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My mistake. Quick eyes, slow mind.

G

Moore wins Commonwealth Prize for Alligator? She won the regional nomination. Winner announced mid March.

(Good luck Lisa...loved Alligator)

John.

Lisa Moore

Wins Commonwealth Prize for Alligator.


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Story Prize

Goes to Patrick O'Keefe.


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Matisse bio wins ‡ Award

Over stellar poet Christopher Logue's Cold Calls, the fifth volume in his reworking of the Iliad.


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Leave it to CBC, which featured Whylah Falls in its Canada Reads contest, to call GEC a "first-time author." Yeah, all those other books were just practice; this one's a novel.

Awards news

Commonwealth shortlist announced: Moore, Ravel, Urquhart, and GEC nominated, among others. And in kids awards, the Newbery and Caldecott announced. And speaking of awards...


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Christopher Logue

Profiled. Awesome, awesome poet.


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Charles Taylor prize shortlist
Yeah, it's a great time for memoirs to be nominated....

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Award news

Carol Ann Duffy wins the Eliot for poetry for her Rapture. Arundhati Roy says no to an Indian Award.


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National Book Critics Circle Award shortlist announced

Orhan Pamuk, Vikram Seth, and ... wait for it... Joan Didion, are on the list.


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Award News:

Ali Smith takes the prestigious "‡", or the award formerly known as Whitbread.


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The depressing truth (at least, as I have observed it) is that the modern, Western reader (as a subclass of the modern Western citizen) has an increasing need to be told what is good and what is crap. They need to be told what products to buy and what movies to see. They need to read endless reviews (even though they know they will only agree with a third of them after they've consumed the product in question) before buying, reading or watching anything.

They read newspapers, not to become informed on the topics of the day, but to glean pithy, intelligent-seeming sound-bites so that they can SOUND well read and intelligent themselves when the topic next arises around the water cooler.

Literary awards are the industry's way of feeding this appetite. They also simplify the job of journalists and 'content producers' throughout the rest of the media circus universe. Why have your own staff waste precious moments actually reading the books when you can acquire your opinions wholesale, direct from the prize panel's lips?

Nobody cares what Joe Schmoe from Entertainment Weekly thinks (although they'll settle for his opinion rather than forming one of their own) when they can lift the EXPERT opinion of Some Industry Sage who sat on the panel.

But whether you love 'em or mock 'em, the literary prize does serve as a marketing vehicle, mostly for the mainstream, safe-to-admit-you-like kind of writing. In my experience, the most engaging and thought provoking writing is usually too far from tradition to garner very many awards.

Of course, it could just be the post-holiday turkeybloat talking.

The literary prize economy
How will we know what's good without the ever-increasing number of prizes to tell us?

The prize system, with its own cadre of career administrators and judges, is one of the ways in which value gets “added on” to a work. Of course, we like to think that the recognition of artistic excellence is intuitive. We don’t like to think of cultural value as something that requires middlemen—people who are not artists themselves—in order to emerge. We prefer to believe that truly good literature or music or film announces itself. Which is another reason that we need prizes: so that we can insist that we don’t really need them.

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Orange Prize jury chair picked

You remember what Susan Swan said about the Giller's... you pick your jury and you pick the winner. This Orange thing is shaping up to be a real humdinger. You can cut the tension with a butterknife. I feel all tingly in my --- oh, I can't keep this up until next year. I'm bored shitless already. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?


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Instead of a fiction category, a non-fiction category, a children's category, etc., they'll have a "meat-lovers", and "veggie-lovers"....

Whitbread Award to become the Pizza Hut Prize?

Egad.

From its somewhat cloudy press statement, it seems that Whitbread may be thinking of moving sponsorship of the country's second most prestigious literary prize on to one of its subordinate brands. Which of the Whitbread family would work best?

"Beefeater Literary Awards" would retain the British flavour, although since CJD the national dish will always have a slightly sinister aftertaste to it. And a surprising number of writers are vegetarian - or of Indian extraction.

"Pizza Hut (UK) Literary Prizes" sounds downright tatty. And, despite the parenthesis, distinctly un-English. Can you imagine Harold Pinter accepting it?

"TGI Friday's" doesn't really evoke images of curling up with Claire Tomalin, or going head to head with Salman about whether Peter Kemp was right to describe his latest (favourite for this year's, last ever, fiction prize) as a rest home for geriatric magic realism cliches (bastard).

"Yum! Literary Awards" has a certain zing to it. But, like the others, it sadly lacks the gravitas the book world likes.

In Canada it could become the Tim Horton's Prize for Sugar Coated Literature. Now that's a delicious prospect!


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how come you didn't describe Rabinovich as a "cheap bastard"?

Sad and ridiculous excuse

The Whitbread Prize is no longer. I love how the website frames the disaster. Anybody got a few mil to endow? Or just write the cheap bastards who are backing out.


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So many awards

So little time. (From Maud)


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Хорошее утро! Вы будете теперь богачами!

Now THIS is a literary prize. Check out that jury! (From Brenda)


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National Book Awards announced

Once again I see there are no Canadians on this list. How typical. Awards for American writing going to Americans. Sheesh.


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Now on to the Whitbread

Shortlist announced.


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What do awards say about your achievement?

Not all that much, says Joseph Epstein in the WSJ.


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Edited by author 11-10-2005 11:14 AM
Dear France,

Look what the British are doing. Take a page, s'il vous plait.

An Eid-ul-Fitr celebration was held at Chesham's Elgiva Theatre last Friday, welcoming 150 people in a cross-cultural evening of entertainment and awards.
Children from Chesham Mosque's Community Deen Group read Arabic poems, prayers and sang a song, and the Khayaal Theatre Company told tales of wisdom from the Muslim world.

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Edited by author 11-08-2005 01:11 PM
The Giller party

Not invited but want to know what the shortlist is wearing? Finished reading the shortlist and ready to read the books that most inspired these fab novels? Curious about what the winner will do with the money? Here you go.

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Awards and sales

Musical words, are they not? And they're two great tastes that taste so great together you can't really have one without the other, can you? Not in the lit fiction market.


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Edited by author 10-28-2005 11:16 AM
Joseph Boyden wins inaugural Aboriginal Prize

Go, Boyden.

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Why are lit awards so important?

Because it's the only time we get out of the house.


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National Book Award finalists

Announced down south.

Poetry:
John Ashbery, Where Shall I Wander
Frank Bidart, Star Dust: Poems
Brendan Galvin, Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005
W.S. Merwin, Migration: New and Selected Poems
Vern Rutsala, The Moment’s Equation

Fiction:
E.L. Doctorow, The March
Mary Gaitskill, Veronica
Christopher Sorrentino, Trance
Rene Steinke, Holy Skirts
William T. Vollmann, Europe Central

You know, the Ashbery was good, even late career good, but it didn't rev me up this time.


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Speaking of JK

She topped the Quills last night. It's so great to see an under-appreciated author like her getting some attention finally. And wee Stevie King, too. It's about time. (Of course, as far as actually quills go, both of them write with feathers from the Ivory Billed Woodpecker dipped in ink made from the yolk of California Condor eggs and the blood of teenaged Florida virgins.)


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Orange Day

Andrea Levy, seen here... never mind, I can't even go there... Andrea Levy has won the Orangest Orange.


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The Logogryph is - in my 'umble - Wharton's best book to date. A real underrated gem that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. And because it's published by Gaspereau, it's an adorable fetish object, too. Run out & buy one; make a starving writer & a starving publisher happy.

I adored Camilla Gibb's "Sweetness in the Belly." Does anyone know the 'cut off' date for Giller submissions -I'm wondering WHY a few novels were not even on the list & think it may be the pub. dat (or politics!)

2005 Sunburst Awards
Sure, everyone's excited about all the wild and crazy Giller shortlist. But the 2005 Sunburst Award shortlist is pretty damn fine too. The winner will be announced this Wednesday.

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Edited by author 09-21-2005 10:57 AM
Honourables

Mailer and Ferlinghetti to receive honourable National Book awards.

The National Book Awards will celebrate two senior literary rebels this fall, giving honorary awards to "Naked and the Dead" author Norman Mailer and to San Francisco-based Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Sounds about right.

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I think there's probably room here for "Idiots" as a topic header.

''There were snobs and cynics when Oprah Winfrey had her book club, yet Oprah did more for American literature than Edmund Wilson or Alfred Kazin," said Alan Cheuse, book reviewer for National Public Radio.

Apparently, and I did not know this beforehand, Alan Cheuse is an idiot.

Funny to see them compared to the Oscars when their system sounds more like the Grammys (Grammies?).

And the Quills go...

In the eye of every literary author, small press, and thinking reader...


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Short story's Booker prize?
I feel ... dirty.

Linklater said: "The novel is a capacious old whore: everyone has a go at her, but she rarely emits so much as a groan for their efforts.
"The short story, on the other hand, is a nimble goddess: she selects her suitors fastidiously and sings like a dove when they succeed.

"The British literary bordello is heaving with flabby novels; it's time to give back some love to the story."

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Harold Bloom.

"...and Stephen King's dismal tirade about not getting enough love from the pointy-heads."

Uh, being fresh out from under a stump, I've never heard of the pointy-heads. Who are they?

"Consumers. Not readers. Consumers."

Alex Good comments on the Quill Awards over at GoodReports.

According to a press release these will be the "first consumer-driven awards program that acknowledges the power and importance of the written word and celebrates literacy." This is puzzling. How can a consumer-driven awards program acknowledge anything but the power of consumers? The release must mean the economic importance of the written word and the profits of literacy, but it's a nice fudge.


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Quill awards
Because the bestsellers just aren't getting enough recognition.

Jon Stewart, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Deepak Chopra are among the nominees for the inaugural Quill Awards, which are designed to be a more populist sort of literary prize.

"This is the first consumer-driven awards program that acknowledges the power and importance of the written word and celebrates literacy," Jay Ireland, head of the NBC network, said in a release Thursday.

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Edited by author 07-21-2005 09:09 AM
Toronto Book Awards shortlist

Announced.

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I just put on the t-shirt I bought to commemorate Merwin's refusal to award the Yale Younger Poet's prize (2, 3 years back). Turns out that, like skepticism, it's reversible. Who knew?

I can't claim to have read enough of that list to judge, but I've read a bit of Nick Laird in _The New Irish Poets_ and I suppose "fully formed" is the right non-committal phrase.

Everybody remain calm! Poetry is doing okay!

The Forward Prize judges "read" 2,111 books and have said the newer poets are doing just fine. Now it is time for an extended trip to the used bookstore.


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Pierre Berton with an attitude?

Not to disagree, but it should be pointed out that Pierre Berton was Pierre Berton with an attitude. Wil Ferguson wins the Berton award.


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Agent Orange

Do women need their own literary prizes? Do women need their own literary prizes? Do women need their own literary prizes? Am I having a deja vu?

Until the 1970's, in most cultural fields, men created and women consumed. Today, across the West, women are well represented in art, architecture, music and film schools and account for a majority of students attending college literature and creative writing courses. Yet while women no longer regard the creative arts as a male province, when it comes to winning or even making the short list of prizes in fiction, poetry, art, architecture and music, they still fare poorly. Are there fewer women in these fields, are they less talented than men, or are women simply being denied equal opportunity?

Speaking of feminism: Hey, Shriver! Nice gams!


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Edited by author 06-15-2005 09:41 AM
Jonathan Coe wins Samual Johnson prize

For Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B S Johnson. Another eccentric depressive's life laid bare. How thin the line between genius and madman.

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'...if me winning the prize gets it a bit more attention, all the better.'

That's the point, after all, but it is nice when the two things can go together.

Edited by author 06-12-2005 05:28 PM
Thanks, Chris, but at the risk of checking a gift horse's dental endowment, I think the other review I published in that issue was a better piece of writing and made more incisive observations. The Ross review's not bad, but a tad gushy. But it's a heckuva good book, so if me winning the prize gets it a bit more attention, all the better.

At least Bezmozgis' book is good. The Toronto Jewish Book Awards have not always been so discerning in their tastes.

It's nice to see that shy, retiring Wells boy getting some credit from ARC....

Toronto Book Award finalists announced

It's nice to see that poor, over-looked Bezmozgis boy getting some attention.


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Jewish Book Award announced

It's nice to see that poor, over-looked Bezmozgis boy getting some attention.


