Richler bio wins Charles Taylor Prize

Charles Foran was awarded this year’s $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction for his biography Mordecai: The Life and Times (Knopf Canada) at a lunchtime ceremony in Toronto today. He beat out Stevie Cameron for On the Farm, Ross King for Defiant Spirits, George Sipos for The Geography of Arrival, and Merrily Weisbord for The Love Queen of Malabar. Each of the runner-up authors will take home $2,000.

Q&Q Omni will have a full story on the award and the ceremony later today.

Read Q&Q‘s review of Mordecai from our Nov. 2010 issue.

“Might give teens violent ideas”: the TPL’s 2010 list of challenged books

Freedom to Read Week is a month away, but Toronto Public Library trustee Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler got a jump on the festivities today by releasing, on his Twitter feed, the 2010 report from the TPL’s Materials Review Committee, which summarizes how the committee dealt with library-user complaints about books, DVDs, etc., over the past year. The nine-item list includes some not-so-surprising targets for complaints, including Tintin in the Congo, which is noted for depicting “Africans in [a] stereotypical fashion that is no longer acceptable,” and the movie Bruno, which one or more patrons found to contain “sexual content and visually explicit pictures not suitable for children or youth.”

There are some odd inclusions, though: The Waiting Dog, a 2003 picture book by Carolyn and Andrea Beck published by Kids Can Press, is said to contain “obscene content, language, and pictures.” (For the record, Q&Q’s review of The Waiting Dog says that “this book is inappropriate for squeamish kids and those afraid of dogs. On the other hand, if you’re on for some exuberant grotesquerie, it’s a very fine specimen of its kind.”)

The best complaint is the one directed at D.E. Athkins’ 2006 YA novel Swans in the Mist: not only does it contain “sadistic scenes,” it “might give teens violent ideas.” (Really, what doesn’t give teens violent ideas?)

While some of the materials were re-categorized (that volume of Tintin was moved to the adult graphic novel section), Chaleff-Freudenthaler notes in his tweet that only one of the nine books was actually removed: an error-ridden volume purporting to help would-be bean counters prepare for their Chartered Financial Analyst exams.

Event photos: This Child, Every Child launch with ONEXONE

On Family Literacy Day (Jan. 27), Kids Can Press hosted a special breakfast book launch for David J. Smith and Shelagh Armstrong’s picture book This Child, Every Child at its new home in the Corus Quay building on Toronto’s waterfront. The event was attended by representatives of the ONEXONE foundation, which has partnered with Kids Can, and will use 50 per cent of the profits from the book to send children’s books to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. (Photos courtesy of Kids Can Press)

ONEXONE founder Joelle Berdugo Adler with Lisa Lyons, president of Kids Can Press, and Shelagh Armstrong, illustrator of This Child, Every Child.

Open Book Toronto’s Amy Logan Holmes, acting Deputy Minister of Tourism and Culture Steven Davidson, and Kristine Murphy and Janet Hawkins from the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Book biz roundup: zombie Salinger still publicity-shy, Nabokov was right about butterflies, TED gets into e-books, and more

• A year after his death, J.D. Salinger is still shunning the spotlight
• Vladimir Nabokov’s theory about a particular species of butterfly gets confirmed by scientists
• TED, the ongoing lecture series (conference? symposium? smartypantsium?) is starting an e-book line
• Ukrainian poet and playwright Anna Yablonskaya among the victims of Monday’s bombing in Moscow
• Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood gets yet another ending
• U.S. senator Scott Brown seeks to combine book tour and re-election campaign

How soon is too soon? Publicizing books in a moment of tragedy

On Monday, someone set off a bomb at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, killing at least 35 people. Within a few hours, editors at Q&Q received an e-mail from a major Canadian publisher, alerting us (and everyone else on that publicist’s press list) to the fact that they had recently published a book on the subject of women terrorists, and that the author of the book was available for interviews. A general press release about the book was attached.

The next day, we received another e-mail, noting that “the state-run RIA Novosti news agency quotes a law enforcement source as saying a woman might have been accompanying the man and assisted in the explosion,” and again offering the author for interviews about the subject. (So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Russian authorities have not confirmed the suicide bomber’s identity.)

