Former Groundwood publisher Patricia Aldana announces collaboration with Chinese children’s publisher

Patricia Aldana, founder and former publisher of Groundwood Books, has entered into a collaboration with China Children’s Press and Publications Group (CCPPG) to spearhead a new imprint, which will publish international children’s books in China and help position CCPPG, China’s largest state-owned children’s publisher, on the international market.

Aldana is no stranger to international publishing for children, having served as president of the International Board on Books for Young People between 2006 and 2010. She currently serves as the president of the IBBY Foundation.

The collaboration with CCPPG comes after what Aldana describes in an email to Q&Q as “years of meetings that fed my conviction that they are really interested in expanding the books available to kids in China.” She also praises CCPPG’s “desire to be a part of world publishing.”

The partnership will not see Aldana relocate. She will remain in Toronto, and “go to China sometimes.”

A press release quotes CCPPG president Li Xueqian as saying, “The purpose of the cooperation between us is to take CCPPG to the international market and introduce the world to Chinese kids.”

Asked whether she has any concerns about political influence from a state-run publisher, Aldana says no, thanks to “a very tight agreement” that is in place.

“Just as publishing for the U.S. requires all sorts of accommodations,” she says, “there are things to be mindful of. But they want high-quality books from all over the world that deal with all kinds of subjects, so I am comfortable. And I believe their own publishing is evolving and changing rapidly. On the other hand, I’m not naive.”

Tamas Dobozy lands on Frank O’Connor Prize shortlist

The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award announced its 2013 shortlist today, and one of the six spots goes to Ontario author Tamas Dobozy for his 2012 collection Siege 13 (Thomas Allen Publishers). Ten Canadian authors were longlisted for the prize, but Dobozy is the only one to move on to the final round.

He faces stiff competition from a roster of five acclaimed contenders. The other shortlisted authors are:

• David Constantine, Tea at the Midland and Other Stories (Comma Press)
• Joyce Carol Oates, Black Dahlia & White Rose (HarperCollins)
• Deborah Levy, Black Vodka (& Other Stories)
• Peter Stamm, We’re Flying (Granta)
• Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn (Granta)

Siege 13 won the 2012 Rogers Writers’ Trust Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction.

The Frank O’Connor Award, named for the late Irish story writer, is open to any book of short fiction published for the first time in English anywhere in the world. The jury for the 2013 prize consists of poet Patrick Cotter (who acts as non-voting jury chair); poet and story writer John F. Deane; founder of the Sunday Times Short Story Award, Cathy Galvin; and former executive editor of The Paris Review, Brigid Hughes.

The winner of the Frank O’Connor Award, which comes with a purse of €25,000, will be announced in early July.

Simon & Schuster cleared to publish in Canada: Updated

The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Department of Canadian Heritage has given the all-clear for multinational publisher Simon & Schuster to begin a Canadian publishing program out of its Toronto office.

The ability to publish Canadian authors domestically has long been an ambition of S&S, and rumours that a deal might be imminent were stoked late last year when the company hired Phyllis Bruce, formerly the head of a well-regarded eponymous literary imprint at HarperCollins Canada. Earlier this year, S&S signed on to publish a book about the history of hockey by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. That deal technically happened out of the company’s New York head office.

The Globe’s John Barber quotes an email from DCH spokesperson Peter Manoni, who writes, “Simon and Schuster Canada has met its obligations under the Investment Canada Act and may now launch a book publishing business in Canada…. Canada has a vibrant book industry. This shows that companies want to invest and publish in Canada’s publishing industry.”

In April of this year, DCH approved the merger of the country’s two biggest multinational branch plants, Random House and Penguin.

UPDATE: The Department of Canadian Heritage has provided Q&Q with a statement regarding the undertakings agreed to by S&S in order to pass the “net benefit” test and receive approval to publish in Canada. In an email, Manoni writes that “Simon and Schuster Canada will publish and promote Canadian authors, participate in Canadian book industry initiatives, expand its internship program with Simon-Fraser University and Humber College, as well as develop a course for future book industry leaders with Simon-Fraser University.”

UPDATE: Simon & Schuster Canada president Kevin Hanson has provided media with the following statement: “This will give Canadian authors more opportunities to be published in Canada, discovered by Canadian readers and made known abroad through Simon & Schuster’s global publishing platform. We look forward to making our own contribution to Canada’s vibrant literary scene.”