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Orange Prize awarded

To American Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin. I've been wanting to read this book for some time now.


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Poets as anthropologists. Leave it up to our trusty unreliable narrators to give us the most entertaining accounts. I always wonder whether these shindigs are designed to out one as a walking (or dancing) faux pas.

I think the best thing about the Griffin Prize is that the submitted titles are donated to Corrections Canada. It makes me wonder: is this intended as a corrective or a punitive measure?

Man, that sounds like a great party. I wish I was there, but being a nobody from nowheresville I'm afraid I might have had more of those Louise Dennys moments when something like that happens to make you feel small and unimportant in such illustrious company. Did Dennys at least apologize to you and your friend for interrupting your conversation?

Nice blog, Ami. I'll check in often.

G

Ah, thanks for making that clear, Susan. I agree.

Ami, you're missing the point. One should not have to be recognized as someone important to be treated courteously!

Great post.
I just wanted to add this tid-bit in defense of Louise Dennys...
I had a meeting with her a couple of weeks ago. We talked about many things, including blogs. Bookninja was a blog she recognized when I mentioned it. Have faith that if she had only known who you were she might have been whispering in your ear too!
Here's my account of my meeting with her:
how i met Michael Ondaatje

My favourite word is "prize" unless I'm thinking of Adrianne Clarkson, then its rapture.

I brought the butterflies home and clipped them to the pullcord for the Venetian blind in my kitchen. I may never eat like that again, but perhaps some of the glitter will influence my cooking....

I swear to God, I still have glitter between my teeth. I want a CD!

G

We at CBC Radio are so grateful that you called us nice in your Griffin piece. Which makes us so retrospectively glad that you survived our fearsome editing and made a verbal appearance on our national Griffin broadcast special on Friday evening. Do tell us if you would like a CD copy for proud relatives, or for the Bookninja archives (at, what, Athabaska University, is it)? And if you have any advice on how to get glitter from decorative butterfly napkin clips off skin after 24 hours of adherence, please advise.

Edited by author 06-03-2005 06:54 PM
Marvelous, George. We can all live vicariously now.

Yeah, we caught that. Thanks. Millionaires... They're all the same to me.

One editorial correction, G. Griffin's first name is Scott, not Christopher.

In fact, there were two fountains. One milk and one dark chocolate. The table laden with fruit, cookies and little rice crispie squares that you could dip on skewers. It really was the highlight of the night. One of the servers said, "Make sure you use a new skewer each time." Really? Thanks for telling me, I grew up in a cave, see. Can I spit in it, though? How about that?

G

wow! i want to go to one of those when i grow up!

George, this is one of the best articles on BookNinja dot come I have read. The moment is well captured, characterized by a lightly pert and exuberant quality to the piece. Begs the question: did anyone else dance the Robot the other night?

-John

Whoa, a chocolate fondu fountain! You were in heaven, man!

More Griffin updates

Well, it was quite an event. If you've never been (and this was my first time), you can't conceive of how much MONEY is spent on this thing. I went because my friends from New York were there this year: Matthew Rohrer nominated in the international category and his publisher Matthew Zapruder on hand as well. Great guys who I seldom get to see, so I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with them in my home town and cheer Rohrer on. I had had lunch with Zapruder earlier in the day to catch up, and it was a good thing, because given the scope of the event, I barely saw them.

Let me set the scene for you, because today it all feels so surreal, I'm not sure I was there. You walk in over a bridged pond in which moss, candles and pillows with the word "poetry" spelled out in colourful letters (for some reason) down a green, fake grass carpet to shake hands with Christopher Griffin on camera. There is dry ice. Lots of dry ice. It's like being on stage with Floyd. Except it's Christopher Griffin (who's very gracious and smiley, even to people he didn't recognize).

Anyway, then you're in this big room that's about 97 degrees, surrounded by other sweltering guests wondering who are all these people and how come they don't come in their expensive suits to your readings. There were several TV cameras roaming and some nice people from CBC who said, "Hey! There's that guy from Bookninja! He'll say something funny." Then there's a microphone under your nose and you seize up like an engine full of refined sugar (remind me to tell you about the chocolate fountain later), and you say a few dry, inane things hoping you get another chance later. The chance does not come.

Then you file in to sit at a table to eat. The table centre piece is dry mossy stuff with candles in it (a bright idea). A poet friend sits with you and then two novelists sit down. Four writers and their partners at one table. The conversation is lovely. Nino Ricci and Joseph Boyden turn out to be really nice guys. Ricci and you spend some time wondering where you've hung out before and settle on the North York library, even though you can never remember having stepped foot in it. Ricci begins to grill your partner on her thesis, very interested in the connections between artists and sociology. Food is being served. Then uber editor Louis Dennys comes by and whispers in the novelists ears. They rise sheepishly and inform you that they've been asked to move to another table. There is much apologising from the novelists. The editor hasn't even glanced your way. There is a long silence as a half moon of empty chairs stares at you. You look at your poet friend as though to say, "Did that just really happen?" It did.

There are several small fires over the course of the night, moss and candles being a curiously unstable combination, including at your table. You try to daub delicately to smother the flames with your napkin but it just spreads the fire around. You're pretty sure you're channelling Peter Sellers. A waitress puts it out by dumping a glass of water on it. The table is soaked and kind of smokey. And not the least because your poet friend must have smoked 10,000 cigarettes over the course of the night.

After a long dinner, the awards begin with a very long, epilepsy-inducing montage of poets and their names. When you say very long, you mean, like five minutes of flashing faces and names with driving music. It was stylish, and neat though. Then Griffin gets up and introduces poetry to the crowd. Then August Kleinzhaler gets up and tells what is a long, at first funny, then baffling, then funny, story about poetry and his ideal reader. Then Erin Moure gets up and talks, no word of a lie, for at least 15 minutes about... um, you're not sure, but there were a lot of big words in it. She used the word "idiom" nine times in three languages. The international winner is Charles Simic whose blissfully short and classy acceptance speech was about being caught speechless. Nice guy. Then Simon Armitage takes the stage. For you, this is like the Rolling Stones standing a dinner roll's throw away. His speech is funny and gracious and to the point. The national winner is Roo Borson who is as shocked as anyone that she beat Don McKay.

Then the dancing commences and you retire to the bar to watch famous writers cut a rug. You have spent every joule of social energy you had. It is gone. Several times over the course of the night Nino Ricci catches your eye apologetically. Louise Dennys even talks to you. "Excuse me," she says, on the way to someone else. Michael Ondaatje is dancing madly in front of you, Adrienne Clarkson is dancing as though on stilts in some strange outfit while several large guys with plugs in their ears stand nearby and try to look inconspicous. Margaret Atwood must have bolted as soon as the awards were over, but given the advent of her Frankenhand, you would have liked have seen her do the Robot to "Let's Groove Tonight" by Earth, Wind and Fire. No luck.

There is a chocolate fondu fountain that's nice. It begs to have an entire hand stuck in it, but the servers look pretty vigilent. Free booze, free food, free everything. Thousands and thousands of dollars given away and spent on entertaining poets and allied tradespeople. All in all, who could ever complain? It's really amazing that something like this is being done at all. One person (Borson, you think... you'd stopped listening) thanked Griffin for bringing poetry to people who didn't really know it was out there. And she was right. Poetry beamed out through TV cameras to Joes Blow everywhere. You can only hope you either didn't make it into the broadcast or that if you did you weren't doing something stupid. But that's you, you neurotic freak. Everyone else had a blast. I'm just floored at how much MONEY was there. I need to get to know more millionaires. Anyway, there you are. More later.


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Borson and Simic win Griffin Prize

Your cub reporter, fresh and sweaty from the fray, will bring you more details in the morning...


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And speaking of the gender gap

Ladies and gentlemen, the 100,000th Orange Prize article of 2005!


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Bezmozgis: the best thing to happen to award

The Danuta Gleed Award (of course, the TWUC website isn't updated) gets some good press after being given to lit darling Bezmozgis. (Last link from PFW)


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Edited by author 05-26-2005 09:17 AM
Do you mean "elusive" here, Kathryn?

One of my favorite books of all time. Big crush on Peck as Finch too, but something I find very frustrating about the movie is that the movie gives Jem more of a starring role (things that Scout does in the book are transferred to Jem in the movie). In keeping with the times, I suppose.

Edited by author 05-26-2005 10:50 AM
The Independent goes bird-watching

More on the elusive, not illusive, Harper Lee.

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Amazon first novel

Shortlist announced.


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Donations make a difference

The Canadian Jewish Book Awards get a major donation. (From PFW)


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why are you being so hostile to a writer trying to make a point about how poorly writers are treated?

you guys are so clever.

Oh yeah, that'll teach 'em, those fickle directors. They won't try that again.

French to French award snub

Quebec-based playwright Wajdi Mouawad turns down a Molière theatre prize. Bravery and stupidity are first cousins who could pass for twins.


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PEN Awards handed out

PEN Awards handed out.


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Molson Prize for Watery Fratboy Beer awarded

Canada Council awards prizes for arts and humanities----yawn...zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


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No offence taken. Compassion always for the "sensitive sort" especially when same is such a fine poet who is also doing paid labour and maintaining a hot blog. Of marginal interest perhaps (except to me, a poetry addict) I bought The Cottage Builder's Letter not because of reviews, criticism, lit competitions, or any other reason than coming across it on a bookstore shelf, standing and reading it and sensing it would be a keeper. Also (p.s.) I do have a blog, am new to it, and don't have the stamina to post at 6 a.m.

And I am not blinkered by reading so much poetry: I also admire Wayson Choy's writing.

Wayson Choy deserved the Trillium for "All that Matters." He's coming to Cobourg, ON on May 11, with Donna Morrissey, another great writer, for a literary night "Ocean to Ocean." I'm attending and cannot wait to hear him speak/read. Lots of excellent books out there, but "All the Matter' has 'leg's.' The Chen family stays w/ you long after you've closed the book. And, I've read Morrissey's new novel, "Sylvanus Now' -it's fantastic- her characters are real, flawed - it's brilliant. Watch for it to be on the Trillium short-list next year. That is, if you care about awards and such. Ciao

Crap. Sorry. I'm a sensitive sort. (You wouldn't believe some of the emails I get...)

G

If you look back at my comment, I was referring to the CBCarts coverage of the event, being fully aware of bookninja's attention to poetry in general and specifically Canadian poetry and small presses, indeed it is one of the reasons I make certain to look at the site daily. I certainly don't consider bookninja responsible for the shortcomings of the CBC! So pray don't be surly -- no churlishness intended for your always interesting and topical litblog.

Dude(tte), I was sitting bleary-eyed at my computer at 6:00am this morning so you'd have something to read and complain about. For god's sake, Bookninja can hardly be said to give short shrift to poetry.

Go start your own blog if you don't like it.

G

It seems appropriate that the CBCarts announcement is headlined with "Choy, D'Alfonso win Trillium Book Awards" and the newslink appears on bookninja right above the entry "Toronto's trodden-upon poetry". No mention in the headline of "Harris" for the poetry award, no mention of the other two poets nominated (Rachel Zolf and Ray Hsu). CBC does condescend to award Harris a single sentence, "B.C.-born writer Maureen Scott Harris . . . .[etc]" as it does also to Antonio D'Alfonso.

Are we to deduce a lack of interest on the part of CBC arts to poetry, poets, small press publications, Ontario's francophone writers, or should we finally recognize that maybe litblogs have another function: to pay attention to the larger world than the one encompassed by the official media?

Choy wins Trillium

The winners announced.


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Crime writers awards

Short list announced. Personally, I'm waiting for the "It's a Crime They're Writers Awards"... And the nominees are...


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Edited by author 04-21-2005 09:50 AM
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

C.K Williams wins $100,000.

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Edited by author 04-19-2005 09:39 AM
The truth about prizes

What we already knew, confirmed.

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Hot!

The Orange Prize shortlist has been announced and that tattooed biker chick, Billie Morgan author Joolz Denby, is up. Browr. Who needs to even read the books when you have such colourful personalities? Though, I must say, I cringe when I read "former "biker chick" from Bradford"... it's a small town Ontario thing. (By the by, I've heard nothing but hushed awe about Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. Has anyone on the Ninja read it?)


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I thought we already were *living in a dark age* (Rick Salutin, 1991)

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0006...702-7260805-3031244

Salutin took that title from a Milt Acorn poem. Acron thought the dark age started about 1964, I think. Or whatever year it was that Gwen left him ....

