$10,000 Alberta prize now open to books published out of province

Organizers of the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award, now in its third year, have taken steps to quiet a muted strain of controversy that has attached itself to the prize since its inception.

The $10,000 award, organized by the Edmonton Public Library and voted on by Alberta readers, had until now been open to all books published in Alberta, regardless of the author’s origin or city of residence. But Alberta authors who happened to be published outside the province – someone like, say, Scotiabank Giller Prize nominee Lynn Coady, who lives in Edmonton but is published by Toronto-based House of Anansi Press – would be ineligible for the award.

That is all going to change this year, judging by new criteria posted to the EPL website:

This year, works of fiction and narrative non-fiction (i.e., first edition full-length novels, short story collections or books of poetry) will be accepted by any author who has been a resident of Alberta for a minimum of 12 consecutive months immediately prior to the publication of the submitted work, and who currently resides in Alberta, no matter where the book was published. The change makes this truly an Alberta award and recognizes the exceptional writing talent in our province while encouraging readers to support Alberta authors.

As it turns out, both of the prize’s prior winners – Helen Waldstein Wilkes’ memoir Letters from the Lost (AU Press) and Michael Davie’s novel Fishing for Bacon (NeWest Press) – are by authors currently residing in B.C.

Edugyan’s unpredictable year culminates in Giller win

A novel that, less than a year ago, was without a Canadian publisher has won the country’s most prestigious literary prize. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues, about a jazz musician who disappears in Nazi-occupied France, was awarded the $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize Tuesday evening, capping an unlikely run that has seen the Calgary-born novelist rise from obscurity to become one of the season’s most buzzed about authors.

Edugyan’s sophomore novel was supposed to appear in the spring with the now bankrupt Key Porter Books. Half-Blood Blues eventually landed with Thomas Allen Publishers, which released the book this summer, months after it had appeared in the U.K. (with the venerable literary press Serpent’s Tail) and the U.S. (Picador).

Accepting the prize at a Toronto gala, Edugyan thanked Thomas Allen publisher Patrick Crean for rescuing the book from limbo. “Thomas Allen has been the most amazing publisher,” she said. “After Key Porter – that wonderful Canadian house – fell apart, he (Patrick) came in and believed in the book and purchased it, and I’m so, so thankful for that. It’s been a wonderful experience, Patrick.”

Edugyan also thanked her editors Jane Warren and John Williams (of Key Porter and Serpent’s Tail, respectively), as well as a trusted early reader, the author Jacqueline Baker. Finally, she acknowledged her husband, poet and novelist Steven Price, “without whom nothing gets written.”

In fact, Price, whose first novel, Into That Darkness, appeared this spring with Thomas Allen, had a hand in getting the book published, too. Crean said Price contacted him in April, “shortly after the problems with Key Porter,” and convinced him to take an advance reading copy to the London Book Fair. After reading the novel on the plane, Crean said he was “absolutely beguiled and amazed.” He signed the book not long after returning to Toronto.

This is the second time Thomas Allen has won the Giller, and only the third time in the prize’s 18-year history that a solely Canadian-owned firm has published the winning title. When Thomas Allen last won the Giller, in 2002, it was for Barbadian-born novelist Austin Clarke’s The Polished Hoe.

Crean described being in the winner’s circle for a second time as “an absolute thrill.” He added: “It’s also a thrill to see a young African-Canadian woman win it. I think we have a lot of wonderful writers of many different backgrounds, but we seem to have a dearth of young writers of that particular heritage.”

Edugyan is a second-generation Canadian whose father emigrated from Ghana in the 1970s.

There are currently 23,000 copies of Half-Blood Blues in print. “Tomorrow morning we’re going to be pushing the button again,” Crean said. “I don’t quite know what the number is going to be, but it’s going to be upwards of 20,000.” Thomas Allen has sold just 250 e-book copies of the novel, but Crean said “that may change very rapidly now.”