The statement also notes that “[m]ore details about Simon & Schuster Canada’s plans will be shared in the weeks to come.”

Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats named National Business Book Award winner

Alberta-born, New York City–based journalist Chrystia Freeland has won the 2013 National Business Book Award for her book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (Doubleday Canada). The prize, which comes with a cash award of $20,000, was handed out at a Tuesday luncheon at Toronto’s new Four Seasons Hotel.

Freeland’s book beat out Bernie Finkelstein’s memoir of the Canadian music industry, True North: A Life in the Music Business (McClelland & Stewart); Douglas Hunter’s corporate history of coffee giant Tim Hortons, Double Double: How Tim Hortons Became a Canadian Way of Life One Cup at a Time (HarperCollins Canada); and Amanda Lang’s business leadership book The Power of Why (HarperCollins Canada).

In a press release, the National Business Book Award (which is sponsored by PwC and the Bank of Montreal) said:

Plutocrats takes a reflective, insightful and well-researched look at the economic disparity that has emerged between the “super rich” – a small number of immensely wealthy people – and the rest of society. Freeland describes how this divide began and what it signifies for each side of the gap. She examines how the convergence of technology and globalization has created the greatest income gap of all time.

The jury that chose the book consisted of chair Roger Martin (dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management), Jane Cooney (founder of Books for Business), William Dimma (chairman emeritus of Home Capital Group), Peter Mansbridge, (host of CBC’s The National), Deirdre McMurdy (journalist and policy analyst), and Senator Pamela Wallin.

In March, Freeland’s book was named winner of this year’s Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on foreign affairs.

A.S.A. Harrison dead at 65: Updated

Q&Q was saddened to learn that Canadian author A.S.A. Harrison died on Sunday at the age of 65.

Harrison was the author of the non-fiction book Orgasms, published in 1974 by Coach House Press. And she was on the cusp of international success with her upcoming psychological thriller, The Silent Wife, which is to be published in June by Penguin Canada. The book is already an international sensation, with U.S. and U.K. editions due out in June, as well as a Dutch edition slated to pub in Sept., and a French edition due in 2014.

Canadian novelist Susan Swan, a close friend of Harrison’s, recalls meeting the latter in Toronto in the 1970s, when they were both involved in the city’s performance-art community. “I first met ASA when she came to my performance piece about Barbara Ann Scott at the Cinema Lumiere,” Swan writes in an email to Q&Q. “She knew Margaret Dragu, the choreographer and performance artist who was the star of the theatre piece, which was an attack on lady-like 1950′s femininity. I remember looking at ASA in the lobby and thinking she seemed like an interesting woman and writer. Our friendship began that moment.”

Swan, who considers Orgasms “an underground classic,” goes on to praise Harrison’s daring as an artist. “The ’70s were a glorious creative underground time in Toronto when conceptual art met feminism. Nobody was into money or careers then, just exploring our creativity and seeing where it took us.”

A statement from Penguin Canada reads, in part, “We are deeply saddened over the loss of a great woman and an incredibly gifted writer.” Harrison is survived by her partner of 30 years, a visual artist in Toronto.

UPDATE: Samantha Haywood, of the Transatlantic Agency, writes in an email to Q&Q about her sadness at the loss of Harrison, and her admiration for the author’s debut novel:

ASA Harrison was my first client, nine years ago now, and happily also a dear family friend. Friends with my mother, Susan Swan, ASA knew me since I was a kid and she spoke at my wedding. I loved her and I will dearly miss her.

ASA worked for a decade on her fiction and her fabulous debut novel The Silent Wife is the brilliant culmination of her hard work and exceptional talent as a writer. When I think of ASA the author, I think about her care and precision and persistence with the craft. I’m heartbroken she doesn’t get to participate in her book’s international launch this June and July but I’m comforted by the fact that she saw the starred Publishers Weekly review and all the rave advance praise from her peers and the amazing international rights sales to date (seven countries and counting!). She is a true publishing success story and she deserves every inch of it.

