Schools | Quillblog | Quill & Quire

By Steven W. Beattie
April 4, 2011
3:56 PM

Comments Off

U.K. poets band together to protest cuts

It’s National Poetry Month here in Canada, an annual initiative by the League of Canadian Poets to bring public attention to poetry. But across the Atlantic, the beginning of April more closely resembles T.S. Eliot’s characterization as “the cruellest month.” On March 30, Arts Council England (ACE) announced cuts to over 200 arts organizations, including the Poetry Book Society, which Eliot himself established in 1953. Responding to the cut in funding, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy said that it was “a national shame and a scandal” that “goes beyond shocking and touches the realms of the disgusting.”

In response to the denial of funding for the Poetry Book Society, a letter of protest has been signed by more than 100 poets. The Poetry Book Society claims it will have to shut down entirely if the proposed cuts kick in as of April 2012.

This reaction is to some extent predictable; what is less predictable is the reaction in opposition to proposed funding for British publisher Faber. In light of cuts to the Poetry Book Society and certain smaller publishers, the decision to give money to a relatively well-off publisher such as Faber has ruffled some feathers. From the Guardian:

Former Faber director Desmond Clarke, also a former chair of the board at the Poetry Book Society, said he found ACE’s decision to favour the publisher over the Poetry Book Society “extraordinary.”

“As a commercially profitable publisher, Faber is more than capable of investing in a small number of poets each year,” he said. “The reality is that Faber has made enormous amounts of money by publishing poetry, and out of the royalties of Cats which has provided it with many millions over the years.” T.S. Eliot, author of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which inspired the musical, left his literary estate to Faber.

Clarke added: “If I were still a director of Faber I would actually be embarrassed that we should take money when the Poetry Book Society has lost funding.”

The broader picture shows that literature is actually the biggest winner in ACE’s new budget, seeing a 10 per cent increase in funding, while all other cultural arenas experience a net loss. The same article quotes Rachel Feldberg, director of the Ilkley Literature Festival (one of the organizations that will benefit from ACE’s allocation of funds) as feeling “torn” between her own elation and sadness for those who lost out:

“It’s exciting for us but for our colleagues the outlook may be bleak,” she said. The increased funding will enable the festival to continue and expand projects including work with young people in Leeds and Bradford schools.

By Steven W. Beattie
December 6, 2010
10:11 PM

Comments Off

New online writing community geared toward teens

Parents and educators spend a lot of time, and spill a lot of ink, debating how to get teenagers interested in reading. Anyone who stops to think about the phenomenal success of Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight series will realize this is a somewhat odd debate to be having: teenagers are already reading (although perhaps not the kind of books that parents and educators might prefer).

Jacob Lewis, a former managing editor at The New Yorker, and Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at the magazine, seem to understand this. Lewis and Goodyear have teamed up to create Figment.com, an online community where young readers and writers can connect and submit their own fiction, poetry, even cell-phone novels.

From The New York Times:

The idea for Figment emerged from a very 21st-century invention, the cellphone novel, which arrived in the United States around 2008. That December, Ms. Goodyear wrote a 6,000-word article for The New Yorker about young Japanese women who had been busy composing fiction on their mobile phones. In the article she declared it “the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age.”

Figment is an attempt to import that idea to the United States and expand on it. Mr. Lewis, who was out of a job after Portfolio, the Condé Nast magazine, was shuttered last year, teamed up with Ms. Goodyear, and the two worked with schools, libraries, and literary organizations across the country to recruit several hundred teenagers who were willing to participate in a prototype, which went online in a test version in June.

The Beta version of the site is up now. It features new writing from Blake Nelson, author of the acclaimed YA novel Girl, as well as contests, reviews, and user-generated content.

By Stuart Woods
November 23, 2010
1:16 PM

2 Comments

Scott Griffin brings poetry into Canadian schools

Canadian literary benefactor Scott Griffin is taking his passion for poetry – in particular, the live recitation of poetry – into schools across Canada with a new bilingual recitation contest that will award $10,000 to students and school libraries.

Griffin announced the initiative, known as Poetry in Voice, at a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday. A pilot program is currently underway at a dozen Ontario high schools, and the plan is to expand to Quebec in 2011–12 and across the country in 2012–13.

Griffin, who recites a favourite poem from memory at each annual Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist announcement, spoke of the importance of recitation in discovering poetry. “The best way to know a poem short of writing it is to memorize it,” he said. “It’s amazing how different emotional settings or scenes will resurrect that particular poem because it strikes exactly what you’re experiencing at the time.”

