Book News Vol. 10 No. 7

BOOK NEWS

A Dram Come True

A Dram Come True, the VWF's signature scotch tasting fundraiser, captures the spirit of World Whisky Day (May 16) with a celebration of the pleasures of uisge beatha (the water of life).

A Dram Come True is Vancouver's best single malt scotch event, featuring more than 25 select and rare malts. Click here for a sneak peek at the 2015 tasting menu.

Your ticket gets you access to the single malt bars, plus the Tinhorn Creek wine bar, chocolate pairing and Emelle's awesome catering, in the elegant surroundings of Hycroft.

Tickets: $120
Preview Tasting Tickets (access to bars 45 minutes early): Add $40
7:30pm, June 5 at Hycroft
Details and to purchase tickets here, http://writersfest.bc.ca/events/dram-come-true.

Incite 2015
Three seasoned voices of CanLit: Guy Vanderhaeghe (Daddy Lenin and Other Stories), Mark Anthony Jarman (Knife Party at the Hotel Europa), and Joan Thomas (The Opening Sky). Details: https://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite.

FREE!
7:30pm, May 20
Alice MacKay room, VPL Central Library
Click here for details: https://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/incite

Festivals
The 14th annual DOXA documentary film festival features Censored Voices, a series of interviews made with young Israeli soldiers immediately following the Six-Day War. Saturday May 9, 4:45pm. Details at doxafestival.ca/film/censored.

AWARDS & LISTS

Terry Fallis's fourth book, No Relation, has won the Leacock Medal for Humour. This is the second time Fallis has won the prize (he also won in 2008 for The Best Laid Plans).
http://www.quillandquire.com/book-news/2015/04/30/terry-fallis-wins-second-leacock-medal-for-no-relation/

Margaret Atwood, Heather O'Neill and Eliza Robertson are among 16 Canadians longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Award. The €25,000 award is "given to a story collection published in English between July 2014 and June 2015."
http://www.quillandquire.com/awards/2015/05/01/margaret-atwood-heather-oneill-and-eliza-robertson-among-16-canadians-longlisted-for-the-frank-oconnor-award/

Canadian novelist Emily St. John Mandel has been named winner of the U.K.'s Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science-fiction for her dystopian novel Station Eleven.
http://www.quillandquire.com/awards/2015/05/07/emily-st-john-mandel-wins-arthur-c-clarke-award-for-science-fiction/

YOUNG READERS

Frank Viva's "ingenious" new picture book, Outstanding in the Rain, fashions a delightful story out of sound-alike phrases. What exactly does that mean? Just consider the book's title.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/books/review/frank-vivas-outstanding-in-the-rain.html

NEWS & FEATURES

Does the Leacock Award discriminate against women? "It's the biggest award for humour writing in Canada—and women have only won it six times since 1947." Here's why the award's history of overlooking women is "no laughing matter!"
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2015/04/29/leacock-awards-history-of-overlooking-women-is-no-laughing-matter.html

The Banff Centre will be offering a new slate of residencies this fall (the first in more than a decade), including ones dedicated to memoir, crime, and mountain and wilderness writing. Salman Rushdie will also be appearing at a public event.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2015/04/banff-centre-to-introduce-slate-of-new-residencies.html

President Obama has teamed up with publishers to distribute $25 million worth of ebooks to low-income students. "We're going to provide millions of e-books online so that they're available for young people who maybe don't have as many books at home or don't always have access to a full stock of reading materials," Obama said during a virtual town hall.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/obama-e-book-low-income-students_n_7182476.html

A lost Dylan Thomas notebook, "rediscovered after lying forgotten in a drawer for decades," is set to go on public display later this month. The notebook is one of only five used by Thomas.
http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Rare-Dylan-Thomas-notebook-opened-public/story-26420539-detail/story.html

A cache of Mark Twain stories has also appeared, thanks to the work of scholars at the University of California, Berkeley. The stories, many of which are 150 years old, were written by Twain when he was a 29-year-old newspaperman in San Francisco.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/04/mark-twain-cache-uncovered-berkeley