Robert J. Sawyer vs. the Canada Council: Updated

By any reasonable measure, Robert J. Sawyer must be considered one of this country’s most successful fiction writers. He has just published his 22nd novel, Red Planet Blues. Previous novels have been nominated for or won the Aurora Prize, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award. His books are perennial bestsellers, and his novel FlashForward has been adapted as an ABC Television series.

There is one body that has not seen fit to honour him, however: the Canada Council. Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Sawyer bemoans being rejected for a writing grant – for the 10th time.

The Council’s “Grants to Professional Writers — Creative Writing” [sic] are valued at up to $25,000. One might argue that I don’t need the money anymore (although I certainly did when I first started applying). But economic need is not a granting criterion, and bestselling writers of other types routinely receive grants.

(Back in 1993, a churlish fellow claimed I wasn’t “grant-worthy.” I shut him up by applying for and receiving an Ontario Arts Council grant.)

Although economic need is not spelled out in the Canada Council guidelines, the Grants for Professional Writers program does state that the money is for “subsistence,” which would seem to privilege writers who are not able to make a living solely from their craft.

However, it might be possible to make an argument that the granting system is biased against genre writing, something Sawyer goes on to do: “Yes, from time to time, writers of ‘speculative fiction’ — the obfuscatory term used to hide what’s really being produced — do receive Canada Council grants, but for most of us whose work is widely read, crumbs may be had but not plums.”

---

UPDATE: Following the appearance of this Quillblog post, Arash Mohtashami-Maali, the head of writing and publishing for the Canada Council, forwarded an email response to Q&Q. Mohtashami-Maali writes, in part:

I would like your readers to know that Robert J. Sawyer received Canada Council funding in 2000 through the Professional Grants to Writers program, and travel grants in 1999, 2007, and 2010. This is public information and is accessible on our website through our searchable grant listings.

…

It’s a very competitive process. Only a small percentage of writers who apply for a creative writing grant are successful. For our most recent competition, we received over 800 applications and were able to award under 150 grants.

Mohtashami-Maali’s note also outlines the peer assessment process for determining how grants are dispersed, and goes on to say that the committees “evaluate all grant applications and recommend funding based on artistic merit and excellence.”

The full letter from the Canada Council for the Arts can be read here.

Poet, editor Kildare Dobbs dead at age 89

The National Post is reporting that Kildare Dobbs, a fixture on the CanLit scene since the 1950s, died today in Toronto.

Born in India and educated in Ireland, Dobbs came to Canada in 1952, and joined the Macmillan Company of Canada as editor the following year. While at Macmillan, Dobbs worked with writers such as Sinclair Ross, Morley Callaghan, and Adele Wiseman, whom he is credited with discovering. In The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada, author Ruth Panofsky claims that Dobbs “was among Canada’s first professional editors.”

A poet and essayist, Dobbs won a 1962 Governor General’s Literary Award for his memoir, Running to Paradise. He was the co-founder of the Tamarack Review and wrote for the Star Weekly and Saturday Night; he also served as the managing editor of the latter publication.

Canada’s Governor General David Johnston went to Dobbs’s Toronto home earlier this year to present the author, who was suffering from ill health and thus unable to travel, with the Order of Canada for his lengthy and influential contribution to Canadian writing.

The National Post quotes an email from poet Richard Greene, who says, “He was, I think, the last great voice of a generation of Canadian writers that now falls silent.”

Knopf could get the all clear to publish Scientology book in Canada

Lawrence Wright won a Pulitzer Prize for The Looming Tower, his book on al Qaeda and 9/11, but the author’s evident stature and reputation haven’t eased concerns that his new book could create libel issues north of the 49th parallel.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief is published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S., which also holds Canadian rights. But Knopf has held off on releasing the book here for fear of opening itself up to a lawsuit. Libel laws in the U.S. are significantly more lenient than those in Canada or the U.K.

However, writing in the Toronto Star, Greg Quill suggests that Wright’s book may be made available following a legal review by Canadian libel lawyers.

Quill writes:

 

 

Spring preview 2013: Canadian short fiction, crime fiction, and poetry

Rumours to the contrary notwithstanding, publishing is alive and well moving into spring. In the January/February issue, Q&Q looks ahead at some of the spring’s biggest books.

