David Sedaris Special Event
Tickets are now available to the general public, but you can still do your bit for the VIWF by using the special code “writers” when you book. A portion of the ticket revenue will then come to the Festival. Call 604 280 3311 or visit www.ticketmaster.ca. Event details at http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/community/specialevents.
Volunteer!
We are now filling cancelled shifts. If you have weekday day-time availability, retail experience, don’t mind lifting and carrying and can walk easily across Granville Island, let us know! Especially if you can speak French! Further information and registration at http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/community/volunteers/new.
Victoria Glendinning, the British critic and novelist, and one of the three members of this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize jury, has some contentious things to say about Can Lit.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/in-other-words/a-brit-giller-judge-makes-fun-of-canadian-fiction/article1297024/
Noah Richler responds in kind to Ms. Glendinning’s critique in today’s Globe & Mail.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/ill-take-my-canadian-tuque-victoria-you-keep-your-english-fish-pie/article1299026/
AWARDS
Heather McHugh, who will be appearing in the Festival’s Poetry Bash this year, is one of 24 recipients of a “genius award,” granted yearly by the MacArthur Foundation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/arts/22macarthur.html
The longlist for the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize has been announced. Among the nominees are Festival participants Annabel Lyon and Colin McAdam.
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/21/surprise-inclusions-omissions-on-giller-longlist/
2009 Festival participant Lisa Foad has won a ReLit award in the short fiction category for her debut collection The Night is a Mouth.
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/21/2009-relit-award-winners-announced/
Winnipeg author Joan Thomas has won this year’s Amazon First Novel Award for her book Reading by Lightning.
http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/24/joan-thomas-takes-amazons-first-novel-award/
BOOKS & WRITERS
The Globe & Mail praises Leon Rooke’s new collection of stories, The Last Shot, saying there is “some magic Leon Rooke does with a twist of his hand, a complex image of the relationship between life and death, strangely humanized and desperate, comic, sweet, uncanny and so achingly beautiful you wish it were real.” Rooke is appearing in Events 37, 46, and 62 at the Festival.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/life-death-magic/article1292558/
Festival participant Brian Brett reviews Generation A by Douglas Coupland, whom Brett calls “a great ironist of our time, perhaps without comparison in Canada.” Douglas Coupland is appearing in Events 21 and 47 at the Festival.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/the-sting-of-satire/article1292734/
The NY Times writes that the most powerful parts of Audrey Niffenegger’s new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, “deal not with paranormal events but with the ordinary pleasures and frustrations of life.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/books/22kaku.html?_r=1&ref=books
The Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star review Ray Robertson’s new novel, David, whose protagonist David King, a black man living and raised in the freed-slave community of Elgin, near Chatham, “is that most irresistible of narrators, a high-minded cynic.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/david-by-ray-robertson/article1292735/
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/697971
Jeanette Winterson reviews Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood in the NY Times. In the following article Atwood admits that her own imagination sometimes scares her silly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/books/review/Winterson-t.html?_r=1&ref=books
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/books/22atwood.html?_r=1&ref=books
Joyce Carol Oates’ 57th novel, Little Bird of Heaven, is a “tragedy on a classical scale.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/books/review/Watrous-t.html?ref=books
The NY Times calls William Trevor’s latest novel Love and Summer “a thrilling work of art.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/books/review/Mallon-t.html?ref=books
In this essay Lori Lansens explains what she shares with Mary Gooch, the 300 pound narrator of her latest novel The Wife’s Tale, and what she shares with all of her fictional characters for that matter.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/i-am-mary-gooch/article1298515/
Leonard Cohen’s 75th birthday prompts the Globe & Mail to look back at the author’s life and work and investigate why, after publishing two novels early in his career, he didn’t write more fiction.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-writer/article1292560/
EVENTS
TD KIDS BOOK CLUB
Win CBC Radio coming to your elementary school to record the TD Kids Book Club with Susin Neilsen, author of Word Nerd! The Book Club will be broadcast on North by Northwest! To enter the contest, classes must create a cheer telling CBC why they should win the Book Club coming to their school. For all the details go to http://www.cbc.ca/books/bookclub/tdbooks/. Contest closes October 4.
ROBSON READING SERIES
Readings by Ameen Merchant (The Silent Raga) and David Chariandy (Soucouyant). Thursday, September 24 at 7:00pm, free. UBC Bookstore Library, Robson Square (800 Robson Street). Information at www.rsquare.bookstore.ubc.ca.
BOOK LAUNCH
Women Elders in Action invite the public to attend the launch of the anthology Mythogyny: the lives and times of women elders in BC. Thursday, September 24 at 6:30pm. Teck Gallery, SFU, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver.
