In the brand-new Q&Q, we profile star food-and-travel team Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford, who write extensively about Chinese food and society in their latest book. Also in May is the Library Special Report, which looks at how librarians are redefining themselves by tapping into video-game culture and providing more downloadable content. Plus: stories on Heritage House, indie booksellers and the web, and Vancouver thriller author Daniel Kalla, as well as reviews of new books by Paul Quarrington, Richard Florida, Annabel Lyon, Cary Fagan, and many more. The full table of contents is after the jump.

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Want the latest on who said what about who?

We’ve just added a second RSS feed that tracks all comments made on Quillblog. Publishing people have a lot to say, apparently: we’ve recorded 391 (heartfelt, insightful, snarky, glib, provocative, harsh, complaining, drunken) comments in the past three months.

Subscribe to this feed and you’ll know precisely what was said as soon as it’s posted.

You can grab the new RSS feed here.

Watch for a cover profile of Canada Reads champ Paul Quarrington in the April issue of Quill & Quire, where Quarrington talks candidly about how his personal life affected his new novel, The Ravine. Also in the April issue: a look at the difficulties involved in translating international writing in Canada; a profile of poet and editor Kevin Connolly; and a closeup of Canada’s go-to agent for graphic novelists. Plus: the Children’s Announcements (listing biblio info for spring 2008 kids’ books) and reviews of 40 new titles by Mark Kingwell, Taras Grescoe, Steven Galloway, Emma Donoghue, Dennis Lee, and Marthe Jocelyn. The full table of contents appears after the jump.

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Attention subscribers to Q&Q Omni: our online news service is now available in RSS form. As the latest book industry news, deals, personnel changes, and other developments are posted to Q&Q Omni, our new RSS feed will let you know instantly, sending you the article title, author, and the first 25 words. You can access the Q&Q Omni RSS feed here.

For more information on subscribing to Q&Q Omni – which is updated several times a week with the latest book news, and also includes an archive of nearly 10,000 items dating back more than 10 years – go here.

The March issue of Quill & Quire is now in stores and in subscribers’ hands. Our cover story: The CanLit 30, Q&Q’s list of 30 people in the book industry who most influence what gets published, bought or read. Also up are looks at Mary Swan, duelling Mordecai Richler bios, the mystery of Inger Wolfe, and more. Plus: a small publisher’s first-person account of what Canada Reads meant to his company, the Spring Announcements (listing biblio info for 900 new titles), and reviews of 40 new titles by André Alexis, Jack Todd, Carrie Mac, Pamela Porter, Erna Paris, and more. The full table of contents is after the jump.

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Quill & Quire is now collecting responses for our 2008 salary survey. If you work in the publishing or distribution sector, we want to know about your work experience and educational background, your job satisfaction, your salaries, your benefits, and your outlook on the future of the business.

The survey is completely anonymous and should take only 10 minutes or so to fill out. The results will be published in an upcoming issue of Q&Q. (Our 2005 workplace survey story can be found here.)

Click here for our salary survey page.

Attention readers: effective immediately, Q&Q welcomes Tabassum Siddiqui as news editor. Tab has degrees in journalism from Ryerson University and political science from the University of Toronto. She’s worked at the Toronto Star, eye weekly, and most recently at the magazine Muslim Girl. She can be reached by e-mail here.

The latest issue of Quill & Quire hits the streets this week. Our cover star is picture book author/ illustrator Melanie Watt, and the Children’s and Educational Special Report also includes profiles of Cary Fagan and sister team Jane Drake and Ann Love, as well as a look at the Golden Compass controversy and at the promised $120-million school library funding boost in Ontario.

Also found in January/February are the Spring Previews, spotlighting the season’s hottest upcoming books, a look at the pricing crisis, a review of Budge Wilson’s Anne of Green Gables prequel, and more. The full table of contents is after the jump.

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The special Books of the Year issue of Quill & Quire is now en route to stores and mailboxes. It contains the magazine’s annual selection of the titles that mattered the most over the past 12 months – 10 adult and five children’s. Among the authors who made the cut are cover stars Sean Dixon, Kenneth Oppel, and Marina Nemat – to see the rest, you’ll have to wait for the issue.

Also in December’s pages are a panel discussion on Margaret Atwood’s CanLit classic Survival, with Noah Richler, Lynn Coady, and Philip Marchand; a report on the Christian publishing and bookselling market; a look at new publisher Kunati Books; an essay by Leilah Nadir on writing about Iraq; and more. The full table of contents is after the jump.

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The November 2007 issue of Quill & Quire is now in stores coast to coast. Inside is a profile of mystery novelist Louise Penny, complemented by closeups of 10 other Canadian mystery writers. Other features include a survey of literary festivals across the country and a report on the pros and cons of freelance vs. in-house publicity. In the Scholarly and College Publishing Special Report, we ask whether scholarly presses should embrace the Open Access movement (i.e., give books away free online) and we also investigate how little gadgets called “classroom clickers” are transforming the college textbook market. All this plus more than 40 reviews, including looks at new titles by D.R. MacDonald, Christie Blatchford, Frances Itani, Kit Pearson, Deborah Ellis and Eric Walters, Stephen Henighan, and more. The full table of contents is after the jump.

