Quillcast episode six: Steve Rubin on publishing by instinct, Rob Lowe, and the art of creating bestsellers

Quillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders.

In this episode, U.S. publishing executive Steve Rubin discusses the art of creating bestsellers in an industry in flux.

Rubin started his book-publishing career in 1984 as an executive editor at Bantam Books. In 1990, he was appointed president and publisher of Doubleday, and by 1995 was based in London as chairman and CEO of Bantam Doubleday Dell International. In 2009, he joined Henry Holt & Company as president and publisher. The authors he has published include John Grisham (The Firm), Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), and Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall).

Rubin was in Toronto last year as a guest of the International Visitors Programme, which runs in conjunction with Toronto’s International Festival of Authors. He delivered this keynote to a packed house of industry professionals from Canada and around the world.

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

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Quillcast episode five: Rosemary Sullivan and Molito

Quillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders.

In this episode, Governor General’s Literary Award–winning author and poet Rosemary Sullivan speaks about her first children’s book, Molito, co-written with her husband, musician Juan Opitz, and illustrated by her sister, Colleen. 

Known for her biographies of Margaret Atwood and Gwendolyn MacEwen, Sullivan is currently working on Stalin’s Daughter, a biography of Svetlana Stalina, which will be published in 2014 by HarperCollins Canada.

Juan Opitz and Rosemary Sullivan

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Thank you to Juan Opitz, who generously recorded this podcast in his studio.

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Quillcast episode four: Clark Blaise and The Meagre Tarmac

Quillcast is a podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, recorded during Toronto’s International Festival of Authors in October, Catherine Bush interviews Clark Blaise about his career and the writing life.

Blaise recently released his first new short story collection in nearly two decades. Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, The Meagre Tarmac (Biblioasis) is a collection of linked stories exploring various characters from the South Asian diaspora. Bush is coordinator of the University of Guelph’s creative writing MFA program and the author of three novels, including Claire’s Head.

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

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Quillcast episode three: Charlotte Gill and Eating Dirt

Quillcast is a new podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, the second in a two-part series on non-fiction authors, Vancouver writer Charlotte Gill speaks about her experiences as a professional tree-planter, the subject of her memoir Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe (Greystone Books), one of Q&Q’s 2011 books of the year.

Eating Dirt was shortlisted for the inaugural Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction, and was recently longlisted for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

Scroll down to listen to the episode, and click on the thumbnails to view photos from Gill’s life as a tree-planter:

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

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Quillcast episode two: Andrew Westoll and The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary

Welcome to Quillcast, a new podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this episode, the first in a two-part series on non-fiction authors, Andrew Westoll speaks about his experience writing The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary (HarperCollins Canada).

Andrew Westoll is a Toronto journalist and former primatologist. In The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, which was recently longlisted for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and named one of Q&Q’s 2011 books of the year, he writes about a group of chimpanzees living out their last days in a Quebec animal sanctuary after enduring years as the subjects of medical testing.

Scroll down to listen to the episode, and click on the thumbnails to view photos of the Fauna Sanctuary chimps:

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

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Listen to Quillcast episode one: the art of book design

Welcome to Quillcast, a new podcast series from Quill & Quire featuring behind-the-scenes conversations with authors and publishing insiders. In this first episode, CS Richardson, vice-president and creative director of Canadian Publishing for Random House Canada, discusses the changing art of book design.

Over his impressive 30-year career, Richardson has designed more than 1,500 books. He’s also an accomplished writer, whose first novel, The End of the Alphabet, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Carribean. He is currently at work on a second novel, The Emperor of Paris, to be published in 2012.

Scroll down to listen to our first episode, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Click on the thumbnails to view a gallery of Richardson’s work:

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

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Quillcast coming soon

Quill & Quire’s new podcast series, Quillcast, debuts at the end of October. Come back to the website for discussions on Canada’s authors, books, and the publishing industry, with accompanying photo slideshows and videos.

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.