Mr. Darcy's real-life inspiration might have been identified! Dr Susan Law, a historian, "believes the fictional aristocrat was based on the first Earl of Morley, John Parker, who was married to a friend of Austen and said to be 'intense.'"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11569673/Jane-Austens-real-Mr-Darcy-unmasked-by-historian.html

More than 30 authors, including Junot Díaz and Lorrie Moore, have signed a letter in protest of PEN's recent decision to give Charlie Hebdo the James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award. "There is a critical difference between staunchly supporting expression that violates the acceptable, and enthusiastically rewarding such expression," stated the letter.
http://flavorwire.com/newswire/more-than-30-authors-including-junot-diaz-and-lorrie-moore-sign-letter-in-protest-of-pen-award-to-charlie-hebdo

And on the other side of the spectrum, there's Salman Rushdie. "Is Salman Rushdie a Voltaire for our age? His fierce defence of PEN America's prize for Charlie Hebdo's defiant provocations recalls the Enlightenment hero, but sets Rushdie against other public figures."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/01/salman-rushdie-charlie-hebdo-pen-award-voltaire

BOOKS & WRITERS

Lynn Crosbie's new novel, Where Did You Sleep Last Night, is "a grunge elegy akin to author Michael Turner's iconic punk novel, Hard Core Logo," with "so many pop culture references it slides seamlessly in and out of true confessions." It follows the story of two lovers—one a disaffected teen and the other a dead rock star she meets in the hospital.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2015/05/02/where-did-you-sleep-last-night-by-lynn-crosbie-review.html

When Miriam Toews wrote All My Puny Sorrows, she "worried people would think, what is wrong with this family?" In this interview, Toews discusses "growing up Mennonite and how she managed to transform family tragedy into a novel suffused with joy."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/02/miriam-toews-interview-all-my-puny-sorrows-mennonite

Elena Johnson is a Vancouver-based poet whose first book, Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra, "was written and researched during a month-long stint in 2008 as writer-in-residence at a remote ecology research station in the Yukon." In this interview, she discusses nature poetry, data and writing from the alpine tundra.
http://www.quillandquire.com/book-news/2015/05/01/poetry-month-qa-elena-johnson-on-nature-poetry-data-and-writing-from-the-alpine-tundra/

"Bellow's nonfiction has the same strengths as his stories and novels: a dynamic responsiveness to character, place and time (or era)." Martin Amis reviews a new collection of Saul Bellows' nonfiction, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About, here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/books/review/there-is-simply-too-much-to-think-about-saul-bellows-nonfiction.html

The Green Road by Anne Enright, is "an exquisite collage of Irish lives. A reunion dominates this moving family drama but it's the distinct individual stories that fascinate." It could almost read as a collection of short stories, a genre in which Enright is fêted.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/03/the-green-road-anne-enright-review-exquisite-collage

K.I. Press is a poet from rural Alberta, who now lives in Winnipeg. In her fourth collection, Exquisite, "Press turns mothering poems on their ear, while focusing on biomechanical androids and pop culture."
http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/2015/04/29/poetry-month-qa-k-i-press-on-motherhood-and-her-latest-collection/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

CATHIE BORRIE
Author reads from her memoir, The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother and Me. Thursday, May 7 at 7:00pm. McGill branch, Burnaby Public Library.

TWS READING SERIES
Celebrate 15 years of The Writer's Studio! Special reading event with a line-up of TWS alumni authors, featuring Betsy Warland, founder and first director of TWS and author of Breathing the Page–Reading the Act of Writing. Thursday, May 7 at 8:00pm. Cottage Bistro, 4470 Main Street, Vancouver.

JACQUELINE WOODSON
An evening with Jacqueline Woodson, 2014 National Book Award Winner for her memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming. Friday, May 8 at 7:00pm. Cost: $25. Robson Square Auditorium. Registration and information at vclr.ca.