Following the controversy that erupted last year when winning publisher Gaspereau Press was unable to keep up with demand for Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists, Crean reassured retailers that history isn’t about to repeat itself. “[Gaspereau is] an artisan publisher, and one has to respect that very much,” he said. “We’re a more commercial house, and we keep our eye on the sales figures and make sure there’s enough inventory.”

The Giller is just one among a full slate of literary prizes Edugyan was eligible for this fall. With Giller co-nominee Patrick deWitt she shares the peculiar distinction of having been nominated for all three of Canada’s major literary awards as well as the U.K.’s Man Booker Prize.

Last week, deWitt won the $25,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for his sophomore novel, The Sisters Brothers (House of Anansi Press). Along with Edugyan and deWitt, a third Giller nominee is eligible for the $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award, which will be handed out next week: David Bezmozgis, nominated for his first novel, The Free World (HarperCollins Canada).

The other Giller nominees were Lynn Coady’s The Antagonist (Anansi), Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (McClelland & Stewart), and Zsuzsi Gartner’s Better Living Through Plastic Explosives (Hamish Hamilton Canada).

Anansi, which has yet to win a Giller, has now been nominated 10 times, more than any other publisher save Random House of Canada and McClelland & Stewart.

Where to watch the Scotiabank Giller Prize gala

Tomorrow night’s Scotiabank Giller Prize awards ceremony will be broadcast live on CBC’s new cable channel Bold at 9 p.m. (EST), followed by a rebroadcast on the same channel at 11:05 p.m.

For viewers with digital cable subscriptions, Bold is free for the month of November. Online viewers can catch the livestream on CBC Books or follow the Twitter feed @cbcbooks.

If you prefer the thrill of watching in a crowd, there are Scotiabank Giller Light bashes in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver, all of which support literacy programs at Frontier College. Halifax is hosting its own Giller Lite party, with proceeds going to the Atlantic Book Awards Society.

Photos: Pam Westoby

Canadian literary event round-up: Nov. 4-10

Here are just a few of the literary events happening across the country in the next week:

• BookFest Windsor holds readings, discussions, and workshops, Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario (Nov. 4–5, tickets at bookfestwindsor.com)
• Toronto Public Library hosts Human Library, various branches (Nov. 5, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., free)
• Anne Emery launches Death at Christy Burke’s, Durty Nelly’s, Halifax (Nov. 5, 3 p.m., free)
• Andrew Nikiforuk signs Empire of the Beetle as part of the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, Willock & Sax Gallery, Banff (Nov. 5, 6 p.m., free)
• David Sedaris reads from his collected works, The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts (Nov. 5, 8 p.m., from $45)
• Don Ferguson, Georges Laraque, Will Ferguson, and David Berlin discuss their writing at Books and Breakfast, Paragraphe Bookstore, Montreal (Nov. 6, 10 a.m., $32)
• Wade Davis discusses Into the Silence, Metro Toronto Reference Library (Nov. 7, 7 p.m., free)
• Scotiabank Giller Light Bash, various locations across Canada (Nov. 8, tickets at gillerlightbash.ca)
• Allan Levine launches King, Laurier House, Ottawa (Nov. 9, 6 p.m., free)
• Barbara DeLory launches Three Centuries of Public Art, Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax (Nov. 9, 7 p.m., free)

Fall preview 2011: Canadian fiction

In the July/August issue, Q&Q looks ahead at the fall season’s biggest books.

NOVELS

One of the most anticipated releases of the fall season is surely the new novel from internationally acclaimed author Michael Ondaatje, his first since 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award winner Divisadero. Set in the early 1950s, The Cat’s Table (McClelland & Stewart, $32 cl., Sept.) tells the story of an 11-year-old boy crossing the Indian Ocean on a liner bound for England, and the mysterious prisoner shackled on board. • Also from M&S is Guy Vanderhaeghe’s first novel in eight years. Set in the late 19th-century Canadian and American West, A Good Man ($32.99 cl., Sept.) is the third book in a loose trilogy that also includes The Last Crossing (2003) and The Englishman’s Boy, which won the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award. • A third GG winner has a new novel out this season: David Gilmour, who won in 2005 for his previous novel, A Perfect Night to Go to China. Gilmour returns with The Perfect Order of Things (Thomas Allen Publishers, $26.95 cl., Sept.), the story of a man who revisits traumatic and life-changing incidents from his past.