Short fiction

Nancy Jo Cullen’s short fiction collection begins with a well-known admonition: “Gas, grass, or ass: no one rides for free.” The quirky, colourful stories in Canary (Biblioasis, $19.95 pa., April) feature characters who are working class, religious, and itinerant, all searching for answers to life’s myriad questions. • Holley Rubinsky* has won the Journey Prize, and her work has appeared in The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women. Her new collection, South of Elfrida (Brindle & Glass, $19.95 pa., March), features a cast of women characters facing up to death, betrayal, and entrapment.

Angolan-born author paulo da costa won the Commonwealth First Book Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) and the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize for his first collection, The Scent of a Lie (2002). His new collection, The Green and Purple Skin of the World (Freehand, $21.95 pa., April), contains stories about the bonds that hold us together and the forces that tear us apart.

Actress Katie Boland has appeared in more than 40 films and was named one of the Toronto International Film Festival’s rising stars in 2011. Her debut story collection is out from Brindle & Glass in April. Eat Your Heart Out ($19.95 pa.) features characters as varied as a newspaperman who encounters a kindly drifter and a teenaged autistic savant who is having an affair with his best friend’s mother.

A woman is charged with disposing of her dying father’s stash of pornography and a teenage petty criminal gets more than he bargained for in two of the stories from Peter Unwin’s latest collection. Life Without Death (Cormorant, $21 pa., May) is about characters struggling to find a sense of perspective in their messy lives. • Kelly Ward’s story “The Night Shift” won the 2008 Lush Triumphant Award for Fiction. It is among the stories collected in Keep It Beautiful (Tightrope Books, $21.95 pa., May).

Crime Fiction

Crang is back! The jazz-loving protagonist of Straight No Chaser and Blood Count returns to the mean streets of Toronto, this time to investigate a crime at the Gardiner Ceramics Museum. Biographer, newspaper columnist, and jazz critic Jack Batten’s latest series mystery, Take Five ($15.95 pa.), is due in April from Thomas Allen Publishers. • Ava Lee returns for a fifth adventure in the latest series instalment from Ian Hamilton. In The Scottish Banker of Surabaya (Anansi, $19.95 pa., Feb.), Lee investigates a ponzi scheme that involves an Indonesian bank, money laundering, and the Italian mob.

Author of the popular Russell Quant series of mysteries, Anthony Bidulka has two titles out this season. Sundowner Ubuntu (Insomniac Press, $19.95 pa., April) is a new Quant mystery set in the drug-ridden underworld of a Prairies city and the violence-plagued townships of Africa. Where the Saints Go Marching In (Insomniac, $19.95 pa., April) is the first in a new series. Adam Saint is a disaster-­recovery agent who must investigate the death of a colleague in a thriller modelled on Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne novels and Ian Fleming’s James Bond books.

The much beloved Flavia de Luce returns for a new adventure in Speaking from Among the Bones (Doubleday Canada, $29.95 cl., Jan.). In the fifth instalment of Alan Bradley’s best-selling mystery series, the opening of a saint’s tomb leads to a shocking discovery that sends Flavia on another intriguing investigation. • Author of the hard-boiled Wilson novels, Mike Knowles is set to debut a new series this spring. In S.O.B. (ECW, $12.95 pa., May), P.I. Frank Sullivan sets out to help an HIV-positive woman who is convinced that the boyfriend who intentionally infected her (and their newborn daughter) is not the man she thought he was.

Welsh-Canadian author Cathy Ace follows up her debut, The Corpse with the Silver Tongue, with another classic cozy featuring Professor Cait Morgan. In The Corpse with the Golden Nose (TouchWood Editions, $14.95 pa., March), Cait must intervene to solve the suspicious death of a world-­renowned vintner.

Poetry

St. John’s resident Michael Crummey is set to publish his first book of poetry since 2002’s Salvage. The poems in Under the Keel (Anansi, $19.95 pa., April) run the gamut from home brewing to embarrassing interactions with babysitters to advice on how not to get laid in Newfoundland. • Billie Holliday, El Greco, Charlie Chaplin, and Dante all inform the new collection from Lorna Goodison, which reimagines Caribbean history and offers new possibilities for interpreting the region’s cultural heritage. Supplying Salt and Light (McClelland & Stewart, $18.99 pa.) appears in March. • Also from M&S is a new work of poetry from best-selling author Anne Michaels, who collaborates with portrait artist Bernice Eisenstein. Correspondences ($34.99 cl. April) will be produced in an accordion format, with Michaels’ verse on one side and Eisenstein’s portraits on the other.