Here’s the question: is it okay to publicize an author or book on the back of a tragic incident like the Moscow bombing? Is there an appropriate waiting period to observe before sending out e-mail solicitations?

Or, on the contrary, are such pitches offering expert opinions an important service for producers of news and current affairs programs? (Though in that case, wouldn’t a direct call or e-mail be more effective?)

Way to Display! C’est Noël, David! at Indigo in Montreal

That’s right: it’s the holiday edition of Way to Display!, with a too-cool-for-yule display for C’est Noël, David! (Scholastic Canada), the French edition of David Shannon’s It’s Christmas, David!, at the Indigo in downtown Montreal. (Photo courtesy of Scholastic Canada)

Event photos: Vancouver gets steampunk’d by Scott Westerfeld

On Nov. 24, author Scott Westerfeld was in Vancouver to promote Behemoth, the second volume in his YA steampunk trilogy, Leviathan, which is illustrated by Canada’s Keith Thompson. (Photos courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

Westerfeld signing copies of his other big YA series, Uglies, at Kidsbooks.

In the evening, Westerfeld gave a reading for a number of his young fans at West Point Grey United Church.

A number of Westerfeld’s fans got into the steampunk spirit. (Cuz nothing says “punk” more than bringing your mom to a reading in a church…)

Simply Read’s Kallie George on the art of being one’s own publicist

Authors working in publishing is nothing new. Melanie Little (House of Anansi), Andrew Steinmetz (Véhicule), Don LePan (Broadview), Michael Holmes (ECW), Halli Villegas (Tightrope), Corey Redekop (Goose Lane), and the Coach House trifecta of Alana Wilcox, Evan Munday, and Leigh Nash, all demonstrate that the barriers between “office” and “talent” are very permeable.

(Q&Q‘s own Zoe Whittall wrote about this odd, occasionally awkward situation back in 2007.)

Kallie George is in a slightly more awkward situation. George is the publicist an editor/publicist for Simply Read Books in Vancouver. She is also a picture book author, whose newest title, The Melancholic Mermaid, is published by … Simply Read. And so she is the unusual position of being her own publicist. (Granted, a lot of authors act as their own publicists, but rarely in an official capacity.)

George, who started working for Simply Read three years ago, has been straddling the publishing/writing divide for a long time now. As a kid, her parents helped her create specially printed versions of her stories that she would give out as Christmas presents. “I loved to create stories,” George says, “but loved the publishing process, too.”

For her first book with Simply Read, Mr. M the Exploring Dreamer (published earlier this year), George was approached by publisher Dimiter Savoff to provide the text. The Melancholic Mermaid, on the other hand, was a book she pitched to them.

It seems like a difficult situation to navigate, but George claims it has never been a problem. Certainly, she says, she has never been tempted to push her own book before someone else’s – or, conversely, to hold her own back to avoid the appearance of conflict. “I love all the books I work on at Simply Read,” she says.

At the same time, while it is part of her job to get the book into the hands of review editors, she admits to be being both excited and nervous about the prospect of getting reviewed – especially in Q&Q: “I know you guys can be tough,” she says. (But fair, right?)

There is one definite upside to this situation: unlike most authors, George will likely never be overheard complaining about her publicist.

Event photo: Claudia Dey launches How to be a Bush Pilot

Claudia Dey launched her sex-advice book, How to Be a Bush Pilot (HarperCollins Canada), at Toronto’s Drake Hotel on Nov. 10. The launch featured live music and an onstage chat between Dey and author Michael Winter. Above: Dey, in a pilot’s cap, watches with amusement as Winter prepares to do something with an unpeeled banana that we are certain was entirely wholesome and hygienic. (Photo courtesy of HarperCollins Canada)

New in e-books: The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure (Wait: what?!)

There’s a book for everyone, it sometimes seems. This title, for example, popped up recently on Amazon.com:

People commenting on the listing are suitably outraged, and it’s likely the book will get pulled by Amazon PDQ, but it’s hard not to imagine other attempts to serve this niche market: Chicken Soup for the Child Molester’s Soul, anyone?