Marina Endicott follows up her Scotiabank Giller Prize–shortlisted 2008 novel Good to a Fault with The Little Shadows (Doubleday Canada, $32.95 cl., Sept.), about three sisters who become vaudeville singers following the death of their father. • Acclaimed novelist Helen Humphreys returns with an historical novel set in France during the Napoleonic period. The Reinvention of Love (HarperCollins Canada, $29.99 cl., Sept.) is about a French journalist whose affair with Victor Hugo’s wife causes a scandal (as it might be expected to do).

Brian Francis’s debut novel, Fruit, was a runner-up in the 2009 edition of CBC’s battle of the books, Canada Reads. His second novel, Natural Order (Doubleday Canada, $29.95 cl., Aug.), tells the story of a mother who is forced to confront the secrets she has kept about her son when her carefully constructed life is overturned by a startling revelation. • Kevin Chong returns to fiction with his first novel in a decade. Beauty Plus Pity (Arsenal Pulp Press, $17.95 pa., Sept.) follows an Asian-Canadian slacker in Vancouver whose incipient modelling career is derailed by the death of his father and the sudden departure of his fiancée.

Requiem (HarperCollins Canada, $32.95 cl., Sept.), the third novel from Frances Itani, is about a Japanese-Canadian who embarks upon a cross-country journey of discovery following the death of his wife. • Anita Rau Badami follows her best-selling novels Tamarind Mem and The Hero’s Walk with Tell It to the Trees (Knopf Canada, $32 cl., Sept.), about the Dharma family – the authoritarian Vikram, the gourmand Suman, and the old storyteller Akka. When the Dharmas’ tenant, Anu, turns up dead on their doorstep, the family’s long-buried secrets begin to boil over. • Gayla Reid returns with her first novel since 2002’s Closer Apart. Set during the Spanish Civil War, Come from Afar (Cormorant Books, $32 cl., Aug.) tells the story of an Australian nurse who falls into a relationship with a Canadian soldier from the International Brigade.

Haitian expat Dany Laferrière is back with his third novel in translation in three years. The Return (Douglas & McIntyre, $22.95 pa., Aug.) tells the story of a 23-year-old Haitian named Dany who flees Baby Doc Duvalier’s repressive regime and relocates to Montreal. Thirty-three years later, Dany learns of his father’s death in New York City, and plots a return to his native country. David Homel translates. • Another Montreal resident, poet Sina Queyras, has a novel out this fall, the author’s first. Autobiography of Childhood (Coach House Books, $20.95 pa., Oct.) is about one day in the lives of five siblings haunted by the death of a brother years before. • Infrared (McArthur & Company, $29.95 cl., Sept.), the new novel by Nancy Huston, is about a photographer who travels to Tuscany with her father and stepmother. Employing internal dialogues with the photographer’s mental doppelgänger, Huston opens up her hero for exposure and provides an intimate picture of her interior life.

CanLit mainstay David Helwig returns with a novella, his first since 2007’s Smuggling Donkeys. Killing McGee (Oberon, $38.95 cl., $18.95 pa., Oct.) tells the story of a professor’s dual obsessions with the assassination of D’Arcy McGee and the disappearance of one of his students. • Toronto-based poet Dani Couture returns with her first novel, a surreal and iconoclastic take on that perennial CanLit staple: the family drama. Algoma (Invisible Publishing, $19.95 pa., Oct.) tells the story of a family attempting to cope with the aftermath of a young child falling through the ice and drowning. • Shari Lapeña also has a novel about a perennial CanLit concern: raising money to allow one time to write poetry. Happiness Economics (Brindle & Glass, $19.95 pa., Sept.) tells the story of a stalled poet who takes a job writing advertising copy to start a poetry foundation.