The prolific Leon Rooke follows up his 2012 story collection, Wide World in Celebration and Sorrow, with a new collection of free verse poems centring on the precious, prickly figure of a woman named April. Employing his signature linguistic playfulness, Rooke’s poems examine April’s girlhood, her loves and losses, and the influence she has on the lives she touches. The April Poems (The Porcupine’s Quill, $17.95 pa.) appears in, um, April. • Another prolific veteran has a new collection out this spring. Nicole Brossard’s White Piano (Coach House, $17.95 pa., March) employs musical rhythms and shuttles freely between verse and prose. Robert Majzels and Erín Moure translate.

There is water, water everywhere in Afloat (Brick Books, $20 pa., March), the eighth collection from Toronto poet John Reibetanz. The collection’s centrepiece is a sequence about China’s Three Gorges Dam. • Phil Hall’s previous book of poetry, 2010’s Killdeer, won the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Trillium Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He follows it up with a new work called The Small Nouns Crying Faith (BookThug, $20 pa., May). Between the book’s opening word (“verb”) and its closing word (“blurtip”), the poems investigate conventional tropes and approaches using unconventional means.

Tanis Rideout scored critical acclaim for her 2012 debut novel, Above All Things. She returns to poetry for her follow-up, a book that fictionalizes the rivalry between swimmers Marilyn Bell and Shirley Campbell. Arguments with the Lake ($17 pa.) appears in April from Wolsak and Wynn.

Nightwood Editions has a trio of books from well-respected poets on its spring roster. Tim Bowling follows up his Rogers Writers’ Trust Award–nominated novel The Tinsmith with a selection of his poetry from the past two decades. Selected Poems ($22.95 pa.) is scheduled to appear in February. • Also from Nightwood is the second collection from former Vancouver poet laureate Brad Cran. Ink on Paper ($18.95 pa., Feb.) contains poems that are alternately gritty and pristine, ironic and sincere. • Finally, Elizabeth Bachinsky returns with her sixth collection. In The Hottest Summer in Recorded History ($18.95 pa., Feb.), the B.C. poet brings her signature mix of linguistic experimentation and flair for sensual imagery to poems that straddle the line between youthfulness and maturity.

Halifax poet Sue Goyette’s fourth collection is out this spring with Gaspereau Press. Ocean ($21.95 pa., April) examines humankind’s often fraught relationship with that majestic and mysterious body of water, the Atlantic ocean. • Also from Gaspereau is the latest collection from John Terpstra. Brilliant Falls ($19.95 pa., April) contains poems with surface lightness that conceals a darker, more melancholy aspect.

A Reliquary (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, April) is the final collection from Daryl Hine, completed just before his death in August. The poems examine loss and aging, sickness and death, in a manner that is honest and forthright, but not despairing.

Q&Q’s spring preview covers books published between Jan. 1 and June 31, 2013. • All information (titles, prices, publication dates, etc.) was supplied by publishers and may have been tentative at Q&Q’s press time. • Titles that have been listed in previous previews do not appear here.

---

*Correction Jan. 11: In the print and an earlier online version of this story Holley Rubinsky’s name is spelled incorrectly.

Spring preview 2013: Canadian novels

Rumours to the contrary notwithstanding, publishing is alive and well moving into spring. In the January/February issue, Q&Q looks ahead at some of the spring’s biggest books.

Although she currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts, best-selling author Claire Messud was actually raised in Toronto (her mother is Canadian). The former juror for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and author of the acclaimed novel The Emperor’s Children (2006) returns with a new novel about an elementary school teacher who comes to the aid of a bullied student, only to find herself drawn into his life and the lives of his half-Muslim father and Italian artist mother. Knopf Canada will publish The Woman Upstairs ($29.95 cl.) in April.

