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.

Books of the Year 2010: Fiction and Poetry

There’s no formula for choosing the books of the year. Some break ground, some tackle familiar themes with new energy. Some represent the best work from established authors, some introduce us to important new voices. And some are simply in-house favourites we feel deserve a little more attention. Here are the Fiction and Poetry books that made the most impact in 2010.
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Daily book biz round-up: Franzen has Bad Sex; back to normal at Gaspereau; and more

Today’s book news:

• Sarah Palin tweets her displeasure re: leak of impending book
• Franzen up for Bad Sex Award alongside Annabel Lyon
• Scribd aims to change the act of writing via new, depressing analytics tool
• Everything back to normal at Gaspereau
• Wealthy males supporting e-book biz by buying books they’ll never read

Jacob Scheier’s first rule of awards controversies: don’t talk about awards controversies

Governor General’s Literary Award–winning poet Jacob Scheier has weighed in on the Ali Smith/Giller Prize controversy on Now Magazine‘s website. As you may recall, Scheier himself was at the centre of an awards scandal after winning the GG in 2008, when it was discovered that jurors Di Brandt and Pier Giorgio Di Cicco had clear ties to both him and his collection, More to Keep Us Warm.

I [want] to draw a significant parallel between that controversy and this year’s Giller uproar, a parallel that holds true for many, if not every, literary award controversy.

What happens in these ‘controversies’ is the mainstream media jumps on conflict, regardless of the facts (or lack thereof), and stamps the words  ‘scandal’ in a big bold writing. They use these words, of course, to get us to read about it. If they could, with any legitimacy, add the word ‘sex’ to the headline, they would.

But I don’t blame media outlets for that. I blame the fiction writers and poets, the ones who fuel these dust-ups, by writing their speculations on their blogs and Facebook pages for the media to pick up.

[...]

I would urge all writers when they hear the siren sizzle of juicy gossip to stay off Facebook and blogs, and, if you have to, put that gossip where it belongs: into a good story.

Arthur Slade wins TD Canadian Children’s Lit Award

The Scotiabank Giller Prize wasn’t the only big book event held in Toronto on Tuesday night – the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards were handed out as well. The winners are as follows:

TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award ($25,000):
Arthur Slade, The Hunchback Assignments (HarperCollins Canada)

Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-fiction ($10,000):
Priscilla Galloway and Dawn Hunter, Adventures on the Ancient Silk Road (Annick Press)

Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award ($20,000):
Colleen Sydor, Nicolas Debon, illus., Timmerman Was Here (Tundra Books)

Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People ($5,000):
Shane Peacock, Vanishing Girl (Tundra Books)

CTV launches Giller reading initiative

As part of its efforts to promote the upcoming Scotiabank Giller Prize broadcast, CTV has launched an online reading initiative that encourages the public to pledge to read one or more of the Giller nominees in advance of the awards gala. According to the “One Country, Five Books” press release:

After pledging to the Book Club, readers can then share their choices with friends online, observe which books are most popular with fans, and monitor which regions of Canada have the highest number of pledges…. Expanding on the One City, One Book initiative that began in Seattle in 1998 and has taken off around the world, One Country, Five Books is a social and traditional media campaign intended to bring Canada together around the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Will Newfoundland pledge to read Annabel by Kathleen Winter? Will Winnipeg band together to read David Bergen’s The Matter With Morris? Which of the five books will prove most-pledged among Canadians?