Griffin wants to change the negative attitude many people have toward the rote memorization of poetry. “We hope this program … will excite students to want to memorize [poetry], and then they will discover the value of the poem,” he said.

Students participating in the pilot program can choose three poems from an online anthology that currently comprises more than 100 English-language and 25 French-language poems in the public domain, as selected by Poetry in Voice director Damian Rogers (author of the collection Paper Radio, published by ECW Press) and three-time Governor General’s Literary Award–winning poet Pierre Nepveu.

According to Rogers, the contest will serve as a platform for bringing Canadian literature and contemporary poets into schools. “I want students to make the connection that poetry is part of the Canadian cultural landscape across the country,” said Rogers, who added that the group is currently in the process of securing rights to contemporary and Canadian poems.

Competing students will be judged according to a variety of criteria, including physical presence, voice and articulation, accuracy, and dramatization. Griffin says students who choose to recite at least one poem in their non-native tongue will have a slight advantage over other competitors.

The province-wide finalists will face off on April 12 at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre, with the winning student receiving $5,000, plus an additional $2,500 for the student’s school library. The runner-up will receive $1,000 (plus $500 for the library), while the third-place student will receive $500 (plus $500 for the library).

In addition to the $10,000 earmarked for the Poetry in Voice program, the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry will hand out $200,000 to the nominees of the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize.

By Zoe Whittall
November 5, 2010
4:36 PM

7 Comments

Should writers be paying closer attention to the copyright bill?

There’s a lot of talk about Bill C-32, the government’s proposed amendment to the Copyright Act. Most of the discussion has focused on consumer rights. Not many writers have weighed in, perhaps because the word copyright seems tantamount to saying thorazine or income tax or let’s watch great aunt Irma’s vacation slides.

The bill contains a new educational exemption for fair dealing that could allow teachers to copy and distribute materials without compensating creators. Given the fact that annual public lending right cheques and other collective licensing schemes can sometimes provide more income than royalty pay-outs, authors should take note. But as always, it’s hard to parse what’s real, and what’s hyperbole. (Full details on the bill, provided you’re fully caffeinated, can be found here.)

Nino Ricci fills this void today in The Globe and Mail with a piece claiming that Canadians need to get angry, because should the bill pass, writers and publishers are going down.

Imagine if a government tried to reduce its education budget by requiring the makers of blackboards to provide them for free. Far from getting free blackboards, schools would soon find themselves with no blackboards at all, since every blackboard maker would have had to close up shop.

As far-fetched as this scenario seems, it is exactly what the government proposes in a new bill to reform the Copyright Act. Bill C-32, now making its way through Parliament, has a clause that will allow the free use of copyrighted material for “educational” purposes.

Many readers have commented that Ricci’s article is far-fetched and lacking nuance. But again, few of the opinions are coming from working writers. It would be useful to hear further perspectives, and not just from tech-celebs or pundits, but everyday working writers who represent the majority.

By Scott MacDonald
September 2, 2010
10:41 AM

1 Comment

Daily book biz round-up: new Oprah pick coming; money for Ontario textbooks?; and more

Today’s book news:

Oprah prepares to announce new book club pick, and it’s not Freedom
Scholastic Book Club takes new marketing approach
Dalton McGuinty makes vague reference to helping Ontario schools cover cost of textbooks
Penguin sues sports writer over undelivered bio
Century 21 scoops up former Barnes & Noble space before corpse is even cold
EW uncovers shocking Hollywood prejudice: authors not asked to be on Dancing With the Stars
Delightful literary oddities available on EBay

By Steven W. Beattie
July 22, 2010
10:38 AM

Comments Off

Thursday’s links: Wylie bypasses publishers; McArthur scolds Alexis; and Cronenberg bares all

A smattering of links for you:

Andrew Wylie launches imprint to sell digital books by Roth, Amis, Pamuk, and others directly through Amazon
Gulf of Mexico oil spill creates publishing cottage industry
Kim McArthur schools André Alexis
Unpublished Kafka story found among secret cache of author’s papers
Caitlin Cronenberg talks about her first book, and comes clean about her only vice

By Steven W. Beattie
September 28, 2009
3:07 PM

Comments Off

Super Thursday in Britain, and what U.S., U.K. publishers will be taking to Frankfurt

Americans have “Black Friday,” the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is the start of the Christmas shopping fiasco season, and which can, on occasion, lead to actual loss of life. It’s hard to imagine book buyers trampling store employees to death to get their hands on the new Audrey Niffenegger title, but British retailers are boning up for what they’re calling “Super Thursday” this Oct. 1, when a staggering 800 titles will publish in advance of the Christmas selling season.

