Litmags vs. Urquhart, continued
The latest national venue to pick up on the “Salon des Refusés” is Maclean’s, where Paul Wells recaps both the controversy and last month’s public roundtable.
Both Urquhart and Penguin have preferred to lay low through all of this. In response to a request for comment, Urquhart, through her agent, turned down an interview request from Maclean’s. The publisher sent this quotation from Penguin president and publisher David Davidar: “We’re proud to be the publishers of The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories edited by Jane Urquhart. Jane is an exceptional writer and editor and her anthology has made the bestseller lists and been well received critically. We have no doubt that it will remain in print and delight readers for a long time to come.” And indeed it might. But it will no longer go unchallenged.
Urquhart has, in fact, made some public comment, though without getting into the specifics of the complaints made against the Penguin book.
I regret spending even a minuscule amount of brainpower thinking about this, but here goes . . .
The Penguin selections are shitty, but the Biblioasis/New Quarterly picks are just as shitty, and seem to have more of an agenda attached (rewarding friends, etc.).
Anyway, who cares?