Lisa Moore’s previous novel, February, was a Q&Q Book of the Year for 2009, and her debut novel, Alligator, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2005. Anticipation is high for her third work of full-length fiction, Caught (House of Anansi Press, $29.95 cl., June), about a prison escapee who becomes a dope smuggler. • Another previous Giller nominee, Colin McAdam, returns with his third novel, about a couple who adopt a chimpanzee from Sierra Leone, and the parallel life of a chimp at an institute called Girdish, where the animals have been studied for decades. Addressing themes of family, friendship, and the close links between humanity and nature, ­A Beautiful Truth (Hamish Hamilton Canada, $30 cl., March) is told from the perspective of both its human and chimp characters.

It’s no secret that E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy is one of the fastest selling series of all time. And it’s no surprise that such a publishing phenomenon would spawn other books in the same vein. We’ve already had erotic series from Sylvia Day and Sylvain Renard. Now L.M. Adeline adds her naughty voice to the mix with a story about a New Orleans woman initiated into a clandestine underground society catering to all manner of sexual fantasies. The only secret about S.E.C.R.E.T. (Doubleday Canada, $17.95 pa., Feb.) is the true identity of its pseudonymous author.

Natalee Caple returns with her first novel since 2004’s Mackerel Sky. Set in the American Wild West of the 1800s, In Calamity’s Wake (HarperCollins Canada, $19.99 pa., March) tells the story of an orphan girl’s quest to find the mother who abandoned her. Her journey takes her across a treacherous landscape en route to the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, and a confrontation with her mother, the infamous Calamity Jane. • Guy Gavriel Kay, author of the international bestseller (and 2008 World Fantasy Award winner) Ysabel, returns to the Tang Dynasty milieu of 2010’s Under Heaven in River of Stars ($32 cl.). Viking Canada will release the epic tale in April.

Author of the acclaimed literary thrillers The Killing Circle and The Guardians, Andrew Pyper returns with a new novel and a new publisher, Simon & Schuster. In The Demonologist, a Milton scholar is offered a chance to travel to Venice and witness a “phenomenon” that will have horrific consequences for both him and his 12-year-old daughter. Pyper’s turn toward more supernatural material has already paid dividends: his new novel has been optioned for film by Robert Zemeckis. • Another novelist who has changed publishers is Don Gillmor, moving from Penguin Canada (where he published his debut novel for adults, Kanata, in 2010) to Random House Canada. Mount Pleasant ($29.95 cl., March) is about a debt-ridden son’s attempt to discover what happened to his inheritance after the death of his father.

Lauren B. Davis follows up her Scotiabank Giller Prize–longlisted novel Our Daily Bread with a semi-autobiographical novel about a woman’s harrowing and crippling battle with alcoholism. The Empty Room ($24.99 cl.) is out in May from Harper­Collins Canada. • Tamas Dobozy had success in 2012 with Siege 13, a collection of linked stories about the 1944 siege of Budapest. Debut novelist Ailsa Kay also turns to Hungary’s history in Under Budapest (Goose Lane Editions, $19.95 pa., April), which follows the trials and fortunes of two North American families of Hungarian descent.

Novelist and Atlantic fiction promoter Chad Pelley (the force behind the popular Salty Ink blog) returns this spring with his second novel. Every Little Thing (Breakwater Books, $21.95 pa., March) tells the story of a man reeling from a family tragedy whose decision to help his neighbour’s father has disastrous consequences. • Another East Coast writer, William Kowalski, is back with his fifth full-length novel. The Hundred Hearts (Thomas Allen Publishers, $24.95 pa., May) is a multi-generational tale about the effects of war on one veteran and his family. • Journey Prize winner Saleema Nawaz has her first novel out with Anansi this spring. Bone and Bread ($22.95 pa., March) is about an orphaned woman trying to uncover the secrets surrounding her sister’s death.

Former Ontario lieutenant governor James Bartleman follows up his fiction debut, As Long as the Rivers Flow (2011), with a novel about a 13-year-old Chippewa boy in the 1930s, who struggles for redemption after a violent outburst at white men’s injustice inadvertently results in the death of his grandfather. Dundurn Press will publish Redemption of Oscar Wolf ($26.99 cl.) in June. • Halifax resident Shashi Bhat’s debut novel, The Family Took Shape (Cormorant Books, $22 pa., April), tells the story of a young Indo-Canadian woman whose father dies, leaving her to deal with her struggling mother and autistic brother. • Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, writer Anna Quon follows up her 2009 debut novel with Low (Invisible Publishing, $19.95 pa., May), about a woman’s attempt to reconcile elements of love, illness, and loss that plague her life.