Jamaican-born novelist, poet, and non-fiction author Olive Senior returns to long-form fiction with Dancing Lessons (Cormorant, $22 pa., Aug.), about a woman looking back on her life after a hurricane destroys her home. • Memoirist Frances Greenslade (A Pilgrim in Ireland, By the Secret Ladder) has a debut novel out this August. Shelter (Random House Canada, $29.95 cl.) is a coming of age story about two sisters searching for their mother, who abandoned them after their father was killed in a logging accident.

Not one, but two novels this season extend the burgeoning CanLit focus on towns that have been/are about to be flooded (after Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists, Anne Michaels’ The Winter Vault, and Michael V. Smith’s Progress). Tristan Hughes’s Eye Lake (Coach House, $19.95 pa., Oct.) is about the town of Crooked River, Ontario. Named for a river that was diverted to make way for a mine, the town harbours secrets that surface when the river reclaims its original course. • And in September, Goose Lane Editions will publish Riel Nason’s The Town that Drowned ($19.95 pa.), about the suspicions, secrets, and emotions that flare up when the township of Haverton is scheduled to be flooded to allow for the construction of a massive dam.

Edward Riche follows up his Thomas Head Raddall Award winner The Nine Planets with Easy to Like (House of Anansi Press, $29.95 cl., Sept.), a satire about a screenwriter and oenophile who dreams of travelling to Paris, but is trapped in Canada by an expired passport and a growing Hollywood scandal. Relocating to Toronto, he bluffs his way into the upper echelons of the CBC. • Former president and CEO of Penguin Canada, David Davidar was forced out of his position under a cloud of scandal after accusations of sexual harassment. Davidar’s new novel, Ithaca (M&S, $29.99 cl., Oct.), is, perhaps not coincidentally, about the rise and fall of a publishing star.

Canadian literary icon Michel Tremblay returns with a new novel, the first in a trilogy. Set in 1913, Crossing the Continent (Talonbooks, $18.95 pa., Oct.) takes the author’s characters out of Quebec for the first time, to tell the backstory of the people who populate his Chroniques du Plateau-Mont-Royal series. Long-time Tremblay collaborator Sheila Fischman translates.

A resident of St. John’s, Newfoundland, lately one of the most fertile spots for Canadian writing, Michelle Butler Hallett crafts genre-busting stories and novels that frequently experiment with gender and perspective. Her new novel, Deluded Your Sailors (Creative Book Publishing, $21.95 pa., Sept.), focuses on the culture industry from the perspective of Nichole Wright, who makes a discovery that puts a government-funded tourism project in jeopardy, and a shape-shifting minister named Elias Winslow. • Another Newfoundland native, Kate Story, has a novel out with Creative this season. The follow-up to 2008’s Blasted, Wrecked Upon This Shore ($21.95 pa., Sept.) tells the story of Pearl Lewis, an emotionally damaged, charismatic woman who is seen at different stages in her life.

In 1972, Christina Parr returns to her hometown of Parr’s Landing, a place she fled years earlier. The dirty secret of Parr’s Landing? A 300-year-old vampire resides in the caves of the remote mining town. Christina learns why she should have stayed away in Michael Rowe’s Enter, Night (ChiZine Publications, $17.95 pa., Oct.). • English literature professor Janey Erlickson struggles to make headway in her academic career while caring for a tyrannical toddler in Sue Sorensen’s comic novel A Large Harmonium (Coteau Books, $21 pa., Sept.). • Paul Brenner, a Vancouver lawyer, dines with his son, Daniel, one Friday evening. The next day, Brenner receives word that his son has been murdered. Hold Me Now (Freehand Books, $21.95 pa., Oct.), the first novel from Stephen Gauer, examines a father’s grief and a lawyer’s faith in the legal system.

SHORT FICTION

Anyone who has ever wondered what might transpire if the author of Bigfoot’s autobiography were to illustrate a story collection by Canada’s reigning postmodern ironist can stop wondering. October sees the publication of Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People (Random House Canada, $24 cl.), the first collaboration between author Douglas Coupland and well-known illustrator Graham Roumieu.