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Coming soon to a newsstand or mailbox near you is the October 2007 issue of Quill & Quire. Our cover story is a profile of Cape Breton writer D.R. MacDonald. The issue also looks at the remainders market (and some publishers’ concerns about it); the battle over online supremacy in Canada; how BookNet sales stats are changing the business; and how the International Festival of Authors is coping with change. Also look for the fall children’s announcements, listing biblio data for all fall kids’ books, and reviews of close to 50 new books, including ones by M.G. Vassanji, David Adams Richards, David Gilmour, Anna Porter, Tim Bowling, Rona Maynard, Naomi Klein, Christopher Paul Curtis, Sean Dixon, Dave Bidini, and more. The full table of contents is after the jump.

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You may have heard that Naomi Klein has a new book out this week, The Shock Doctrine. Watch the reviews section of the Q&Q website tomorrow for contributor Dan Rowe’s review of the book. The review will be posted early on Saturday, Sept. 8.

Step right up, folks, the September 2007 issue of Quill & Quire is out now. It features a cover profile of author Elizabeth Hay, whose new novel is set in a Yellowknife CBC station in the 1970s; a look at how publishers are marketing books on Facebook and other social networking sites; a closeup look at the buyers for the country’s biggest non-traditional book retailers; the Fall Announcements, listing close to 1,000 fall adult titles; and reviews of more than 50 new books, including ones by Douglas Coupland, Susan Juby, Will Ferguson, Deborah Ellis, Michael Winter, Deirdre Baker, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, David Davidar, Richard Scrimger, and more. The full table of contents can be seen after the jump.

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Just a reminder to Canadian agents and editors to send us your deals for our weekly update on Q&Q Omni. We’re interested in books acquired for upcoming Canadian publication as well as in sales of foreign or subsidiary rights. Our deals update is put together on Wednesdays, so anything received by the end of the day on Tuesday will be considered. You can e-mail information directly here, and submission criteria here.

Last Friday, at the MagNet magazine conference in Toronto, Markets Initiative handed out its first-ever “Order of the Forest” awards for publications and printers who have worked to become ancient forest friendly. Q&Q publisher Alison Jones won for the magazine’s 2005 redesign, which moved the magazine’s printing to Ancient Forest Friendly paper. (The awards were retroactive.)

More on the awards at the Canadian Magazines blog.

Congratulations to Alison, and to all the other winners. The “Order of the Forest” ceremony was held in a quiet forest glade, and attended by a huge gathering of anthropomorphic animals wearing vests and hats. There may even have been a centaur or two….

The July/August 2007 issue of Quill & Quire is out now. It features: a cover profile of author Michael Winter; the Fall Preview, a look at the hottest titles of the upcoming season; a story on recent growth in indie bookselling; an update on Lobster Press; a look at publishers’ plans to go digital; and more, including reviews of 46 books, including Richard B. Wright’s October, Gil Adamson’s The Outlander, Kenneth Oppel’s Darkwing, and Martha Brooks’ Mistik Lake. The full table of contents can be seen after the jump.

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Watch for the June 2007 issue of Quill & Quire in stores or in your mailbox imminently. It features a cover profile of Gil Adamson, House of Anansi Press’s latest debut novelist, as well as Marni Jackson’s homage to the late June Callwood and our BookExpo Canada preview and guide. Also in the June issue are stories on Exile Editions, Paul William Roberts, and the changing face of book launches, as well as reviews of 47 new titles, including books by Deborah Ellis, John Mighton, and Janice Kulyk Keefer, plus a bracing YA adventure by Henry T. Aubin. The full table of contents can be found after the jump. (more…)

The newest issue of Frank magazine has, as part of its coverage of the trials and tribulations of one Conrad Black, a set of oddly familiar-looking photos from Black’s recent surprise appearance at a Toronto book launch in late March.

Take a look:

(Go here for the originals.)

You’re welcome, guys. (Not that you asked….)

Do we at least get a free subscription?

The May 2007 issue of Quill & Quire is on its way to stores and subscribers now. It features a Science Fiction Spotlight, which includes a cover profile of star SF novelist Robert J. Sawyer, as well as a Library Special Report, which includes a look at the problem of collection management in the blockbuster era. All this plus a profile of Dundurn Press, a survey of green publishing practices, a look at the problem with (some) cookbooks, our wide-ranging selection of reviews, and more. The full contents are listed below; for subscription information, go here.

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The April 2007 issue of Quill & Quire will appear in stores and in subscribers’ mailboxes over the next week or so. It includes a profile of Toronto novelist Cordelia Strube, a Special Report on Book Design, the Kids’ Announcements (listing all Canadian children’s books to be published this spring), and more. Plus our feature on Simon & Schuster Canada’s plans to boost their presence in the Canadian market.

Learn more about the issue after the jump, and go here for subscription information.

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The March 2007 issue of Quill & Quire is en route to subscribers and stores now. It includes a profile of novelist Jacqueline Baker; a look at how Alberta’s oil boom is affecting the book business (plus more in the Prairies Special Report); an analysis of what The Writers’ Union of Canada’s recent membership survey means for authors and publishers; and the Spring Announcements, the full listing of Canadian adult trade titles.

Get a closer look at the March issue’s content after the jump, and click here for subscription information.

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Welcome to the new-look Quillblog. Don’t let the sleek makeover fool you: you’ll still find the same kind of daily posts here that you’ve come to know and love. But now you’ll also find some exciting new features: an RSS feed, searchable archives going all the way back to our April 2004 launch, and a permalink for each post (just click on the title). Also, the comments field is now open to all and sundry; previously, you had to be a Q&Q Omni subscriber to kick in your two cents.

We’ll continue to tweak all this in the coming weeks, but for now, let us know what you think by commenting below.