Ruth Ozeki, author of the acclaimed novels My Year of Meats and All Over Creation, returns with a metafictional tale about a writer named Ruth who uncovers a collection of artifacts connecting her to a suicidal teenager in Tokyo. A Tale for the Time Being (Viking Canada, $30 cl.) is due out in March. • Another metafictional writer, Chris Eaton (also known as the driving force behind the alt-rock band Rock Plaza Central), follows up his acclaimed novels The Grammar Architect and The Inactivist with a book about a character named Chris Eaton who is compelled to construct a biography using scraps of information gleaned from Googling people who share his name. BookThug will publish Chris Eaton: A Biography ($25 pa.) in May.

Christine Eddie’s novel Les Carnets de Douglas won the 2008 Prix littéraire France-Québec and the 2009 Prix Senghor du Primier Roman Francophone. A fable about a forest-dweller who calls himself Starling, his daughter, and a cast of eccentric characters including a pharmacist who may be a witch, Eddie’s book has been translated into English by the incomparable Sheila Fischman. The Douglas Notebooks (Goose Lane, $19.95 pa.) is due in February. • Another renowned translator, Robert Majzels, is responsible for the English-language version of France Daigle’s novel For Sure (Anansi, $24.95 pa., June), the final instalment in a series that includes Just Fine, winner of the 2000 Governor General’s Literary Award for French-to-English translation.

Private investigator Robert James is contacted by a young woman whose husband has been stabbed, but his attempts to uncover what happened are derailed by drink, his own tortured mind, and the unwelcome influence of an ad hoc partner named Darren. The Devil and the Detective (Coach House Books, $18.95 pa., April) is the first novel from John Goldbach, author of the 2009 story collection Selected Blackouts. • Atomic Storybook (Anvil Press, $20 pa., April) is the second novel from Ed Macdonald, author of the well-received 2010 debut Spat the Dummy. The new book is a dream-like evocation of the early years of Albert Einstein, complete with a lunar explosion. • The debut novel from Rebecca Campbell tells the parallel stories of a graduate student trying to rescue her best friend from the clutches of an itinerant preacher and a subpar opera tenor making a go of it on the Vaudeville circuit. The Paradise Engine ($19.95 pa.) appears from NeWest Press in May.

Knopf Canada has only one title in its New Face of Fiction program for 2013. Set in Johannesburg just prior to the Second World War, Kenneth Bonert’s The Lion Seeker ($25 pa., Feb.) is a coming-of-age story about a Jewish boy and the secrets that infuse his family’s past. • On the lighter side of the ledger, Ali Bryan’s debut novel, Roost (Freehand Books, $21.95 pa., April) tells the story of a single mother trying to hold her life together. The plot involves bananas secreted in a two-year-old’s sock drawer and, unexpectedly, a stranger’s maternity pants. • The first novel from Amanda Leduc features one character losing his grip on the world after he sprouts feathers on his back, and another seeking sexual penance from her boss after her brother falls victim to the mean streets of Vancouver. ECW Press will publish The Miracles of Ordinary Men ($18.95 pa.) in May.

Studio Saint-Ex (Viking Canada, $30 cl., April), the second novel from Ania Szado, the acclaimed author of Beginning of Was, tells the story of a love triangle involving Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. • In Theresa Shea’s debut novel, one woman on the cusp of 40 finds herself pregnant with a child who has Down Syndrome, while her best friend undergoes fertility treatments because she is unable to conceive. The Unfinished Child (Brindle & Glass, $19.95 pa., April) examines the ethical questions involved in modern reproductive technologies. • Janet Hepburn’s debut novel, Flee, Fly, Flown (Second Story Press, $19.95 pa., March), is about two Alzheimer’s patients who borrow a car and escape from their nursing home in search of adventure and the open road.

Q&Q’s spring preview covers books published between Jan. 1 and June 31, 2013. • All information (titles, prices, publication dates, etc.) was supplied by publishers and may have been tentative at Q&Q’s press time. • Titles that have been listed in previous previews do not appear here.