SHORT READINGS
Local authors Cristy Watson, Ian Lauder, Vaughan Chapman, and Virginia Gillespie read from a mix of poetry and other works. Thursday, September 24 at 7:30pm, free. Pelican Rouge Coffee House (15142 North Bluff Rd., White Rock).
PLAY CHTHONICS READING
Readings by award winning poets Jordan Scott and A.F. Moritz. Friday, September 25 at 7:30pm, free. Graham House at Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC. More information at http://playchthonics.blogspot.com/.
JOWI TAYLOR
Not Just Another Music Shop hosts a book-signing by the author of Six String Nation. Saturday, September 26 at 2:00pm. Not Just Another Music Shop (4118 Main).
SPECULATIVE POETRY LAUNCH
B.C. poets Eileen Kernaghan and Marcie Tentchoff read from their recent poetry collections. Saturday, September 26 at 2:00pm. White Dwarf Books (3715 W. 10th).
WORD ON THE STREET
National book and magazine festival – held downtown at Library Square in the concourse. Fun and educational for all ages. Sunday, September 27 from 11am to 5pm. Vancouver Public Library, 350 W. Georgia. More information at http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/vancouver.
LITERACY AND BEYOND WINE TASTING GALA
Hal Wake and wine columnist Anthony Gismondi host the 3rd annual event with dozens of B.C. wines, West Coast cuisine, jazz, and live and silent auctions in support of Literacy B.C. Monday, September 28 at 6:00pm. Beyond Restaurant + Lounge (1015 Burrard Street). More information at www.literacyandbeyond.com.
802ND BIRTHDAY AND LIFE CELEBRATION OF RUMI
The World Poetry Reading Series and Vancouver Public Library present the poetry of Rumi in English and different languages. Monday, September 28 at 6:30pm, free. Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia, Vancouver.
BOOK LAUNCH AND PARTY
Wear your plaid, dungarees, overalls, long johns and join West Coast contributors Charlotte Gill, Jaspreet Singh and John Vigna to celebrate the launch of Cabin Fever, the Banff Centre’s newest literary journalism anthology. Wednesday, September 30 at 8:00pm.The Brickhouse (730 Main Street).
ALCUIN AWARDS 2009/GABRIELE WILSON
The 2009 Alcuin Awards Ceremony (for the winners of the best-designed Canadian books of 2008) will be moderated by Douglas & McIntyre Creative Director Peter Cocking, himself an award-winning book designer. The ceremony will follow an informal talk by New York graphic designer and professor Gabriele Wilson. Her work has been featured in Communication Arts, The New York Times, Metropolis, Print, USA TODAY, By Its Cover: Modern American Book Design, New Vintage Type, Chip Kidd: Book One, and more. The winning books will be on display. Thursday, October 1 at 7:00pm, free and open to the public. Emily Carr University, 1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Room SB301. Co-sponsored by The Alcuin Society and Emily Carr University. Further information: call (604) 732-5403 or email aw****@al***********.com.
BOOK LAUNCH: AMERICAN HUNKS
Join David L. Chapman and Brett Josef Grubisic for a slideshow presentation and talk on the American male physique from 1860 to 1970. Sunday, October 4 at 7:00pm, free. Little Sister’s Bookstore, 1238 Davie Street, Vancouver.
Upcoming
LEILAH NADIR
Reading by the author of The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family. Wednesday, October 7 at 7:00pm, free. Peter Kaye Room, Lower Level, Central Library (350 West Georgia Street).
ON EDGE READING SERIES
Angela Carr, the author of Ropewalk reads from her new book, The Rose Concordance. Thursday, October 8 at 7:00pm, free. SB406, Emily Carr University, Granville Island.
JEN SOOKFONG LEE
Reading by the author of The End of East. Thursday, October 8 at 7:00pm, free. McGill Branch, Burnaby Public Library (4595 Albert Street, North Burnaby). Pre-register by calling 604.299.8955.
WADE DAVIS
Come meet this year’s Massey Lecturer, Wade Davis, in the CBC Radio Studio One Book Club on Wednesday, October 14. His Massey Lecture and book are entitled The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. Many of us are alarmed at the accelerating rates of extinction among plants and animals on our planet, but did you know that human cultures are going extinct at an even more shocking rate? To win tickets go to www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub.
Produced by the Book News Collective: Hal Wake, Clea Young, Brenda Berck, Ann McDonell and Sandra Millard.
To unsubscribe, please visit http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/community/booknews.
Hal Wake
Artistic Director
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2009 Festival – 18-25 October inclusive
Vancouver International Writers Festival
Suite 202, 1398 Cartwright Street
Vancouver, BC V6H 3R8
p: 604 681 6330 x102
f: 604 681 8400
e: hw***@wr*********.ca
w: www.writersfest.bc.ca
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