D.W. Wilson currently lives in London, England, but is a native of B.C.’s Kootenay Valley. The winner of the inaugural Man Booker Prize Scholarship from the University of East Anglia, Wilson’s debut collection, Once You Break a Knuckle (Hamish Hamilton Canada, $32 cl., Sept.), is a suite of stories about good people doing bad things.

Novelist Anne DeGrace has her first collection of short stories on tap for September. Flying with Amelia (McArthur & Company, $29.95 cl.) spans the 20th century and crosses vast swathes of territory. Wireless telegraphy, German POWs in Manitoba, the Great Depression, and the FLQ crisis all crop up in her stories. • David Whitton’s story “Twilight of the Gods” was included in the 2010 sci-fi anthology Darwin’s Bastards. The story also appears in Whitton’s first solo collection, The Reverse Cowgirl (Freehand, $21.95 pa., Oct.), which sports the most sexually suggestive title for a collection of CanLit stories since Pasha Malla’s The Withdrawal Method.

Toronto writer Rebecca Rosenblum follows up her Metcalf-Rooke Award–winning debut collection Once (a Q&Q book of the year for 2009) with The Big Dream (Biblioasis, $19.95 pa., Sept.), a collection of linked stories about the lives of workers at Dream, Inc., a lifestyle-magazine publisher. • The Maladjusted (Thistledown Press, $18.95 pa., Sept.), Toronto writer Derek Hayes’ debut collection, focuses on people who run afoul of the dictates of polite society. • Also from Thistledown, Britt Holmström’s Leaving Berlin ($18.95 pa., Sept.) examines contemporary women in both Canadian and European settings.

The fine print: Q&Q’s fall preview covers books published between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2011. 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 appeared in previous previews do not appear here.

Public to vote on Giller longlist: UPDATED

This year, the Scotiabank Giller Prize is moving from CTV, its official broadcast partner for the past five years, to CBC. In conjunction with the move, the CBC has announced a new Readers’ Choice contest, which will allow the public to nominate one book for inclusion on the longlist, to be announced on Sept. 6.

The details of the new contest are up on the CBC website:

This year you can make a difference by nominating a book for the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. Explore this year’s eligible books and let us know which one you believe deserves to be considered for the $50,000 award.

CBC Books will tally your nominations. The book that garners the most nominations will be added to the official longlist, which will be announced on Sept. 6, 2011. Submit your selection by filling out the CBC Books nomination form by midnight ET on Aug. 28.

A list of eligible books is available on the Scotiabank Giller Prize website.

The inclusion of a public participation aspect in this year’s Giller prize echoes the CBC’s approach with last year’s Canada Reads broadcast, which asked the public to nominate titles they considered to be the “essential” Canadian novel of the past 10 years. The Giller prize already has an official jury, made up of Canadian novelist Annabel Lyon, U.S. novelist Howard Norman, and U.K. novelist Andrew O’Hagan. There is no indication who will get credit should the public choose a book the jury already determined would be on the longlist. In addition, not all of the eligible books will be available by Aug. 28, so the public is in effect being asked to vote on books they may not have read.

UPDATE: Material in this post has been updated. Two of this year’s Giller jurors were listed incorrectly. Quillblog regrets the error.

Random House Canada acquires new Linden MacIntyre novel

Random House Canada has acquired a new novel by Scotiabank Giller Prize–winner Linden MacIntyre.

Why Men Lie is the third book in MacIntyre’s Cape Breton trilogy, following the lives of the Gillis clan. Its main character, Effie Gillis, first appeared in his 1999 novel, The Long Stretch (HarperCollins Canada). She is also the middle-aged sister of the troubled priest at the centre of The Bishop’s Man, which won the 2009 Giller Prize. After winning the Giller, MacIntyre told reporters that he was already plotting Effie’s story: “I’m interested in the woman’s point of view as she watches the men around her getting older and stupider,” he said.