Edited by author 04-14-2005 10:06 AM
Jacobs wins Shaughnessy Cohen Award

Dark Age Ahead wins more attention.

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Trillium shortlists announced

Some good titles here. Some... yeah.


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Edited by author 04-09-2005 01:08 PM
Nicola, I'll take a look at the link. Thanks. In answer to your question: yes, the old guard is holding on too long, which would not be a problem if they did not seem so darned stale. Age has little to do with it: George Johnston and Richard Outram, even John Newlove -- actually all deceased within the last year and a bit -- remain fresh and important. I was at a reading McKay gave in the fall and he spent 30 minutes reading poems on igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rock. You could probably figure out the meta(mor)phoric content of this silt within about 30 seconds, and I don't mean geological time. Though he did crack a couple of good jokes.

ZW, I'll look up the Trower soon. Thanks for saving me from purchasing the Borson. I talked it over with a friend last night, and he thought her quite unworthy; the posting on the Griffin website certainly didn't sit well.

Perhaps we should post an anti-Griffin list? Books by poets who matter. A short but worthwhile list. Hell, that could be the slogan. We can take up a collection until we hit 75 dollars. I'll throw in a laser printed certificate.

See, Zach, my sense of humour returns, and it's only 9:30.

I appreciate the Griffin prize, and I would agree with you, DW, especially with regards Starnino and Heighton. Yet these two poets -- both gifted and easily among the very best in the country -- are at the forefront of an astonishingly under-rated younger generation. These are the poets that have come of age since Borson and McKay, and it strikes me how rarely we see this generation represented in our major awards, either as nominee or winner. Has the old-guard been holding on too long? And what would it take to break that grip, I wonder? Sven Birkerts once wrote a fascinating piece about what he termed "the succession question". Birkerts' purview is American ficton, but I think his essay, in its implications, speaks to our situation as well. You can find it here:

www.smallbytes.net/~bobkat/observer2.html

Edited by author 04-08-2005 09:07 AM
I haven't read the Bowering, but I find his work thoroughly dull on the whole. I think your assessment of the McKay book is bang on, DW. As for Borson, well, all I can say is I'm totally baffled by the acclaim that book is getting. I find it surprising that such a safe, predictable list was chosen, given that Erin Moure is the Canadian judge. I agree with you on the merits of the books you name, though I don't think Moritz's or Heighton's were their best efforts. If I was going to advocate for any one book, I think it would be Peter Trower's Selected from Harbour. The guy has been endorsed by some of the best poets in the country (including McKay, who wrote the intro for this book) and has written a handful of the most powerful Canadian poems of the last century, but official recognition of his enormous talent is badly lagging.

I've only read the McKay and Bowering, so I'll refrain from commenting on the Borson, but really, as far as the Canadians go, a very uninspired list. Bowering is often bumbling, as capable of serving it up as a cracked teapot; McKay has his moments, though he is uneven, and this collection even more so: he has better uncollected poems. There's so much better out there, though the Griffin judges rarely see it. The best books this year: Ala, Starnino, Moritz and Heighton. Thank the gods they did the right thing by Avison, at least.

Edited by author 04-07-2005 10:09 AM
Griffin Poetry Prize

Shortlist announced.

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Edited by author 04-05-2005 09:38 AM
In Pulitzer news

Robinson and Kooser for fiction and poetry. Coll's comprehensive book on Afghanistan for non fiction.

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It gets boring after awhile all this winning... I assume...

Ha Jin wins second PEN/Faulkner Prize, last time for Waiting, this time for War Trash.


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Rhymes with Orange

Borange? Some prattling on about the relevance of women-only book prizes. Is it really such a big deal? It's been ten years of prizes to women. Does it hurt so much? Does it sell a few extra books for some authors who statistically can't get properly reviewed, for whatever the reason? Does it serve as a reminder that regardless of talent, things still aren't equal? Or is everyone under the illusion that humanity is "fixed"? Just forget about it and enjoy the award. (I'm reminded of that quote from the Simpsons about the rainforest: "Oh Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don't have to think all the time. Just like that rain forest scare a few years back. Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn't they?")


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I sure could use a new roof. Or fewer squirrels.

£60,000 goes a long way in a miner's shack

Reclusive poet Gillian Allnutt hits it big, buys new roof.



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Edited by author 03-14-2005 01:08 PM
The competition just got nasty

It's not enough we have to fight with the patriarchy for spots on all the awards lists everywhere, now we have to fight with biker chicks for the biggest girl prize of them all. Jillie, get your gun...

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Edited by author 03-13-2005 10:05 PM
If Engel is remembered for much at all these days, it is for the award that, um, bears her name. And yes, my post was meant as humour. Besides that, I like th idea of a woman and her bear being buried together. Very folklorish. Lots of old myths with women turning into bears, which I expect Engel would have been familiar. Joan Bodger wrote an interesting bear story for children called The Forest Family and I have a bear encounter story called The Last Magic Forest inspired to some extent by that. I have no trouble acknowledging foremums/bears but if they can't take a joke, well, you know the saying. Oh, my, I've gone full circle!

K

Feel better getting that off your chest, Mags? Pick up a sense of humour on your way out. They're free.

Marian Engel wrote many more books than Bear(and articles, columns, critical essays, and blurbs and oh, yeah, she actually helped start various writing associations when no one gave a shit, too, while also raising her kids and reading like a fiend) in her esteemed career. How you all miss out when you refuse to acknowledge the books and more importantly the writers who made it possible for you to feel smug today.

Million Writers Award Finalists reveal all!
About what inspired their works, that is.

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Good on him!

It's important that we recognize people like Metcalf to ensure that institutions like the Order (could that sound a bit more Masonic?) don't simply reinforce a narrow consensus of what our literature is or, worse, 'should' be.

Regardless of what you think of his opinions or his fiction, the man's done yeoman's work as an editor/publisher and deserves the recognition for that alone.

Depending on your positioning: "Good on him" or "WTF?" or "John Who?"

John Metcalf, "one of the most colourful and passionate voices in Canadian literature", is being made part of the Order of Canada today. Our tipster says, "There must be some people out there who think this a bloody outrage"...



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Edited by author 03-10-2005 10:19 AM
Writers' Trust Awards Announced

Many writers who won, including Engel, very happy (um, Howard not Marian who was off rolling in a grave with her hirsute friend and unavailable for interview).


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Funny, I thought every day was straight wasp SHAME day. My mistake.

Is the Orange Prize discriminatory?

I thought all prizes were discriminatory. Or is that discriminating? I can never tell the difference.

In the week of the Orange launch, one broadsheet newspaper carried 20 reviews, 19 of them on books by men. Women publish about 70 per cent of novels in Britain. Were they so bad?

At the root of this is a debate about whether literature is above gender; and whether, if there is such a thing as women's writing, it is subconsciously deemed to be inferior. 'I stand by what I thought then,' John Walsh says. 'The prize was launched on a ridiculous premise. There is nothing more condescending than the idea that there is women's fiction. It's extreme bigotry.'

Yet, as Lady Ninja says, the reason we don't have a Straight Pride Day because every day is straight pride day.



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Home Land wins Believer award

Sam Lipsyte's Home Land, which has just won some award from the Eggers satellite compound, is the best novel I've read in at least a year or two. I'm really glad all the blogdwellers turned me on to it. It is laugh out loud funny. In fact, the last book I laughed out loud while reading was Pete's. If you enjoyed Peter's Please, you'll love Lipsyte's book. So buy it. And buy Pete's book too, while you're at it.



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Chuck M wins Chuck T in gangland non-fiction turf war

Missionary tale, The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia, wins the $25G Charles Taylor Award for non-fiction.



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Place your bets
The Complete Review offers odds on the Man Booker International and a handy guide to each of the authors on the longlist, as well as the judges.

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Dick for Faust?
Edmonton's Minister Faust, author of The Coyote Kings of the Space-age Bachelor Pad, has been nominated for a Philip K. Dick award.

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What's behind the Quill Awards?

Besides a committee comprised of semi-literate marketing types? Money, chivato. Hold card hsac.

And speaking of publishers, guess who's partnering with NBC Universal and RBI on these tiresomely named, disingenuously high-minded-sounding Quill Awards? Not surprisingly, the advisory committee to the awards is positively lousy with some of the most powerful names in publishing. Someone unfamiliar with the book industry's altruistic dedication to quality might take one look at the Quills and see, not simple self-congratulation, but revenge on the National Book Awards for their notoriously uncommercial fiction shortlist last year. In other words, the publishers could well be saying, "Pick five books nobody's ever heard of, will you? What if we just start our own awards and bury you?" If they're not careful, the Quills may wind up the publishing-award equivalent of a company union.



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Writers' Trust Awards

The shortlists are out. Run screaming to the cash, my pretties. Start your indignity engines. Fiction finalists are:

Michael Helm (Toronto) for In the Place of Last Things, published by McClelland & Stewart

Colin McAdam (Montreal) for Some Great Thing, published by Raincoast Books

Jeffrey Moore (Montreal) for The Memory Artists, published by Viking Canada

Alice Munro (Clinton, Ontario) for Runaway, published by McClelland & Stewart/Douglas Gibson Books

Russell Smith (Toronto) for Muriella Pent, published by Doubleday Canada



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Susan MacRae--
Eat something sweet; you're very sour.

yes we should have one big Canadian literary prize called 'The National Mediocrity Award'

Blowing the dust off

The James Tait Black Memorial Prize is getting a makeover. Then it'll compete in a swimsuit competition with the IMPAC, Booker, and Orange prizes. No wait, scratch that last one... DBC Pierre to judge, Governor General's Awards to appear at coat check.



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"Like acting, writing novels is a profession in which not to be very successful is to be very unsuccessful."

Should there be only one winner of big literary prizes?

Small Island it may be - but Britain has great fiction. A lot of it. But what is the prize system which now dominates the British literary world doing to that fiction? One winner means all the rest are losers. Many don't deserve that label. Fiction is, thanks to the Victor Ludorum ethos that now drives critical judgment, a gladiatorial combat.

Is it a fair fight? The assumption behind the prize-awarding system is that there is a literary equivalent to IQ which can be precisely measured. There isn't (I'm not that sure about IQ, either). Kelly Holmes competes on a level running track. Do Jake Arnott and Margaret Drabble? Is Eric Clapton a "better" guitarist than Segovia? Is chalk cheese?



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I know the idea sounds awful. But, anything that even gets people to recognize and notice books is good for books. Yes, it will be lame, and Harry Potter will win almost everything (most else I guess Grisham, Koontz and King should get). But who cares? I for one am not complaining about books being on TV and being supported by celebrities.

Oh, and no one starts off reading the real good stuff, I think most people work their way to it. I don't know anyone who started on Lovecraft, but I know many who worked their way there from King.

Love the site, but I think you're picking on a good thing here.

Here's a Quill in yer eye

Quill Awards to celebrate downfall of civilization by heaping praise on John Grisham and Danielle Steel. Hugh Grant to host. If the public is seriously going to vote, be ready for an acceptance speech by Richard A. Knaak. (Dress code? Not what writers wear...)



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Whitbread awarded

Andrea Levy takes the prize. But we all know Hugh Grant is the real winner here. Celebrities. Is there anything they can't do?



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National Book Critics Circle Awards

Dylan vs. Shakespeare. We truly are in the last days.



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Booker and Orange prizes get new chairs

The big kind made of bones and with skulls at the ends of the arm rests.



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David Bezmozgis a Soviet writer?
Well, not quite, but the Moscow Times likes him enough to pick him as best debut of the year.

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The down low on poetry, wot?

A helpful look at the nominees for the TS Eliot and Whitbread poetry awards. I'm waiting on the Michael Longley and the Kathryn Gray.



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Hullalaboo down under
Judges of an Aussie lit prize quit in protest.

Three judges of Australia's major book prize have resigned over a new charter that strips them of decision-making powers and has been branded the "ludicrous commodification" of the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

The Melbourne bookseller Mark Rubbo, the Adelaide writer-critic Kerryn Goldsworthy and the Herald journalist David Marr left the five-judge panel just as they should have been cracking the spines of the 43 entries for next year's prize.

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The transparent jury

Alex Good of Goodreports leads a mock jury to reexamine the GGs of this past year. Steven Laird and Zach Wells participate. Interesting stuff.



