/01/author-reject-acceptance-speech-cliche?INTCMP=SRCH
YOUNG READERS
Seven intense story lines stretch from the near future to the distant past, together forming a story of love, sacrifice and blood in Marcus Sedgwick's Midwinterblood. Ages 13 to 18.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/books/review/midwinterblood-by-marcus-sedgwick.html?nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20130208&_r=1&
Angry Birds, the Book includes both trivia and stunning photographs: e.g., the hummingbird has to eat almost constantly or it will die; the northern fulmar kills by means of "deadly barf." Boys will embrace this book with enthusiasm, writes Bernie Goedhart. Ages 8 to 12.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Kids+Angry+Birds+book/8037414/story.html#ixzz2McSAZbJA
A lab assistant to a scientist; a sidekick of an Indian magician; and a samurai-trained Japanese refugee meet when they encounter a decapitated body on a foggy street. Anyone longing for a refreshing, inspiring cast of female heroes will find them in The Friday Society, writes Laura Godfrey. Age 12 and up.
http://www.quillandquire.com/books_young/review.cfm?review_id=7817
NEWS & FEATURES
Apple has rejected a book of vintage gay erotic drawings. Ironically, Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press received the news during Freedom to Read Week. Robert Ballantyne said this is the first time they have experienced this and that Lust Unearthed—the book under discussion--is currently listed as available in digital or print versions from Chapters, Indigo and Amazon.
http://www.straight.com/life/358371/apple-rejects-vancouver-publishers-vintage-gay-graphics-book
Canada has fallen to 20th place on Reporters' Without Borders' international Press Freedom Index. In a country where government scientists are prohibited from speaking about climate change, democracy is something we musn't take for granted, says Elizabeth Warkentin, who plans to read East of Eden, while enjoying her right to read freely. Freedom to Read Week began March 2.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/02/28/freedom_to_read_week_reminds_us_to_fight_for_our_rights.html
Chekhov's love life was complicated and very busy; he had no wish to settle down. William Boyd believes one short story reveals much about the Russian's sexual liaisons, and wrote the play Longing based on it, leaving us with as full a sense of his amorous life as can be realistically quantified.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/01/anton-chekhov-lifetime-lovers-play
Headlining this week's pick of Guardian readers are Life of Pi and Ian McEwan's Enduring Love.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/mar/01/reader-reviews-roundup
An epic story of men, gods, lost tribes, battles and kingdoms, loaded with ancient and modern religious philosophy, has won its author a million-dollar advance from an Indian publisher. The work is a trilogy that Amish Tripathi, a former banker turned bestselling novelist, will write when the marketing campaign for his most recent work, Oath of the Vayaputras, is over.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/04/indian-writer-record-advance-trilogy
Nobel prize (literature) winner Mo Yan has taken on critics who have dismissed him for being too close to the Chinese government, saying they envy him the award and are distorting the meaning of his work. The author, whose pen name means "don't speak", has spoken out on a number of issues.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/28/mo-yan-dismisses-nobel-critics
7.7 out of 10 readers agree that Philip Roth is the greatest living American novelist. A "panel of 30 literati"–the likes of Salman Rushdie, Nell Freudenberger, and Gary Shteyngart–were asked by New York magazine's Vulture site "to assess [Roth's] oeuvre" ahead of his 80th birthday next month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/feb/27/philip-roth-greatest-us-writer?INTCMP=SRCH
When the respected scholar, author and critic Sandra Djwa embarked on Journey With No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page more than a decade ago, she had no inkling of how challenging or far-flung the expedition would be. The St. John's, Nfld. native calls it "the most difficult book I've ever written."