Knopf Random Publishing Group publisher Anne Collins — MacIntyre’s editor for The Bishop’s Man — will work with the author again on Why Men Lie. In a press release she says, “I was a goner from the title page, really. I know how wonderfully Linden can parse the contours of troubled conscience from working with him on The Bishop’s Man, but I was completely unprepared for the way he captures Effie, a woman in mid-life who knows what she’s worth yet still can’t help but feel the diminishment of age.”

Why Men Lie will be released in April 2012.

Canadian literary event round-up, March 11-17

Here are just a few literary/book events happening around the country in the next week:

• Author Steven Heine and poet Darren Bifford discuss the zen of Bob Dylan, March 12 (1:30 p.m., Alfred Dallaire Memoria, $10), as part of the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival
• Iconic Toronto artist Fiona Smyth launches her first YA graphic novel The Never Weres (Annick Press), with interview by RM Vaughan, live performance, and comic jam, March 13 (2 p.m., Gladstone Hotel, $5)
• Recently named Giller juror Annabel Lyon presents the Kreisel Lecture, March 14 (Timms Centre, University of Alberta, 7:30 p.m.)
• Mr. Funny Pants Michael Showalter signs books at Chapters’ Festival Hall location (John and Richmond, Toronto) on March 16 (7 p.m., free), then performs at the Horseshoe Tavern (8:30 p.m., $15)
• Shannon Rayne, Warren Dean Fulton, Daniela Elza, Mariner James, and Christine Leclerc are Vancouver poets in conversation and in collaboration, March 15 (6:30 p.m., Railway Club, free)

Scotiabank Giller Prize jury announced

The jury for the 2011 edition of the Scotiabank Giller Prize was unveiled today. American novelist Howard Norman and U.K. writer Andrew O’Hagan will join B.C. author and former Giller nominee Annabel Lyon on this year’s jury. Lyon was nominated for the prize in 2009 for her novel The Golden Mean.

Following in the footsteps of the Man Booker Prize, this year for the first time Giller jurors will be offered digital versions of the books in addition to traditional hard copies. From the press release:

The Scotiabank Giller Prize will ask publishers this year to provide digital copies of its submitted titles in addition to hard-bound copies. We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be partnering on this initiative with Kobo who will be generously donating three Kobo Wireless E-Readers to the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize jury panel.

The longlist for this year’s Giller will be announced on Sept. 6. The shortlist will follow on Oct. 4, with the winner being announced at a gala dinner in Toronto on Nov. 8.

Publishing: not always a downer

There’s some funny book stuff floating around the internets today. Lest the trolls be confused or angered by humour, this is indeed an attempt to offer some Friday afternoon levity:

Eye Weekly columnist Sarah Nicole Prickett defends Chapters as her favourite bland non-space to rest without people judging her:

They don’t complain about how many magazines I’ve read for free and possibly ripped things from. They don’t look askance at my taste. Their eyebrows don’t say, “Oh, you’re just getting into Murakami now?” They make no suggestions, having nothing to prove; they work at Chapters. “Are you sure you want The Paris Review?” says absolutely nobody to me. “What about The Believer?” I never feel like I have to buy anything, the way I do everywhere else books are sold, as though upon walking in I’ve been handed a bucket, and now I must scoop out my share of the water to prevent us all from drowning. Not here. This ship will float on.

Those crazy kids at CBC Radio’s Day Six provide us with an audio track of Giller winners reading from Snooki’s debut novel, A Shore Thing:

Linden “Giller Gorilla” MacIntyre is a journalist with CBC’s The Fifth Estate, the winner of eight Gemini Awards, an International Emmy, and the 2009 Giller Prize for his novel, The Bishop’s Man.

Johanna “Skib-WOWW” Skibsrud is the 2010 Giller winner for The Sentimentalists, and the author of several collections of poetry.

The New York Times points to a project by a group of history teachers with an inventive and bizarre way to engage students. They produce music videos for altered versions of their favourite songs that replace the original lyrics with lyrics based on classic books and historical figures. Witness – for serious -  “Jenny From the Block” as Mary, Queen of Scots.