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Hear, hear, says I! Let's see some of that in the colonies!

Hugh Grant takes Goob Dooking to the max

He's somehow weaseled his ever-so-charming arse onto the Whitbread judges panel. Let's hope your book is a romantic comedy with befuddled cardboard characters.



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Book about X-Men wins Guardian First Book prize

If only it had pictures. Who says awards juries are all doomed to idiocy? When you get statements like this from the judges, I have no doubt the best, easiest read won.

"Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was undoubtedly the highest profile book in contention this year, but while everyone was impressed by the virtuosity of the writing, some complained that the sheer length made reading it a bit of a slog."

Classy.



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Blastoff!

Ya, start bending over, a swift kick is on its way

3... 2... 1...

Saskatchewan authors receive awards on "everybody gets a trophy day"

Nation slips into deep slumber.



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Who wrote this?
In 1974, Thomas Pynchon won the National Book Award Fiction Citation for Gravity's Rainbow and sent Professor Irwin Corey to give a speech.

And the jury has determined to divide the prize between two writers -- to Thomas Pynchon for his GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. Now GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is a token of this man's genius...he told me so himself...that he could...in other words, have been more specific, but rather than to allude the mundane, he has come to the conclusion that brevity is the importance of our shallow existence. God damn. Ladies and Gentlemen. To the distinguished panel on the, on the dais and to the other winners, for poetry and religion and science. The time will come when religion will outlive its usefulness. Marx, Groucho Marx, once said that religion is the opiate of the people. I say that when religion outlives its usefulness, then opium...will be the opiate...Ahh that's not a bad idea...

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Ah, now a star! I hope that means you'll stop by more often.

Speaking of stars, my mentor took home the SBA for poetry last night for Getting to Know You, his book containing that fine baseball poem I yapped on about in the Social thread. There's great humour in his work.
 
I'm currently reading Princes in Waiting, which took the fiction award. It's SO bang on.
   http://www.bookawards.sk.ca/index.htm

Edited by author 11-28-2004 11:39 AM
skePticism...as in I'm skeptical that the large does of skepticism would graze in this particular pasture.

Tilda, I'm shocked! What about the enormous horses of hostility? The gigantic ticks of despair?

Oh oh oh, those shakeskehetical does!

Doh!

Large does of sketicism...that's a good one!

Lemme try...

Miniscule piglets of doom! Immense otters of hilarity!

Bias: E.g. I like poetry that is strongly rhythmic and does not eschew intelligibility and so am likely, if a juror, to award a prize/shortlisting to a book that has such qualities. Or, I like the colour pink and award a prize/shortlisting to a book that has lots of pink in it.

Conflict of interest: I award a prize/shortlisting to someone who is a personal friend, colleague, publisher/editor, etc. Or, conversely, I do not award a prize/shortlisting to someone because, e.g., they panned my book on Books in Canada.

Andre Alexis' resignation from the fiction GG jury this year raises the question of what exactly constitutes a COI. Do you have to be sleeping with an author? A blood relative? This seems a pretty restricted def'n to me. Any direct personal and/or professional affiliation or known cause for animosity should be an automatic disqualification. (This is why and how jurors are screened in courts of law; if there's any reasonable cause to suspect prejudice, the juror is disqualified.) If this reduces the pool to next-to-none, then look outside the pool. If awards are, as everybody says, a lottery, then their outcome should be, like all lotteries, based on chance and not on who one knows.

I don't know what rules/guidelines the QWF has re COI, but Glickman and Sharpe, it seems to me, are both in conflict of interest, because the former's last book was published by Carmine and the latter represents the publisher of Robyn Sarah's Selected Poems. I can say that Carmine should have won the award, because it's my opinion and I wasn't in a position to grant it. If I had been, and gave it to him, my decision would be badly tainted by the fact that I know the guy and write reviews for Books in Canada that he assigns to me. The conflict doesn't objectively diminish Carmine's accomplishments as an author, nor Roo Borson's in the case of the GG, but it does mean that the award cannot be considered one of those accomplishments without a large does of scepticism. Thus conflicts that seem to favour an author can actually diminish their accomplishments in the public eye. The Deputy Minister of Transportation's brother-in-law might just be the best man for a government paving contract...

Solway's argument is, as Martin says, sophistry. Most of my writer friends I knew as text before I knew as people, but that doesn't make them any less my friends. Curious, however: has Solway ever been involved in granting monies/honours to his friends, or does he just say nice things about them? There's a whopping big difference.

I'm pretty much talked out on this topic, but many suggestions have been made for reforms that would minimize COI on juries in the discussion over at Maisonneuve(see link in /m254).

Yeah, what Martin said.

I realize that this issue has engendered a lot of discussion--much of which I haven't read, I'll admit, but it's still difficult not to see the reaction to Starnino's win as "out with the old bums, in with the new ones," or "after the revolution, the new kings", or what have you.
Therefore, the difference between "bias" and "blatant conflict" is one you'll have to carefully parse for me.

 
Whatever the tightness of Canadian society, the literary commuity is tighter, and I'm not sure how conflicts of interest are avoided unless there's some lone wolf do-nothings that can be tapped for literary juries. One of the most interesting comments on this issue for me was Shane Neilson's "Open letter to David Solway" a while back, in which Neilson pointed out that for all that Solway accused others of supporting their friends, Solway did the same for Harris, Starnino and Ormsby. Solway's missing-the-point response was to argue that he admired these men's poetry before becoming their friend, but that he had a duty to point out "actual collusion" when he sees it. (I guess, as in one of those old aptitude tests, bias is to blatant conflict as supporting one's friends is to actual collusion.)

This isn't a "we're all guilty" response, it's a "we're all innocent" response. If I were a publisher or a juror (I'm neither), I would feel it was my duty to publish or to award prizes to what was in my opinion the best work. If I were both,it only seems natural to me that I give the prize to what I had previously determined was solid work. The nly reprehensible thing would be if I published mediocre work and then determined that I should award it a prize just because I published it. I think this happens much more rarely than cynical people suggest. There's a difference between having different taste than those who criticize you and being some sort of self-serving artistic leech.

re /m252: Of course, no way of ending the 'bias' issue, short of having a.i. robots judge. There are ways of avoiding blatant conflict issues, however. Many have been suggested in the discussion over at Maisonneuve.

re /m253: Precisely; had I been invited to participate on that jury, I'd have declined. But what I'm saying about Carmine is no different from what I've already said about Bowling, who I don't know from Adam: that though their selection is coloured by personal connections to jurors, and that such situations shouldn't be allowed to occur, I think the work does deserve notice. If, say, Anne Carson was on that jury and Carmine didn't get picked, I think more than a few eyebrows would be raised, given what Carmine's said about her work in the past. Conflict of interest can be in more than one direction. I also said that in my article, since you seem to be so interested in quoting me...

It's so much harder to call bullshit on a friend (or a boss).

Even if you opened the jury to the public, there'd be no way of ending the 'bias' issue. The fabric of our Canadian society is just too closely knit, the web too entwined, the warp, well, warped. One must hope that jurists try to keep open minds, and one must hope the jurists are chosen for this skill as well as their educated opinions. Bully for Starnino and bully for the shortlisted poets; they've all been lauded, after all.

Edited by author 11-26-2004 12:30 PM
Anon, I do think it cheapens the award. Which is a shame, because Carmine does deserve the honour.

One could argue that Sharpe is in conflict of interest with regards to Robyn Sarah, since Sarah's Selected was published by Anansi and is still in print.

At any rate, I never pretended the situation was black and white, nor the solution easily accomplished

"One has only to flip open Tim Bowling’s The Memory Orchard to find that it is dedicated exclusively to Russell Thornton, also a juror on this year’s poetry panel. Remarkable coincidence, what? This raises a vexed question for me, because I thought that Bowling’s book definitely merited inclusion on the list, unlike Zwicky’s and Borson’s contributions, which seemed to ride on the reputation of the authors rather than on the excellence of the writing. If Thornton had declined jury duty because his friend’s book was eligible, would his friend’s excellent book have made the list?"

"But bully for Carmine; even if there was a jury slant (tho I'd say they'd be slanted towards all three shortlisted), his book deserves the recognition. His best to date. But I do work for the guy and have the odd meal and drink with him, so I'm biased..."

-Zachariah Wells

I seriously doubt Martha Sharpe would be partial to Starnino. Deliberations must have been interesting.

Consider this:

QWF Jurors for the AM Klein Award:

Susan Glickman
Mark Abley
Martha Sharpe

Juror Susan Glickman's forthcoming book was edited by Carmine Starnino for Signal Editions. How is this not a conflict of interest?

"If one gets by with a little help from one’s friends, one still gets the [money], but surely the award itself is cheapened considerably."

- Zachariah Wells

Ditto that. Carmine's first two books were essentially apprenticeship works: good, but not quite there. This one's masterful.

Starnino power

Carmine Starnino wins the QWF's AM Klein Award for With English Subtitles. It really was one of the best books I read this year. I liked the Barbara Carey review of it in the Star in which she suggests (to paraphrase from memory) that a lot of people were gunning for him to fail because of his critical roughness, but she credits him for living up to his own standards. That's gotta feel good. Now it's time for a national award.



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Edited by author 11-22-2004 10:23 AM
I wonder if "The jury praised Lee's (I mean Kathryn's) intense stories for their 'gritty elegance.'"

I wonder if "They indicated, 'Kathryn's stories create worlds that are intense and evocative while showing us the conflicts that can arise between starkness and elegance.'"

I just wonder...

Yet ANOTHER Danuta Gleed update...

Why in the name of all that's holy they would want to draw further attention to this particular year of this award is beyond me, but TWUC has amended its list of winners from last year's award (which you will remember, did not go so well) and awarded an additional third place prize. Whatever this bizarre move is about, we hope it isn't meant as a demotion for Susan Rendell, who held third place all alone until last week - enough's already been done to insult the very good list of writers and books. All that said, we couldn't be happier with the choice. A good author gets some money and a fantastic book gets some... well... some words.



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Americans just don't learn and are now in danger of being overrun by liberal women

First they nominate five women from New York for their National Book Award, and then they GO AND GIVE IT TO ONE OF THEM! When will they learn?



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President Bush meets sour-faced artists waiting for their cheques

Bush hands out some goodies to the likes of Bradbury and Hecht (who is called, in a gross oversimplification, "a poet from New York").



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The Toronto-centric Giller Prize: of this year's six nominees, only two live in Toronto. How many of the books were about Toronto? None.

"The absence of big and sprawling Canadian novels is a frequent topic of discussion in a country where the short-story aesthetic has been so successful."

That's just funny.

The problem with little books and big awards

Alex Good weighs in on the National Book Award nastiness down south.

Canadians have been through all this. Every year there is another complaint (not always unjustified) about the Toronto-centric Giller Prize or some other literary award. And the absence of big and sprawling Canadian novels is a frequent topic of discussion in a country where the short-story aesthetic has been so successful.

But this doesn't go down well in the U.S. There has been a lot of ink shed over the past few years about how books are getting too big and/or too small (I've read articles arguing both positions), but in America more has always been more. A few years ago the same New York Times took Canada to task for being too small-minded and provincial (I made some remarks here). And now look at this fine state of affairs! A great big Imperial power's National Book Award nominees are . . . a bunch of women in New York City! It's un-American.

His sources are impeccable, too. Also, Dennis Loy Johnson does a little of MobyLives's trademark, pavement-pounding journalism and tracks down Rick Moody on his private island to discover what really happened.

When I got there I found the place crawling with security, a bunch of heavy set guys with ear pieces and Uzis slung over their shoulders. It was a big place, dark, creepy, with a moat and a drawbridge. Moody was inside surrounded by toadies peeling grapes for him. He leapt up and grabbed me by the lapels and said, "You gotta help me! You gotta get me out of this! Those women at the Times—Caryn James, Laura Miller, Deborah Solomon—they're trying to kill me! I mean, when Michiko Kakutani gets out of her court–mandated anger management classes, I'm a dead man!""

I slapped him hard across the face. It was enjoyable so I did it again. "Snap out of it!" I told him. "Now start from the beginning. What the hell happened?"



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File under: the grass is greener

A quick look at the finalists for the NBA in poetry reveals them to be disappointingly free of five women from New York...



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America still riled up over pesky book finalists

The National Book Awards shortlist for fiction* has been getting boos and jeers from the press for some time now.