http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/15/breaking-conventions-2/
BOOKS & WRITERS
People interested in the cultural dynamics at play in Israel today would be wise to read Second Person Singular, a novel by Sayed Kashua, a Palestinian-Israel writer, writes Tracy Sherlock.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/compelling+storylines+intersect+with+complex+nuances/8027984/story.html
Rian Malan's tales in The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Other Stories of Africa create a grimly realistic picture of a nation clinging desperately to hope. It would be hard to find a writer more heroically committed to that particular archetype than Malan, writes Tim Adams.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/03/the-lion-sleeps-tonight-review
Maurice Sendak's My Brother's Book is both beautiful and a devastating tribute to his brother, writes Helen Zaltzman. Like Sendak's works for children, My Brother's Book has a primal feeling of terror.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/02/my-brothers-book-maurice-sendak-review
It has always seemed to me that graphic literature features a higher proportion of coming-of-age stories than any other literary form, writes Ian McGillis. Geneviève Castrée's Susceptible, a graphic novel about a girl growing up with a single mother in the Quebec of the 1980s and '90s, is an exemplary new case of this tendency, says McGillis.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Graphic+novel+captures+hard+grow/7959084/story.html
Sunila Deraniyagala was holidaying with her family on the coast of Sri Lanka in 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami came ashore. Her husband, two sons and her parents all died in the wave. Deraniyagala's book is all epilogue, a meditation through grief and on grief, writes Sunila Galappatti. It is courageous, truthful and above all, generous, says Galappatti.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/how-to-survive-the-loss-of-your-children-your-parents-and-your-husband-all-at-once/article9211776/
Jodi Picoult's new novel, The Storyteller raises questions of guilt and forgiveness. The novel centers on the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who befriends an elderly man. After revealing that he served as a Nazi officer, the man requests that she help him die—and to forgive him, too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/jodi-picoult-wrestles-with-questions-of-guilt-forgiveness-in-the-storyteller/2013/02/26/9f3b4776-7955
Emily Bazelon's Sticks and Stones charts the experiences of three bullied children, and scholarship on how to contain or prevent such harm. She focuses primarily on an African-American girl; a gay boy; and an Irish girl. Bazelon includes chapters on anti-bullying measures, and examines both the virtues and the pitfalls of treating bullying as a crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/books/review/sticks-and-stones-emily-bazelons-book-on-bullying.html?nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20130301&_r=0
It's always been hard to keep up with George Bowering, writes Tom Sandborn. He's published more than 60 books and his latest Words, Words, Words: Essays and Memoirs delivers a feast of pleasures, says Sandborn.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Bowering+words+sure+please+readers/8040384/story.html
COMMUNITY EVENTS
HAIKU INVITATIONAL 2013
Vancouver loves its flowering cherry trees-all 40,000 of them! While they bloom from March through May, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to celebrate their beauty with your haiku. Now accepting submissions. Complete contest details here: www.vcbf.ca.
POETS AND THE SOCIAL SELF
Join Wayde Compton, Joanne Arnott, and Michael Turner with Renee Sarojini Saklikar as they discuss and read from their work. Thursday, March 7 at 7:00pm, free. Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU's Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W Hasting St. More information at sfuwoodwards.ca.
INHABITING WOMEN'S SPACE
Four women writers explore how women inhabit space, metaphorically. Join Kate Braid, Marilyn Bowering, Sandra Djwa and Kathy Mezei as they present their recent work. Friday, March 8 at 7:00pm, free. Lower level, Alice MacKay room, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
NATIONAL INDIGENOUS WRITERS CONFERENCE
A day-long, participant-driven panel on the representation and recognition of Aboriginal writers in Canada. Cost: $30/$15. Saturday, March 9 from 9am to 5pm. SFU Vancouver, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.
E. PAULINE JOHNSON/TEKAHIONWAKE
Mark your March 2013 calendars for two special upcoming events honouring the life, work, birth date and 100th Anniversary of the death of E. Pauline Johnson/Tekahionwake with The City of Victoria's Poet Laureate Janet Rogers. The Inspiration of E. Pauline Johnson, Rhizome Cafe, Saturday March 9, 7:00pm and Poetry in the Park for Pauline: Poetry Offerings, Stanley Park, at Johnson's Memorial, Sunday March 10, 1:00pm (Johnson's birthday). For complete details, visit http://www.herstorycafe.ca/.
DEAD POETS READING SERIES
Next reading features Rob Taylor, Bren Simmers, Susan MacRae and Aislin Hunter. Sunday, March 10 at 3:00pm. Entry by donation. Project Space, 222 East Georgia. More information at www.deadpoetslive.com.
SEVEN THE SERIES
Four accomplished writers, Eric Walters, Ted Staunton, Richard Scrimger and Sigmund Brouwer, present their books. Monday, March 11 at 7:00pm. West Point Grey United Church Sanctuary, 4595 8th Ave. W. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Features Bren Simmers and Timothy Shay with open mic and Cascadia Review guest/s. Wednesday, March 13, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street, Vancouver. Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Andrew Kaufman, Camille Martin, and Barry Webster. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore at Robson Square. For more information and to register, visit http://www.rrs-mar2013.eventbrite.ca.