AUTHORS AMONG US
Meet authors who use historical events to create fictional worlds or share narrative experiences. Featuring Sumi Kinoshita, Robert W. Mackay, Roger R. Blenman, and Sabina Khan. Saturday, May 9 at 2:00pm. Readability Lounge, City Centre Library, Surrey. For information and registration, call 604-598-7426.

THIS PLACE A STRANGER
Caitlin Press and Room magazine celebrate women's literature with the launch of This Place A Stranger: Canadian Women Travelling Along. Take a trip around the world with readings from Karen J Lee, Nadine Pedersen and others. Saturday, May 9 at 7:00pm. Artspeak, 233 Carrall St. Vancouver.

WHISKY FUNDRAISER
The North Vancouver District Public Library is holding a ceilidh music and whisky fundraiser in support of their children's literature department. Saturday, May 9. Details at http://www.nvdpl.ca/article/whisky-library.

MUSLIM WOMEN BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY
Author Monia Mazigh leads a presentation and discussion of her novel Mirrors and Mirages. Monday, May 11 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia Street. More information at vpl.ca.

IAN WEIR
Award-winning local author Ian Weir presents his critically acclaimed recent work, Will Starling. Tuesday, May 12 at 7:00pm, free. Alice MacKay room, Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia St., Vancouver. More information at vpl.ca.

CUFFED!
Readings by William Deverell (Sing a Worried Song) and Owen Laukkanen (The Stolen Ones). Hosted by Sheryl McKay. Tuesday, May 12 at 7:30pm, by donation. Studio 1398, 1398 Cartwright Street, Granville Island, Vancouver. More info at cuffedfestival.com.

TWISTED POETS LITERARY SALON
Features Patrick Friesen, Kayla Czaga, and Jillian Christmas plus open mic. May 13 at 7:00pm. Suggested donation at the door: $5. The Cottage Bistro, 4468 Main Street, Vancouver. More information at www.pandorascollective.com.

Upcoming

EE COOPER
Book signing and launch party for the author's latest YA book, Vanished. Sunday, May 17 at 2:00pm. Chapters/Indigo, 1025 Marine Drive, North Vancouver.

SPOKEN INK
Kayla Czaga reads from her first poetry collection For Your Safety Please Hold On. Tuesday, May 19 at 8:00pm. La Fontana Caffe, 101-3701 East Hastings Street, Burnaby. More information at burnabywritersnews.blogspot.ca.

LUNCH POEMS AT SFU
Featuring Chelene Knight and Dina Del Bucchia. Wednesday, May 20 at 12:00 noon. Teck Gallery, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. More information at sfu.ca.

NVCL LOCAL AUTHOR SERIES
Featuring Janie Chang, Carol M. Cram and Marie Sadro. Wednesday, May 20 at 7:00pm. 3rd floor program room, North Van City Library, 120 14th Street W., North Vancouver.

THE EXILES' GALLERY
Reading in honour of poet Elise Partridge. Featuring Jordan Abel, Caroline Adderson, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Aislinn Hunter, Gillian Jerome, Fiona Tinwei Lam, George McWhirter, Barbara Nickel, Christopher Patton, Miranda Pearson, Rob Taylor, and Rhea Tregebov. Thursday, May 21 at 7:00pm, free. Heartwood Cafe, 317 Broadway E., Vancouver. More information at heartwoodcc.ca.

NEIL MCKINNON
Award winning author and Stephen Leacock Medal finalist will read from his latest novel, The Greatest Lover of Last Tuesday. Saturday, May 30 at 3:00pm. New Westminster Public Library, 716 6th Ave., New Westminster. Register at 604-527-4667 or listener@nwpl.ca.

WRITERS ADULT ADVENTURE CAMP
Join award-winning authors in Whistler, BC for a fun and immersive weekend designed for both published and emerging writers. Deadline to register is May 22, 2015. Dates are June 6-7, 2015. Complete information at thepointartists.com.