Using the National Book Awards to bring attention to fine but overlooked novels is a noble plan, perhaps, but one undercut by the fact that it doesn't really work. The list tends to get received not as a recommendation but as a rebuke: these are the great books you should have been reading and the press should have been covering when you were wasting time and column inches on safe big-name talents and inferior crowd-pleasers, you vulgarians. If, like me, you actually read all five finalists -- apparently not a prerequisite for pontificating on the subject -- you'll see that this impression, though exaggerated, isn't entirely off.

As I mentioned before, most people just seem to think it's an insult that they can't predict the list. When you CAN predict many, if not all, of the other lists, isn't this a GOOD thing?



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National Book Award fiction nominees: bad

The NYT comes down hard on the fiction list.

When the fiction nominees were announced, there was much grumbling about their sameness - all women, all living in New York City, all little-known names. But the minor resemblances of sex and city are nothing next to what really makes this one of the least varied lists of nominees in recent years: a short-story aesthetic. Not one of these books is big and sprawling. And not one has much of a sense of humor.

It seems the problem here is no one saw the list coming and everyone's afraid the books marginalizes the award by appealing to only a small segment of readers. Welcome to our world, America.



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sunday! Sunday! SUNDAY! carnage! Carnage! CARNAGE!

The British can turn anything into a betting frenzied monster truck rally... albeit a civilized one with tea and more, mostly, teeth. That or a raging slap fight.

The Whitbread, which has five categories whose winners then compete for the £30,000 top prize, sees Andrea Levy's Small Island, which won the Orange, shortlisted for best novel against Alan Hollinghurst, who took the Booker cheque last month with The Line of Beauty. This is the first time this has happened.



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Whitbread shortlist announced

Hollinghurst is there. And he's looking decidedly more relaxed and coiffed than immediately after scooping the Booker.



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Just to be clear - my cat does not actually eat the cash.

If everyone refrains from entering I just might have a chance - I could use the cash to feed my cat...

CBC Literary Awards
The deadline is Nov. 15. It does cost $20, if you're interested.

The CBC Literary Awards Competition is the only literary competition that celebrates original, unpublished works, in Canada's two official languages. There are three categories—short story, poetry, and travel writing—and awards totalling $60,000, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts. In addition, winning entries are published in Air Canada's enRoute magazine and broadcast on CBC radio.

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Gleed award value raised - likely to assuage embarrassment

TWUC has raised the value of the Danuta Gleed Award, from $5,000 to $10,000, perhaps in an effort to give the prize a cleaner sheen after this summer's terrible embarrassment, methinks (rather snidely, if I do say so). In this spirit of facetious superiority, allow me to supply the missing paragraph from this press release:

TWUC administration would like to publicly apologize to the writers and jurors involved in the 2004 Danuta Gleed Award fiasco. Further, TWUC would like to apologize to Canadian writers and readers in general for trying to deny and hide an obviously egregious fuckup on the part of an unthinking staff member who then had some halfwit toothless pitbull attack the people who pointed it out. Sorry. Here's some more cash. Sorry.

Whatever the cause, more money in the pocket of a short story writer can't be a bad thing.



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Three reasons to hate the GGs and the Gillers

Ninja favourite Lynn Coady writes in The Tyee:

Book prizes are fun when you, or your client, or your author are nominated for one. Oh yes. The author gets flown somewhere, put up in a decent hotel. He or she is interviewed about The Book, the product of perhaps as many as ten years of near-thankless drudgery. Meanwhile agent and publisher can breathe a sigh of relief, for their efforts too have been rewarded. Interest is paid, by god, precisely the kind of interest every author feels is her due (she will tell you otherwise—“Oh I never expected anyone would take any notice of it”—and will be lying).

And that’s the problem: every single author feels this way, and a handful of them have every right because their work is splendid and should be held up and declared so publicly. Each year, well over a hundred new works of fiction are published in Canada. Many are called, but few are chosen, and often, no one can tell you why Stunning Achievement should be anointed one year while the equally accomplished Rollicking Tour-de-Force is ignored. Literary types know that the moment both the Giller and GG shortlists are announced, the griping will commence: Good lord, where is so-and-so? How could they nominate the bland, middle-class musings of whosherface, completely overlooking the edgy, vital prose of whasisname? And how on earth is it possible that the luminous work of you-know-who-I-mean-the skinny-one could be disregarded yet again?

Hey! She could be talking about us! (Thanks for the link, Art)



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Scott Griffin waves around money, poets

At least Bringhurst is getting some press.*

Later, the main reading drew an even larger crowd to the Royal Festival Hall's Purcell Room. During the intermission, three 23-year-old Londoners sat pondering Canadian poetry over a bottle of wine. Sarah, an Atwood fan, was trying to discern the meaning of Anne Carson's A Lot of Guns -- An Oratorio for Four Voices. They heaped praise on Bringhurst's reading of Haida verse, and the imagery in Anne Simpson's work.

How do you get in with the rich folk? I mean, besides writing well.



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it's an old trick. high school boys walk past a group of girls and go "well, at least one of them's good looking".

Gee, I wonder.

Just curious: Who's the odd poet out in terms of greatness?

Simon Armitage on Griffin jury

Simon Armitage, Erin Moure, and Tomaz Šalamun will be the 2005 judges. That's two great poets!



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The prize machine

A look at what the literary prize means to the world of books.

Yet while the laureates come away with applause and a check, the true promoters and beneficiaries of this ritual are others. With book sales falling almost everywhere, the publishing industry desperately needs these prizes to create an aura of excitement around the faltering world of fiction. If a publisher's author wins, all the better for sales. But even without a winner, publishing houses rally around the competition to bolster the book.

Blame the Oscars. The idea of a noisy countdown to a splashy awards ceremony designed to celebrate an industry spread quickly through the movie world to embrace theater, art, dance, even television and pop music. In reality the prize winners are often just bit players whose names may be soon forgotten. What lives on is the prize and the media attention it garners. Publishing has long ridden this bandwagon.

Prizes don't mean jack squat.



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More awards

The QWF announces shortlists (PDF) for its prizes, including an absolutely wicked AM Klein Prize for poetry that pits Carmine Starnino against his old mentor David Solway and Robyn Sarah. The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction looks good too with Roméo Dallaire and Joel Yanofsky up against some bikers.



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Throw it on the heap

A new award, the £60,000 Swansea Dylan Thomas Prize for a writer in English under 30, is born. I can take solace in the fact that I'm completely ineligible. Or I can cry about same.



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okay. That's one of my buttons that's easy to press. It feels like I'm the only one in English Canada with that particluar button, though.

I was speaking in character, Michel.... :)

I thought we lived in Canada. Or is everything outside Quebec merely America's doormat?

Who?

The National Book Award finalists are an odd bunch. Well, they might be odd if anybody knew anything about them.

In an age when entire industries have sprung up around awards to publicize and commercialize various corners of the culture, a prize that finds merit in the obscure has much to be said for it. But this year's fiction finalists have touched a nerve in the industry that sponsors the award, and among those concerned that literature and American culture are growing too distant.

Besides worrying that no one cares about the nominees,* people are also worried that no one's making money off them, either...

THE relative ineffectiveness of the National Book Award in publicizing new American literature contrasts strikingly with the Man Booker Prize, the British literary award whose winner will be announced this Tuesday. The Booker is a cultural event in Britain, the subject of radio and television commentary, even betting and the occasional pub fight.

Come on, people. This is America. Are we going to let those Brits beat us at our own art form? Marketing is ours!



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File under: Now there's something you don't see every day...

A Chinese kung fu novelist has been given France's highest arts honour. Hm. I did NOT see that one coming.



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You spelled "pie" wrong....

G

Not only is Strand Canadian, he's a PEIslander.

Edited by author 10-14-2004 07:13 PM
Americans dig their disaster reports

The 9/11 commission's book is getting the nod... And not just from people falling into sleep.



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And rounding out the awards news

Mark Strand wins the AAP's Wallace Stevens Award. I like Strand's work. Canajun, he is.



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Hm, precisely.

I have quite a funny anecdote concerning Lee and overproductivity, but it involves some backbiting (on my part and not directed at Lee), but my enemies' list is long enough right now.

Besides, Zach, surely you can't mean that producing a lot of poems in a short amount of time is a bad thing? My heavens, I thought that swatting the reader over the head with a bio-list of published work longer than most poems was the in-thing right now.

Based on what I've read, I'd say that he repeats himself a fair bit and is occasionally sloppy. I don't know that there's anything wrong with producing so much poetry, but I think there's a certain negligence involved in publishing so much poetry. I always wonder, with someone as talented as Lee, how much better they could be with greater focus on fewer poems.

You'll have to define "overproductive" for me. Do you mean that he produces a lot of stuff that's not up to par or do you mean that there's something wrong with the very act of producing so much poetry in itself?

Haven't read Lee's latest (as Fish Fish says, how the hell do you keep up?) but agree with Martin that he's a fine poet, if somewhat overproductive. I'd be happy to see either Richardson or Simic win. Peter's a friend of mine, and a fellow former-airline-cargo-handler, but it's hard for me to pull against Simic's book, which I think is one of the best of the last year.

"When one gets what one deserves, it's a wonderful thing."

Samuel Menasche, a sort of strange West Village poetry gnome whom I've had the distinct pleasure of knowing, finally gets some recognition.* I linked to a NYT piece a long while ago that highlighted Menasche as a kind of last of the bohemians, but now Poetry magazine, with it's deeeeeeep coffers, has award Menasche the first Neglected Masters Award, a $50G shoulder chuck to someone who's spent their life without recognition. It's essentially an award for not winning any awards. And if anyone deserves it, it's Menasche. He's spent his entire life perfecting the very very short poem. Not a big hit with journals and awards, but reading like cut diamonds to those who spend the time. I met Menasche at a memorial service for Gwendolyn Brooks. He cornered me and spent the evening telling me how no one ever took him seriously and how despite the fact that he'd published in the New Yorker and such back in the day, he couldn't get a New York publisher. We had dinner a couple times and talked poetry. He's an interesting guy, if a little strange after 40 years of living with a bathtub in his kitchen. I'm very glad for him it worked out. Hopefully things will only go up from here.



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When you publish a book every year, the question isn't, hasn't he won this before, it's: why hasn't he won more before?

I'm pulling for Lee.

If memory serves, however, hasn't he won before?

This just in:

The short-list for the

Acorn-Plantos Award for People¹s Poetry

is as follows

John B. LEE - Totally Unused Heart
       Black Moss Press

Jill MacLEAN - The Brevity of Red
       Signature Editions

Erin NOTEBOOM - Ghost Maps
       Wolsak and Wynn

Peter RICHARDSON - An ABC of Belly Work
       Signal / Vehicule Press

Goran SIMIC - Immigrant Blues
       Brick Books

The winner of the Acorn-Plantos Award
will be announced on November 1st.

For more information on this award
please contact

Jeff Seffinga

36 Sunset Avenue
Hamilton, Ontario
L8R 1V6

905 - 521-9196

jeffseff@allstream.net

Toronto Arts Council Foundation Awards
Congrats to Sky Gilbert and Djanet Sears for winning the awards. And congrats to Toronto for having such awards in the first place.

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Do publishers lie?
The Telegraph accuses publishers of misleading consumers.


Dozens of novels which are currently in shops carry marketing slogans such as "Winner of the Booker Prize" and "Winner of the Orange Award" despite not even having been shortlisted for the accolades.

In each case, the victorious work was a different novel by the same author, although this is rarely, if ever, made clear. Critics point out that far from being literary masterpieces, many of the books carrying the misleading marketing have, in fact, received poor reviews.


I don't know, this strikes me as something like a retail sign that says "From $9.95." If you don't know you're being manipulated when you look at marketing....

I remember a writer once telling me he'd gotten his hands on some Governor General's award stickers and had stuck them on his books in stores. I'm surprised more people don't do that. Or do they....?

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Blume gets award, Bloom continues to spin in his grave

While a far cry above Stephen King, in some ways, I'm pretty sure Judy Blume* does not a calm Bloom-colon make. In related news Metamucil shares up 21 points...



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Toronto Book Award

A split decision means both authors go home half richer and half poorer than otherwise... Does that make sense?



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What good's the longlist...