MEG TILLY
Meet the author and actor as she presents her newest book A Taste of Heaven. Thursday, March 14 at 7:00pm. Kidsbooks on Broadway. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kidsbooks.ca.
DAPHNE MARLATT
Author reads from her new book of poems, Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now. Saturday, March 16 at 8:00pm. The Western Front, 303 8th Ave. E., Vancouver. More information at talonbooks.com.
JOEL DICKER
La Verite sur l'Affaire Harry Quebert is finally coming to Vancouver. Joel Dicker, a 27-year-old Geneva-born author, will present his second novel. The discussion will be in French. Monday, March 18 at 6:15pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia Street.
BOOK LAUNCH
Features Prince George poet Al Rempel (This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For, Caitlin Press, 2013), Adrienne Fitzpatrick (The Earth RemembersEverything, Caitlin Press), and Daniela Elza (the weight of dew and new work). March 18, 7:30 pm, at People's Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Phone: 604.253.6442. Refreshments will be served.
Upcoming
LUNCH POEMS @ SFU VANCOUVER
Readings by Stephen Collis and Rachel Rose. Wednesday, March 20 at 12:00 noon, free. Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings Street. More information at www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/lunchpoems.
PLAY CHTHONICS
Readings by poets Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. Wednesday, March 20. Piano lounge, Green College, UBC. More information at www.greencollege.ubc.ca.
GLIMPSES OF AFRICA: PHOTOGRAPHY, POETRY AND MUSIC
An evening featuring music by singer/songwriter, Nancy Newman and poetry inspired by photographs by Claudine Pommier in her Glimpses of Africa exhibit. March 21, 7-9 pm, at Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Jewish Community Centre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver. Free admission.
ROBERT R. REID AWARD
The Alcuin Society presents Will Rueter (Aliquando Press) in an illustrated interview by Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey). The 6th Robert R. Reid Award and Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts will be presented to Rueter. Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, free. Fletcher Challenge Room, Harbour Centre, SFU Downtown Campus, 2300-515 West Hastings St., Vancouver. More information at http://blog.alcuinsociety.com.
WRITERS INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CANADA
2nd annual literary festival featuring Dennis E. Bolen, Bonnie Nish, Jai Birdi, Lila Shahani and many others. Hosted by Lilija Valis, Bernice Lever and Charlene Sayo. Saturday, March 23 from 10am to 4pm. Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond. More information at 604-327-6040.
TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
A night of socially engaged writing of peace provocation and witness with the launch of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology. Featuring Cristine Leclerc with special guests Susan McCaslin, Stephen Collis, Renee Saklikar, Elena E. Johnson and Juliane Okot Bitek. Thursday, March 28, 7-9:30pm, at The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street.
Suggested donation at the door: $5. All are welcome. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Author reads from his latest book, Red Planet Blues, a noir mystery set on a lawless Mars in a future where everything is cheap, and life is even cheaper. Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Library, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
HULLABALOO SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL
A youth poetry festival featuring 2009 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, Amy Everhart and Ted-X featured poet Truth Is. April 3-6, 2013. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews. Complete details at youthslam.ca.
TALONBOOKS SPRING POETRY LAUNCH
Talonbooks is launching its Spring poetry collection. Featuring readings by Dina Del Bucchia, Wanda John-Kehewin, Mariner Janes, Stephen Collis and Daphne Marlatt. Wednesday, April 10 at 8:00pm. Anza Club, 3 W. 8th Ave. More information at talonbooks.com.
FORCE FIELD
Force Field - 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. The first of its kind in thirty-four years, this anthology strongly celebrates women poets, from the emerging, mid-career to the established. Saturday, April 13 at 3:00pm, free. Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye rooms, lower level, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St. More information at www.vpl.ca.
EVENT's 2013 NON-FICTION CONTEST
Writers are invited to submit manuscripts exploring the creative non-fiction form. $1500 in prizes available, plus publication. Contest judge Russell Wangersky. Maximum entry length is 5000 words. $34.95 entry fee. April 15, 2013, deadline. Entrants will receive a one-year subscription to EVENT (or extension). Complete contest guidelines can be found at eventmags.com.
NORTH SHORE WRITERS FESTIVAL
A celebration of Canadian writers featuring Helen Humphreys, Terry Fallis, Evelyn Lau, Sean Cranbury and others. April 19-20, 2013. Lynn Valley branch, North Vancouver District Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver. Complete details at northshorewritersfestival.com.
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