With the months between October and December accounting for anywhere from 30% to 40% of annual sales, publishers obviously have a lot invested in the books that will drop this week. But one wonders how anyone hopes to break out of the pack with so many titles appearing on store shelves simultaneously. From the Guardian:

“It’s nice to have a day that feels quite special, because it is a rare title that is truly big enough to be a publishing event in itself,” says Julia Kingsford, head of marketing at bookseller Foyles. “But the inevitablility, with 800 books coming out on this one day, is that there will be things that are missed. There are an awful lot of books published, and not everything can be number one.”

Of course, British publishers can breathe (somewhat) easier knowing that the behemoth blockbuster of the fall, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, has already dropped, so they’ll only have the ripple effects of its publication to deal with. Still, with new books from Terry Pratchett, Kate Mosse, Ozzy Osborne, and Stieg Larsson among those set to appear on Thursday, it’s a tight field.

Meanwhile, publishers in both the U.S. and Britain are gearing up for that other fall ritual: the Frankfurt Book Fair. Publisher’s Weekly gives a rundown of some of the big titles that reps will be taking with them to the annual fair, and it’s another cornucopia of big names and potential blockbusters. Some highlights:

Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis’s sequel to Less than Zero
1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s doorstopper of a novel
The Living Dead, zombie maestro George A. Romero’s first novel
Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson’s follow-up to the best-selling Three Cups of Tea
Insatiable, a modern-day sequel to Dracula by chick-lit mainstay Meg Cabot
Horns, by best-selling Stephen King progeny Joe Hill
The Memory, an adult novel from “Sisterpants” author Ann Brashares
Committed, the new book from Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a typically uncontroversial novel from Philip Pullman
Revenge, the fiction debut from Sharon Osbourne (what’s good for the goose…)

By Nathan Whitlock
August 12, 2009
11:01 AM

27 Comments

To Kill a Mockingbird yanked at Brampton high school

Here we go again.

From the Toronto Star:

The classic literary novel To Kill a Mockingbird is being pulled from the Grade 10 English course at a Brampton high school after a parent complained about the use of a racial epithet in the book.

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which challenges racial injustice in America’s Deep South, will be removed from curriculum at St. Edmund Campion Secondary School following a …

… wait for it ….

… lone complaint from a parent whose child will be in Grade 10 this September.

Prigger, please – school boards are always in a tough spot when it comes to parental complaints, but there must be some way of heading off lone bigmouths. On the other hand, maybe protecting classic literature from priggish busybodies is not their first concern. After all, here’s what Bruce Campbell, spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board (and not the star of the Evil Dead movies), said about pulling the novel: “The school administration was aware of the parent’s concern and made the decision to use another board-approved resource that teaches the same concept for the coming year.” Always nice to hear books spoken of with such raw passion – what child doesn’t like to curl up with a good board-approved resource?

Elsewhere in book-banning news, a Jewish group in Germany wants that country’s ban on Mein Kampf lifted, so that a new edition, with “scholarly commentaries that would educate future generations on the evils of Nazism,” can be published. The German gov’t says it won’t budge on the ban, but if it did, it’d be a nice bit of historical irony, wouldn’t it?

By Derek Weiler
March 5, 2009
12:52 PM

Comments Off

Bookmarks: Books as art, Watchmen, and more

A GTA gallery is about to launch an exhibit in which books are transformed and incorporated into art.
As the new Watchmen movie starts getting some not-so-great reviews, Canadian graphica expert Jeet Heer schools New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane. (Not that Heer’s a fan of the book or anything.)
Following the announcement of Canadian Heritage funding policy changes that could be disastrous for litmags, the advocacy continues.
Surprise, surprise: another Dan Brown movie adaptation is about to come out, and a Catholic group don’t like it. (Love the “Galileo asked for it” aside. Nice.)

By Derek Weiler
February 19, 2009
11:43 AM

Comments Off

Vendor list announced for Ontario school library funding boost

Ontario’s Ministry of Education has released the full list of approved vendors that the province’s school libraries may use when spend ingthis year’s $15-million funding boost. The full list of 72 vendors is below, and includes library wholesalers, Indigo, some indie booksellers, and a handful of publishers.

There is, of course, no guarantee that any given firm on the list will end up selling any books; that’s up to individual school systems. Recently, for example, the Toronto District School Board announced its own plans for spending its share of the money; the board has invited about half of the vendors below to a one-time selling fair.