When it doesn't mention the people I like? But there is a point here:

This has been a very strong year for fiction, yet you will look in vain on the list for Roddy Doyle, A L Kennedy, Jonathan Coe, Hari Kunzru or Justin Cartwright, whose The Promise of Happiness has received rapturous reviews. Less obvious, but no less worthy, is Gwendoline Riley, with the superb Sick Notes; also Andrew Crumey's dazzling Mobius Dick. David Lodge, like Doyle, has been snubbed before he's even had his launch party. What about Andrea Levy's wonderful Small Island? It won the Orange Prize - yet it's already been swept aside.

And in place of all these fine writers... well, at first glance we have a fair few who-hes and who-shes. There's no reason why the longlist should become a forum for young debut novelists - they have their own awards. Man Booker is one of the few prizes that isn't ageist. More's the pity, then, that the judge Tibor Fischer patronisingly remarked of Cartwright and V S Naipaul that "the old lags have dun good". Not good enough, it seems.

And that point seems to be: Tibor Fischer is a moron. (From PFW)



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It's here! It's here!

The Guardian first book award long list! Oh, GOODNESS! You've made me the HAPPIEST BLOGGER ALIVE!!



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Pinter wins Owen Award

For anti-Iraq war poems.



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Edited by author 07-15-2004 09:33 PM
New award for ... something

It may seem somewhat loosely defined, but Maggie de Vries has won the inaugural George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Canadian Literature. (From PFW)



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Awards Fever

This is so painful and inspiring it just had to go in the comedy slot...

Having made it on to the longlist, I would regularly log on to the competition's website to check my progress. Sadly, I saw myself sliding down the rankings. "You were doing well, getting threes and fours out of five," explained Gwen. "Then, someone read it who just didn't want to know, and gave you a nought."



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Kathryn, re /m191

For the Griffin award, as I understand it, each house is permitted to submit 3 titles per year for the award. If a house publishes more than 3 poetry titles per year, then some will be, by necessity, left off th elist.

2004 ReLit Awards announced
Congrats to this year's winners:


POETRY:
Small Arguments, Souvankham Thammavongsa (Pedlar)

SHORT FICTION:
Fiction for Lovers, Tony Burgess (ECW)

NOVEL:
Still Life with June, Darren Greer (Cormorant)

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I'm under the impression, perhaps mistakenly, that large publishing houses sometimes withold titles if they are in competition with other titles from the same house. Regrettable screening process or unfair strategizing? Does this happen?

With a distinguished panel of prejudges, of course, consisting of the unassailably adroit Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo.

I find it absolutely disturbing that the submissions are somehow secretly screened before the judges get the books. I'd be curious to find out how this process is accomplished.

Griffin List Could Have Been, Says Sutherland

I've heard this before somewhere... Now where was it...?

Hard questions must be asked. Was the national short list the best that last year's Canadian poetry output could muster? I doubt it.
...
Webb says that not all of the more than 400 books submitted were sent to her. In reducing the entries to a manageable number for the judges to discuss, how was the screening done, and who did it? We're not told.

Is anyone else disturbed by the alleged pre-selection that seems to have gone on before the jury received books for review? Is anyone on the inside who can explain this to us? If so: (discuss)



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Re: "Struck by lightning...gold"... What's this about a "semester at San Quentin Prison"? That's one hell of a euphemism.

Toronto Book Awards

Great summer reading! And don't forget your candles, mints, and magnetic things! (From PFW)



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"It's kind of like being struck by lightning but it's gold, instead"

On the strength of that remark, someone should yank that $100G Lilly prize right out of her hands.



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re /m180

I agree, Michael, that's a shocking practice. I feel violated. Sorta like the Gleed winners and judges.

Lambda Literary Awards Announced

Veteran novelist Christopher Bram received the Gay Men's Fiction Award for Lives of the Circus Animals, a witty and poignant comedy set in the New York theater world. The Lesbian Fiction Award went to Nina Revoyr's Southland, a study of the intersections of race and class in Los Angeles.

Complete list here. (From Scribbling Woman who has a great set of Lambda links here)



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Judging a Lit Contest Can Put You on (Over?) the Edge

An Orange Prize judge talks about reading 71 books in a short period of time.

There were two particularly low points. One was when I had a run of books about nothing. These were usually by authors from the US, who have attended prestigious creative writing courses, often at the University of Iowa. They are books with 500 pages discussing a subtle but allegedly profound shift within a relationship. They are books where intricate descriptions of a man taking a glass out of the dishwasher, taking a tea-towel off a rail, opening out the tea-towel, then delicately drying the glass with the tea-towel, before pouring a drink into the glass, signify that he has just been through a divorce. At one point, I rang a friend and shouted at her, "I wish some of these bloody writers would write about Iraq!" Or anywhere with a bit of politics or meaning.



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Dear Ninjas,
I don't believe the Penney Kome post is actually from Penney Kome. What it is, is the email she sent to the Writers' Union listserve, which someone has copied and posted on this board, using her name.

But that's just my opinion. Someone is impersonating her, which I find alarming -- perhaps someone should 'fess up and give Ms. Kome her identity back.

About the content of that post; it speaks for itself. A shabby defense of an inexcusable practice.

Edited by author 06-09-2004 05:26 PM
News of Writers' Union Blunder Spreads ...

Quill and Quire, which has SIGNIFICANTLY expanded and updated its website (kudos!), reports on the Bookninja story of "Cannibalgate - The Writers' Union's Fall from Gardening Tips and Recipe-Trading to Self-Plagiarism and Panicked Finger Pointing" (12-part miniseries coming this fall to CBC - may contain scenes of graphic whining and not be suitable for younger viewers who need positive role models.) (From Thoughts Dissected)



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Orange Prize Won by Someone!

Andrea Levy's Small Island takes home the... gold? What do they win? Oh, cash! 30,000! And it's that fat, double-money that looks like fancy Ls and has stern, patrician faces on it instead of John MacDonald who looks like his day job might have been teaching in a clown school.



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So, In Case You Did Something Valuable with Your Weekend...

The Writer's Union is mad at us (see message 170) because we pointed out that they plagiarized their own press release from 2003 for a press release for the 2004 Danuta Gleed Award.

IMO, this is unutterable pettiness. There is absolutely nothing wrong with updating and re-using a standard news release. In the first place, ALL news releases follow a fairly rigid format: 5 W's, quotation, exposition, quotation, standard bottom paragraph that identifies the organization. In the second place, anybody who has ever served on a book awards jury knows that the awards agency requests the jury to provide descriptions of all the short-listed books precisely for the purposes of using them in news releases. (posted on our discussion boards under the name Penney Kome, a former TWUC Chair)

Um... Hello? Not a big deal, you say? Press releases are often recycled? Sure. But does one set of judges recycle another set of judges' citations from a different set of books by different authors? Confused? So is the Union, we think. They called our reservations about this "unutterable pettiness". I wonder what the judges think of it? And the winning writers? And the membership? And Mr. Gleed? I think people would have dropped this if the Union had had the guts to admit someone made a colossal blunder. But instead they circle the wagons and strike back like cornered bandits. Peow! Oh, and by the by, before you admonish us for being snide and facetious, ask around - we're always facetious.



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Lampert and Lowther Announced

Adam Getty and Betsy Struthers take bragging rights and the lovely macrame plant holders. Hearts go out to Ninja fav Chris Banks, but he already won the Jack Chalmers so he should just be damn satisfied.



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Penny,

I was under the impression the Writers’ Union event was held in Victoria. As you point out, I live in Vancouver, not on the Island.

Besides, what does my attendance or lack thereof have to do with the issue of the press release?

I work for a newspaper – presumably part of the intended audience for the news release – and while I don’t take issue with using a template for releases, I do object to re-using judges’ comments. Attributing statements to people who never said them is generally frowned upon in the media. Or did the 2003 and 2004 juries both happen to say exactly the same thing?

I don’t think we’re being petty to point out the problems with the press release – it is a "press release" after all. It’s hard enough to get the media to pay attention to anything that isn’t Harry Potter or a similar blockbuster, but it’ll be even harder for them to take awards like this seriously if they can’t trust the sponsoring organization’s own statements.

I’m willing to believe the press release was just a sloppy job – any other option is disconcerting – but that doesn’t mean everyone should just ignore it. As it stands, this press release does a disservice to the writers involved, to the prize jury, and to the members of the Writers’ Union itself.

Peter Darbyshire

Besides the ridiculous error of the press release, the wagon-circling that Kome is engaged in is disturbing, as well. Someone questions the Union's (admittedly stupid) practice and she resorts to tepid name calling and then spams the board with useless information meant to - what? Obfuscate? Cloak? Camouflage? I thought this was just a funny news item until she decided to call attention to it by childishly denying any wrongdoing.

If I were a winner of this prize, I'd demand an apology. If I were a judge, I'd demand an apology. If I were Mr. Gleed, I'd withdraw my name and support.

Yes, indeed, Ms. Kome. Congratulations for a cynical defense of a cynical misdeed. This is the official public statement about something that might otherwise have meant something; perhaps not much, but something. As it stands, it is unutterably meaningless. Own up already, will ya?

The Writers' Union should apologise to the 2003 and 2004 jury and to the winners from both years for its error. It should probably apologise to Mr. Gleed, as well.

Whatever good the union may be doing, it still needs to take responsibility for what it has not done, namely respect the integrity of a prize it administers.

Edited by author 06-06-2004 03:51 PM
How is it petty to question the re-use of the judges citations from 2003 for a completely different set of books from 2004?

Did you actually read the item? They're word for word the same!

2003 reads:
"Timothy Taylor, of Vancouver, British Columbia, receives $500 for Silent Cruise (Vintage Canada, ISBN 0-676-97443-0). For their second choice the jury found, "Timothy Taylor's powerfully built stories exceptional and downright believable". The jury was impressed with "the maturity and craftsmanship of Taylor's stories, that manage to do everything well."

2004 reads:
Jonathan Bennett, of Port Hope Ontario, receives $500 for Verandah People (Raincoast Books, ISBN 1-55192-649-0). For their second choice the jury found, "Jonathan Bennett's powerfully built stories are exceptional and downright believable." The jury was impressed with "the maturity and craftsmanship of Jonathan's stories, that manage to do everything well."

So which one is it that's "downright believable"... What do your judges from these years think of you misquoting them? I wonder what the 2002 press release looks like? An automatic, knee-jerk reaction like this is only embarrassing to you right now. Read the item.

George

Subject: Re: [TWUC] Bookninja item about TWUC press release
To: TWUC@YORKU.CA

IMO, this is unutterable pettiness. There is absolutely nothing wrong with updating and re-using a standard news release. In the first place, ALL news releases follow a fairly rigid format: 5 W's, quotation, exposition, quotation, standard bottom paragraph that identifies the organization. In the second place, anybody who has ever served on a book awards jury knows that the awards agency requests the jury to provide descriptions of all the short-listed books precisely for the purposes of using them in news releases.

Too bad the partners behind bookninja (the bio says that Peter Darbyshire lives in Vancouver) didn't come out to TWUC's AGM last weekend where we announced the Danuta Gleed Award winners. We presented a wide range of much more substantial professional issues to discuss. Here's an account of the Thursday night publishers' panel, which was free and open to the public.


Keynote Panel: The Future of Writing and Publishing in Canada
Moderator: Margaret Reynolds of the BC Publishers' Association
Panellists: Brian Lam: Arsenal Pulp, Lynn Henry: Raincoast, Doug Gibson: McClelland & Stewart, Gordon Platt: Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) Regrets: Scott McIntyre

Penney Kome: I was struck by the agility our publishers show. Our success is due to our publishers. For an industry just over 50 years, they have done very well. We support the book publishing industry in Canada.

Gordon Platt: BDIDP celebrates its 25th anniversary of federal support for the Canadian book publishing industry. We now have three times as many publishers as in the 1970s, four times as many books, and five times as many writers. In 1977, Canadian authors constituted only 11% of titles in the market compared to 38% now. Canadian authors wrote only 7% of children’s’ books in 1977, vs. 35% now. The three factors for this increase are writers and readers; publishers and booksellers; and public support by the Canada Council, BDIDP, and provincial governments. Public support of Canadian publishing industry equals the price of a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee.
Why do we need public support? We have a unique heritage, a low population, two languages, and a vast geography, as well as being neighbours of the US. Challenges facing the industry are the changes in retail, with Big Box stores, on-line book selling, increased size and clout of the big publishing groups. In 2001, with the demise of SPS, profits in the industry fell to 2% (grants account for 6% of revenues). Now median profitability is up to 4.7%.
I can identify the following trends: niche areas, guidebooks, cookbooks, and export to US. Large track publishing has a high level of returns.
BDIDP is considering if the balance and mix of grants are appropriate. Operations are supported now, but should it be marketing? BDIDP takes a supply side approach now, should it be the demand side? No policy shifts are anticipated at this point.

