Congratulations to Tamas Dobozy who won the Writers’ Trust prize for fiction for Siege 13, and to Alex Pugsley, who won the Journey Prize for “Crisis on Earth X,” published in The Dalhousie Review. Chad Pelley has more on the winners on Salty Ink, and Lynn Coady offer’s a juror’s perspective on Open Book Ontario.
John Barber’s spreading doom and gloom in The Globe and Mail again. ECW Press’s David Caron responds, arguing that “patient capital creates cultural legacies.”
That said, as many as 25% of Canadian households don’t own a single book. How is that even possible? First Book Canada seeks to change that, having donated some 1 million books to children in low income families. Global has a spotlight here.
I had no idea that all these years I’d been writing with man pens. Thanks to Bic, which has just made special pens “for her,” ((Worth clicking — the Amazon.com reviews are hilarious.)) that come in lady colours like pink and purple, and cost twice as much as regular man pens, I can now write with ease. Or unease. What the fuck is this, Bic? Twigged by Ellen’s rant, which she linked to in a recent tweet, reminding me of this absurdity. ((There are also a several dozen new sites and blogs mocking them. And rightly so.))
Ready your lady pens, or your lady laptops, ((Seriously, when will this shit stop?)) mes amis, write a short story, and enter it in Broken Pencil‘s Deathmatch 2013. If you dare.
More linkage below:
- Snare Books lost funding and will no longer continue as an independent press, but will live on as an imprint of Invisible Publishing.
- Ebooks make up 16.3% of the books sold in Canada. That scares me for a number of reasons.
- Kerry Clare writes about being a mother who writes professionally.
- Book Riot’s top eight best literary bars.
- Check out Canadian Poetries, a site showcasing “established poetic voices” which also shares “poetic secrets.” Neat.
- Want to hear your poetry read by William Shatner? There’s an app for that.
- For more weirdness: books turned into hedgehogs – Avengers hedgehogs. I can’t decide if this is awesome or not. (Poor books!)
- A great interview with Chris Kraus on art and writing.
- Black Beauty, originally published in 1877, changed the way horses were viewed.
- The Vatican disses JK Rowling‘s latest effort.
- Ghost write me baby, one more time. Why…?
- The top 10 most read books in the world. I’ve read 5 of them. I’m not admitting which.
- I’m not the only person who reads a lot. Though the author they’re profiling sounds like a bit of a dick.
- Island of the Blue Dolphins cave found.
In other news, Lydia lost her bouncy eyeball. Fortunately, we had a red bouncy ball in reserve. She loses these things all the time. We must have three or four dozen fluorescent mice hidden around the house. Her squirrel, on the other hand, she brings with her everywhere she goes – she’d never lose it.
I have a weird cat.