Brian Lam: Arsenal Pulp Press was founded in 1971 by a group of UBC English students. It is a small to medium operation, with 4 employees and less than $1 million in sales. It publishes 20-25 titles annually and has 200-225 titles in print. Arsenal also exports to the US and Australia.
Arsenal is an independent press that publishes provocative and stimulating books that challenge the status quo and subverts existing systems. In 1982, Pulp Press went bankrupt, with $30,000 in receivables, only to remerge as Arsenal Pulp Press in the mid-1980s with the success of the Quotations of Chairman Zalm, which sold 25,000 copies in one month.
In the mid-1990s, Arsenal began to look at specialty niches, and became successful finding niches within the niches. For example, it publishes vegan cookbooks and books for the gay and lesbian market. Of total sales, 47% are to the US, 10% to Canada. A publisher can’t rely on the Canadian market alone. The brand publishing name and reputation are important. A firm must consider the point of view of the consumer and reader. Success is not always about a great manuscript; rather marketing is often key.

Lynn Henry: Raincoast Books has two small imprints: Ragweed Press in PEI and Polestar in Vancouver. It is faced with the Myth of the Golden Underpants: that is, beneath its exterior, it is hoarding gold. The truth is that Raincoast is struggling, but surviving. The company does benefit from the Harry Potter franchise but the rule is that each book must stand on its own and be economically viable.
Raincoast has over 100 employees, with only 10 in publishing and the rest in distributing. The publishers are a minority in their own company.
Raincoast publishes 50 Canadian books a year; the rest are distributed from the US and the UK. Raincoast is a microcosm of the publishing industry in Canada. There is competition for resources and we must distinguish between their books and distributed books.
Raincoast is misunderstood with respect to its resources. However, the culture at Raincoast understands both the publishing and distribution of books, and that there is a direct connection between the two. The company is forced to be on par with the US and UK, regarding timelines and systems. Raincoast engages in global expectations and co-publishes with other firms.
Over the last five years, we spend more time on marketing and focus on the need to have knowledge of profit: loss sheets.

Douglas Gibson: McClelland and Stewart (M&S). When M&S reject manuscripts, they include a copy of Jack Hodgin’s A Passion for Narrative.
The biggest problem in the industry today is retail. We have developed excellent authors with worldwide success, professional publishers, and keen readership. But our retail system is not working. The Chapters/Indigo monopoly, with 60-70% of the market, is not working. Chapters/Indigo has a return rate greater than 50%, despite a contract with the publishers for a 30% return rate. We were naïve to think that they would keep their word.
Publishing in Canada is a cultural success but a business basket case. This is due to factors such as our low population. A print run of 2,000, common in Canada, would cost $8/book, compared to $4/book for a larger print run of 20,000, common in the US. In non-fiction, the world doesn’t care about Canada. In 1974, Hugh Kay brought Alligator Pie (McMillan) in with 15,000 copies (when maximum sales averaged 2,700), opening up readers to children’s books.
There is a magic to books. Books by well-known authors have an advantage. A paradox is that the more local appeal, the more universal. Technology may be our answer. For example, Trafford, a Victoria company, will publish anyone’s book using Publish-on-Demand (POD) technology. POD can be ordered electronically through Amazon. There has to be a lesson for other publishers. We need to get away from the tyranny of the large print run, with resulting savings on trucking, storage and environmental costs.

Summary: Publishers are becoming more careful, more market-driven but taking risks. The keys are finding niche markets, publishing children’s books, and exporting.


Questions:
The system will support a small number of writers, not the rest. Any comments on the difficulty for writers to make a living?
Douglas Gibson: It is harder to promote non-fiction. Mid-list non-fiction is not selling as well as before. Where 5,000 copies of a non-fiction book once sold, now it would be 4,000. When Morningside aired on CBC, Peter Gzowski would bring Canadian books forward daily. The decreased attention of CBC to Canadian books is now a worry.
Brian Lam: Writers’ problems are publishers’ problems as well. For example, only 20 copies of our cyborg art book were requested nationally by Indigo.
Margaret Reynolds: Chapters have eliminated their regional buyers now. Books are shipped to Toronto, then out to the regions. Getting reviews in the media is a problem.
Gordon Platt: Speak up on the issue of subsidies to writers. We have decisions about the mix of support.

Fragmentation in the industry is an issue.
Penney Kome: The CRTC requirement for local programming was discontinued. Culture can be a powerful economic weapon, as seen in the US exports culture.
Gordon Platt: Canada has a large trade deficit for books, about $1 billion.

What are your dream books?
Douglas Gibson: A short story collection by Alice Munro, a book by Sheila Copps, Christmas stories by Alistair MacLeod, and Peter C. Newman’s Memoirs - all of which are coming out this year.
Lynn Henry: Canadian culture/history with an international appeal, such as the formation of Greenpeace.
Brian Lam: Greenpeace, anarchists’ history, poetry on black Canada, black BC literature.
Gordon Platt: The difference is that publishing in the US is market-driven and celebrity books are big. In Canada, publishing is driven by editorial considerations.

Writers spend more time selling out-of-house. Is it worthwhile to make celebrities out of writers?
Lynn Henry: We want writers who do self-promotion. I want to work with writers over time.
Brian Lam: We work with mutual respect. Marketing is part of it.
Douglas Gibson: I have promoted many books, an exercise in ritual humiliation, such as 4 am radio interviews. Many great books have never caught on because of the failure to market. If an author can do the celebrity thing, it is time well spent.

Is it true that since 9/11, creative non-fiction is the hot genre?
Lynn: I’ve heard that buzz, but I am mystified.
Douglas: I’ve heard it, too. Our non-fiction is selling worse every year. So the interest in non-fiction hasn’t happened yet.
Margaret: It may be wishful thinking.
Douglas: We haven’t had a non-fiction book sell 100,000 copies for 5 years.

Why can’t we stand up to Chapters? Chapters returns 53%, most other sellers only 40%. Publishers receive only 20% of the selling price, but booksellers get 50%.
Gordon: It is hard to regulate retail - it’s a matter of provincial jurisdiction. Under the federal Competition Act, government gets involved only if the price to consumers, choice or selection is materially impacted in a negative way. The agreement between Canadian publishers and Indigo can be appealed. Quebec law restricts the size of any one bookstore by requiring booksellers to be accredited.

The CRTC supports an independent music industry in Canada by requiring Canadian content on the radio. Why not for writing?
Gordon: CBC abandoned this ten years ago. Lobby CRTC about this.

--Account written by Louise Foubister, one of several community volunteers who took notes and wrote them up for our use, in exchange for being able to attend the 13 workshops and information sessions that took up most of the time at this year's AGM.

At 11:52 AM 6/6/04 -0400, you wrote:

Did anyone else note this item at http://www.bookninja.com? Anyone
responsible wish to comment?



> We're All Feeling the Arts Funding Squeeze, and it Seems the Writers' Union is
> Dealing with it by Cutting Back on Original Press Releases (You Have Got to
> Check This Out...)
>
Penney Kome, author and journalist
http://penneykome.ca
Past Chair, The Writers Union of Canada
Editor, Straightgoods, http://straightgoods.com

Ideas, Not Money
The 2004 ReLit shortlists have been announced. Congrats to the nominated ninjas.


POETRY
Ashland, Gil Adamson (ECW)
The Vicinity, David O'Meara (Brick)
Small Arguments, Souvankham Thammavongsa (Pedlar)
House Built of Rain, Russell Thornton (Harbour)

NOVEL
Still Life with June, Darren Greer (Cormorant)
The Speaking Cure, David Homel (Douglas & McIntyre)
Kameleon Man, Kim Barry Brunhuber (Beach Holme)
A Love Supreme, Kent Nussey (Mansfield)

SHORT FICTION
Universal Recipients, Dana Bath (Arsenal Pulp)
Broken Accidents, Phlip Arima (Insomniac)
Fiction for Lovers, Tony Burgess (ECW)
Way Up, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (Goose Lane)

Home

Edited by author 06-05-2004 07:57 AM
That's quite a remarkable coincidence. I mean, really, what are the odds of such striking verbal parallels...

Seriously, though, I think this is a new standard for transparent cynicism; hard to claim that an award's about the peer recognition and not career advancement when a FUBAR like this floats to the surface. Really makes me want to pay dues to the WU.

Edited by author 06-04-2004 10:18 PM
We're All Feeling the Arts Funding Squeeze, and it Seems the Writers' Union is Dealing with it by Cutting Back on Original Press Releases (You Have Got to Check This Out...)

(Another Bookninja scoop!) Is this a study in what awards mean, even to the people who administrate them...? An anonymous, but well-placed, reader tips us off to the fact that the Writer's Union press release for the 2004 Danuta Gleed Award (see below -- a week later and they still haven't announced it to the public on their website...) bears a striking resemblance to the press release for the 2003 Danuta Gleed Award. In fact only a few words per section are changed!

(2003 press release)

The Writers' Union of Canada and John Gleed are pleased to announce that Lee Henderson is the recipient of the $5,000 DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD for The Broken Record Technique (Penguin Books ISBN 0-14-100568-8). Judged the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2002. In making their decision the jury of award-winning short fiction writers Carmelita McGrath, David Homel and Gary Geddes confirmed that The Broken Record Technique provided, "An exciting play with language: Lee Henderson whether describing an incensed desire or a vicious fear, creates characters who, like most of us, are often baffled by what life presents." The jury agreed "Lee Henderson's brilliant stories stretched the boundaries of language and form without losing their focus on character and situation."

Timothy Taylor, of Vancouver, British Columbia, receives $500 for Silent Cruise (Vintage Canada, ISBN 0-676-97443-0). For their second choice the jury found, "Timothy Taylor's powerfully built stories exceptional and downright believable". The jury was impressed with "the maturity and craftsmanship of Taylor's stories, that manage to do everything well."

Nancy Lee, of Vancouver, British Columbia, also receives $500 for Dead Girls (McClelland & Stewart Limited, ISBN 0-7701-5250-2). The jury praised Lee's intense stories for their "gritty elegance." They indicated, "Nancy Lee's stories create worlds that are intense and evocative while showing us the conflicts that can arise between starkness and elegance."

(2004 press release)

The Writers' Union of Canada and John Gleed are pleased to announce that Jacqueline Baker is the recipient of the $5,000 DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD for A Hard Witching & Other Stories (Harper Flamingo Canada, ISBN 0-00-200534-4). Judged the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2003. In making their decision the jury of award-winning short fiction writers Nino Ricci, Sharon Butala and Fred Stenson confirmed that A Hard Witching & Other Stories provided, "An exciting play with language: Jacqueline Baker whether describing brutality or tenderness, creates characters who, like most of us, are often baffled by what life presents." The jury agreed "Jacqueline Baker's brilliant stories stretched the boundaries of language and form, without losing their focus on character and situation."

Jonathan Bennett, of Port Hope Ontario, receives $500 for Verandah People (Raincoast Books, ISBN 1-55192-649-0). For their second choice the jury found, "Jonathan Bennett's powerfully built stories are exceptional and downright believable." The jury was impressed with "the maturity and craftsmanship of Jonathan's stories, that manage to do everything well."

Susan Rendell, of St. John's Newfoundland, also receives $500 for In the Chambers of the Sea (Killick Press, ISBN 1-89494-66-1). The jury praised Rendell's intense stories for their "individual vision." They indicated, "Susan Rendell's stories create worlds that are intense and
evocative while showing us the conflicts that can arise between starkness and elegance."

Hmm. Now that's an org that cares about its people, init? None of this should reflect, of course, on the quality of the work highlighted... These are some great books. It should just reflect on the state of affairs in our awards system. I wonder how the jury feels about being "quoted" like this...



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And the Winner of the 2004 Danuta Gleed Literary Award Is...
Where's the Envelope?
Anyone See the Envelope?
By popular demand, and because we can't find the info on the Writers' Union website, here's the press release announcing the winner of the 2004 Danuta Gleed award.


The Writers' Union of Canada and John Gleed are pleased to announce that Jacqueline Baker is the recipient of the $5,000 DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD for A Hard Witching & Other Stories (Harper Flamingo Canada, ISBN 0-00-200534-4). Judged the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2003.

In making their decision the jury of award-winning short fiction writers Nino Ricci, Sharon Butala and Fred Stenson confirmed that A Hard Witching & Other Stories provided, "An exciting play with language: Jacqueline Baker whether describing brutality or tenderness, creates characters who, like most of us, are often baffled by what life presents." The jury agreed "Jacqueline Baker's brilliant stories stretched the boundaries of language and form, without losing their focus on character and situation."

Jonathan Bennett, of Port Hope Ontario, receives $500 for Verandah People (Raincoast Books, ISBN 1-55192-649-0). For their second choice the jury found, "Jonathan Bennett's powerfully built stories are exceptional and downright believable." The jury was impressed with "the maturity and craftsmanship of Jonathan's stories, that manage to do everything well."

Susan Rendell, of St. John's Newfoundland, also receives $500 for In the Chambers of the Sea (Killick Press, ISBN 1-89494-66-1). The jury praised Rendell's intense stories for their "individual vision." They indicated, "Susan Rendell's stories create worlds that are intense and evocative while showing us the conflicts that can arise between starkness and elegance."

The judges commented: "These first collections of short fiction break through to that next level of understanding. They demonstrate a massive talent and are of a very high caliber, a cornucopia of well crafted delights." The jury felt that the level of the 20 titles submitted was very high and that many of the individual stories showed great promise. They also stated that the 20 submitted titles contained "an impressive selection of entries, many of which deserve special mention and that they look forward to further works by the authors." They especially commended Cory Doctorow for A Place So Foreign and 8 More (Four Walls Eight Windows, ISBN 1-56858-268-2), Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer for Way Up: Stories (Goose Lane Editions, ISBN 0-86492-368-6) and Melanie Little for Confidence: Stories (Thomas Allen Publishers, ISBN 0-88762-119-8)

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And what was with that brutal Billy Collins poem at the end? Ouch.

Interview with the Umpires

The Griffin judges interviewed at the Globe. Nice discussion, but it's like the Stanley Cup for me... now that my team's out I'm kind of apathetic and will just check the results in the morning paper.



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JK Needs to Wave a Wand or Something

Her appeal is faltering... Among the awards-granting bodies.



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21-Year-Old Poet Wins $56K (US!) Lit Award

Pardon me, might I borrow a rusty razor blade and bathtub full of tepid water? Thank you.



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"One of the richer verse prizes"??

One of? Um.... "Outsider poet" Kay Ryan wins the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Prize* from Poetry.

Reached at her home in Fairfax, Calif., Ryan said of her image as an "outsider" poet: "The limelight didn't come seeking me particularly until now."

Winning the Lilly "made me feel wonderful to know there are many ways of achieving recognition. One way is staying home and doing your work and not gadding about," she said.



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yay! yay! yay!

Edited by author 05-12-2004 02:38 PM
Rachel, don't you know what that means? Maybe you haven't broken through that next next level of understanding nonsense and juried double talk. :)

Anyway, congratulations to Jonathan and Katherine for their Gleed short fiction nominations.

And big congratulations to Chris Banks for jumping the shortlist process all together and landing smack in the middle of the winner's circle for the Jack Chalmers award for best book of poetry for his book 'Bonfires'. Yee-haw!

What does this mean?

The judges commented: "These first collections of short fiction break through to that next level of understanding."

yay for hoops

Triple Take! Ninja Award News

Ninja regulars Jonathan Bennett and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (and some other people) make the Writers' Union Danuta Gleed Prize shortlist. Congratulations, stealthy killers! May your shurikens shine as you battle to the death. Late breaking is news that Nightwood author and part-time Ninja Chris Banks has won the CAA Jack Chalmers (website not up to date, surprise, surprise...). Congrats, Chris!



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New Book Prize Treats Authors Right!

Imagine, just for being shortlisted you get a week for you AND YOUR FAMILY at this five star resort "on Mauritius, a former spice island in the Indian Ocean." I gotta write more about love. Hang on... Nope. Not gonna work. Guess it's Georgian Bay for me. (From PFW)



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"Known as the 'African Booker', the $15,000 (£9,000) prize is awarded to a short story published in English by an African writer whose work has reflected African sensibilities."

Short list announced.



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“…glad that gritty git Getty didn't grift it.”

Ho ho! Why look! Just look at that alliteration! How clever! How absolutely inspired! You’ve really stuck it to Getty, haven’t you? Oh boy, you’ve sure shown him a thing or two. I haven’t seen scathing alliteration like that since Gene Shalit panned “Ghost Dad”. Way to go, man! I’m on the floor, really! How on Earth did you come up with all those G’s? You must have an IQ well over a hundred to come up with stuff like that! Hell, with curmudgeonly alliterative skills like yours, I’ll bet for sure that you could get a job as a crotchety cooking show host or something. And what makes it even funnier, even more brilliant (Yes! Brilliant, I tell you! Pure genius!) is that Adam Getty is nowhere near being a git. Not even close. It’s like calling a bald guy ‘Curly’ or a tall guy “Shorty’. Are you sure you haven’t considered a career as the belligerent loudmouth in the carnival dunking tank? Heck, I’d pay toss a few tomatoes.

But I digress.

I'm just glad that gritty git Getty didn't grift it.

Adam Sol Wins Trillium

While it's sad to see ninja favourite O'Meara lose, he couldn't have lost to a better book, or a better poet. I was rooting for them both. The other Trillium winner was Guelph local Thomas King.



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Canadian Uberwriter Gallant Wins PEN Award

Mavis wins '"the PEN/Nabokov Award, a $20,000 US prize for an international author of "enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship."'



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Making the Cut
Ever wonder how literary prizes work? Surprise -- it's politics!
"'If Martel had been published by one of the big houses, I guarantee the book would never have been entered [for the Booker].' Franklin has such literary giants as Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan on his list. 'If you have a lot of established authors and they find out you haven't entered their books you will soon discover you no longer have them.'"

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Orange Prize Short List Announced

Atwood is on, as is the first Nigerian ever, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (recently interviewed on Moorish Girl's blog).



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Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award Shortlist
I have to admit that the only book on the list I've read so far is Black Bird, but it was one of my favourite books of last year. People had a real love/hate thing for it, which says to me it was doing something important to CanLit. I like the look of a few of the others though, so I'll be checking them out shortly.

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"It seems to me that it's a case of a trio of aging poets trying to demonstrate that they're hip and with it, to choose a book with appeal to Generation-Insert-Algebraic-Variable-Here."
Diplomatic Ninja Zach Wells considers this year's Griffin Prize shortlist.
"On my better days, I tell myself that literary awards are meaningless, that they routinely overlook the best work and determine verdicts based more on common-denominator compromise than on artistic excellence. On my better days, I am a sage and sensible fellow. But on my better days, I haven't just finished reading this year's short list for the Canadian portion of the Griffin Poetry Prize, administered by the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry. My better days--like most people's, I'd wager--are few and far between. On my more human days, I want the Griffin Prize to embody actual excellence, as the Trust's pompous name suggests, and not merely be another high-priced exercise in poetical diplomacy. I know I was not alone in hoping that the internationalist foundation upon which this prize was established would be a curative for the inevitable provincialism and nepotism of juries drawn exclusively from the ranks of CanPo. Hope springs eternal and all that, but this year may well represent the Prize's worst flub yet."

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Ferguson Takes Leacock Medal (Spikes It, Does Flappy Knee Dance While Holding One Finger in Air)

Over ninja fav Michel Basilières and outgoing poet laureate Bowering.



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Awards News

Nominees for the Gerald Lampert and Pat Lowther Awards are out. Beleaguered awards or not, the lists for these awards are actually good. Nightwood Editions should be ecstatic, with Chris Banks (who has been known to haunt the Ninja boards) and Adam Getty both nominated for the Lampert, as should Signal with Ninja fav Mary Dalton's Merrybegot nominated against Di Brandt's powerhouse Now You Care for the Lowther. Di Brandt's cup runneth over. Should be an exciting year, if you go in for this sort of thing. (From PFW)



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Coetzee Officially an Aussie?

After three years of living in Oz, Coetzee has horned in on their most prestigious prize...



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Do You Suppose Mike and Chrissie Get Along?

"An account of a year spent teaching in a remote Mongolian village will vie with a history of the Soviet Union gulag for £10,000 in a literary competition to find a book which best evokes a "spirit of place". The unusual criterion of the inaugural Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, founded by Christopher Ondaatje, the philanthropist and adventurer, means the shortlist of six, unveiled yesterday, includes a memoir, a novel, a biography and an exploration of ideas." Philanthropist and adventurer? I guess philanthropist doesn't mean what I think it does...



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good
I look forward to reading it

Workin' on a little somethin', yeah.

are ya gonna review it Zach?

I was beginning to fear that this year's Griffin list was a total bust, but Now You Care is a smokin' good book. If it doesn't win, I will lose faith in the whole process. Once again.

Beckham a Winner!

Besides a little personal assistant nookie, Becks has also picked up a British Book Award for his bio. He plans to follow said award winning book up with another two called "Leggo My Ego: Why a Spice Girl Just Ain't Enough" and "Paradise City: Dressin' It Up the Axel Rose Way!". (Real books by Ali and Truss also won...)



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I'll get back to you on it
must finish packing

What?

enlighten!
oh, please

Twinkle, I'm not sure I know what you mean by "the thing".
Care to enlighten me?

yay!

yes, it's fine
but I was hoping you or someone would mention the thing
I found so exciting, so fascinating about the book
the thing that struck me so hard when I heard her read from it
the thing about which I made pages of notes
[big sigh]
perhaps I was dreaming
maybe I'll read it again and talk myself out of it
[bigger sigh]

re /m125

Twinkle, I finished reading Now You Care today. It's a fine piece of work. I think it's my favourite book of hers, even more than Jerusalem Beloved.

Pulitzer News

The Pulitzer fiction award goes to The Known World by Edward Jones.



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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the absence of Dennis Lee's book from any of these lists.

Hi Twink... not all in one sitting. I've been reading it bit by bit while at work (on my lunch breaks). So far, I really like it.

I'm wondering where Anne Simpson stashes all her horseshoes...

I should add I haven't read the O'Meara or Getty titles yet

Paul, have you read Di's book yet? gee, have I asked that before...

I quite like Crowd of Sounds

The "book" category is open to any book, any genre.

The "poetry" category is for a person's first, second, or third book only. It's meant to be an award for emerging poets.

Edited by author 03-31-2004 09:23 PM
Di Brandt must be having a good day!

How does the Trillium award work? I don't understand why Brandt's book is in the "book award" category, but O'Meara's is in the "Poetry Book award."

Trillium Awards 2004
The shortlists for Ontario's Trillium Awards have been announced. Good to see David O'Meara's The Vicinity made the cut.
"The English finalists are Di Brandt for Now You Care, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco for The Dark Time of Angels, Barbara Gowdy for The Romantic, Thomas King for The Truth About Stories, Djanet Sears for Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, and M.G. Vassanji for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.

The French finalists are: Franco Catanzariti for Sahel, Margaret Michele Cook for En un tour de main, Serge Denis for Social-democratie et mouvements ouvriers, Francois Pare for La Distance habitee, Gabrielle Poulin for Ombres et lueurs.

Finalists for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry were also announced: Adam Getty for Reconciliation, David O'Meara for The Vicinity, Adam Sol for Crowd of Sounds, Angele Bassole-Ouedraogo for Avec tes mots, Marc LeMyre for Gaga pour ton zoom."

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Interestingly off the list is Ross's Balcony... Coach House strikes again. And a press from Calgary up against M&S. Should be a good match.

Let the speculation begin!

2004 Griffin Poetry Prize
The shortlists have been announced.

Canada:
-Now You Care by Di Brandt
-go-go dancing for Elvis by Leslie Greentree
-Loop by Anne Simpson

International:
-Notes from the Divided Country by Suji Kwock Kim
- The Ha-Ha by David Kirby
-The Strange Hours Travelers Keep by August Kleinzahler
- The Owner of the House by Louis Simpson

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Paul Auster Is Granted the Blue Metropolis Grand Prize
And the title of most French American author.

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