The Rights Factory strikes a deal for Andrew Kaufman book in 140 characters

This morning, The Rights Factory rights manager Kelvin Kong sold Swedish rights to Andrew Kaufman’s The Waterproof Bible (Random House Canada) to Printz Publishing, via Twitter.

The exchange started after Kong visited Kaufman on Tuesday and tweeted a picture of the author’s office to some of his international publishers. Kong says the Twitter offer that followed from publisher Pia Printz, with whom he had discussed the book previously, “was something serendipitous that came from bantering.”

This isn’t the first time Kong has used Twitter to sell foreign rights. In 2010, Kong made a deal with France’s Éditions Leduc.s for rights to Why Mr. Right Can’t Find You by J.M. Kearns (Wiley), although he says he mostly uses the site for information and entertainment.

See below for today’s exchange. Kong says all other details were settled via e-mail.

Screenshot courtesy of Kelvin Kong

CLA kicks off Canadian Library Month

The Canadian Library Association kicked off Canadian Library Month on Tuesday. Throughout the month of October, libraries across the country will host events to raise awareness about the importance of libraries in the nation’s communities.

According to a press release from the CLA, the theme for 2011, Your Library: A Place Unbound, strengthens this message by pointing to libraries as hubs of information and personal connection in the midst of a quickly evolving world. “From coast to coast to coast, libraries are without boundaries, places of endless opportunity where Canadians have an equal right to access resources,” says CLA president Karen Adams in the media release.

Within the span of a few months, Canadian libraries have faced threats from municipal funding cuts, union strikes, devastating fires, and natural disasters — to name but a few challenges. It’s nice, then, to have some positive library-related news to report.

And in case a month of library celebrations isn’t uplifting enough, here’s a quick round up of other library-friendly news:

• The Nova Scotia Library Association names Tracey Jones-Grant winner of the 2011 Norman Horrocks Award for Library Leadership, and Rachel Crosby winner of the 2011 Emile Theriault Library and Information Technology Award for support staff
• Newfoundland and Labrador Public Libraries celebrates 75 years on Oct. 28
• Toronto Public Library’s Arthur Conan Doyle Room is getting a face lift
• Vancouver Public Library may have closed its Riley Park Branch last month, but Vancouver City Council has approved an increase in VPL funding for the brand new Terry Salman Branch

Happy Canadian Libraries Month!

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.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and CBC

The CBC  is jumping on the literary mash-up wagon (think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) with a contest celebrating the new genre. The CBC Book Clu website announced today that readers could enter their own mash-ups by submitting a photo, collage, blog post, or video of their creations. “There are plenty of tools online to help you. Did Lewis Carroll not make Wonderland weird enough? How about Alice in Lolcat-land?”

The guidelines are simple:

“Take any classic novel (public domain books where the author has been dead at least 50 years) and mash it together with your favourite anachronistic characters – monsters or pirates or androids or whatever strikes your fancy.”

You can see the current entries here.

Toronto Public Library Workers Union given legal strike deadline

After nearly two weeks of silence surrounding negotiations between the Toronto Public Library and the Toronto Public Library Workers Union (TPLWU), it was announced today that the Ontario Ministry of Labour has granted the TPLWU a legal strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9.

As reported by Q&Q Omni last March, the city’s 2,400 library workers split from the Toronto Civic Employees Union (TCEU) Local 416 to create their own union. However, the new TPLWU soon found itself facing the same concession demands confronted by the TCEU in a summer that saw an extended strike by city workers. 

Eighty-six per cent of TPLWU voted in favour of a strike as of Oct. 10, but negotiations are ongoing.

The union is asking the TPL for more full-time jobs and “fairer treatment of part-time workers.”

According to a TPL inter-office memo, should a legal strike/lock-out occur, the following disruptions are to be expected:

• All library branches and facilities, including Bookmobile and Home Library Services, would be closed
• All computer services, including Web-based and dial-in service, would be suspended, including renewals
• All telephone-based service would be suspended, including renewals
• All scheduled meetings and events would be cancelled. Room rental charges would be refunded, as appropriate
• All book drops would be closed. Borrowers would be asked to keep library materials and not return them until a strike/lock-out is over

Bookmarks: reviews of Shortcovers, Mailer’s reviewers, and a new book for uppity editors

Sundry links from around the Web:

• BookNet Canada’s Michael Tamblyn offers a fairly enthusiastic review of Indigo’s new “e-books for iPhones” app Shortcovers.
• Harper U.S. acquires Kerouac’s unpublished first novel, about a man at sea.
• The Subversive Copy Editor aims at improving frayed relations between authors and editors.
• Norman Mailer strikes back (at his critics).

Dude’s all like "vengeance is mine" and shit

In The New Yorker, Daniel Radosh looks at the business of Bible publishing, concentrating on the Nashville-based giant Thomas Nelson Publishers. Of particular interest to Radosh is the brand extension strategy — keeping the Bible sales up by endlessly repackaging the good word for various niche markets. One spectacular example is the “BibleZine,” aimed at teenagers.

[Thomas Nelson publisher] Wayne Hastings described a meeting in which a young editor, who had conducted numerous focus groups and online surveys, presented the idea. “She brought in a variety of teen-girl magazines and threw them out on the table,” he recalled. “And then she threw a black bonded-leather Bible on the table and said, ‘Which would you rather read if you were sixteen years old?’ ” The result was “Revolve,” a New Testament that looked indistinguishable from a glossy girls’ magazine. The 2007 edition features cover lines like “Guys Speak Their Minds” and “Do U Rush to Crush?” Inside, the Gospels are surrounded by quizzes, photos of beaming teen-agers, and sidebars offering Bible-themed beauty secrets….

In a related story, the Nashville-area weather forecast calls for 24-hour darkness and random lightning strikes.

Related links:
Click here for the New Yorker story

At the altar of The Shark God

The Last Heathen, Charles Montgomery’s non-fiction South Pacific saga about missionaries, murder, and more, is starting to make waves internationally. It was published here in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre two years ago and won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction, and last month HarperCollins issued it in the U.S. and the U.K. as The Shark God (which, frankly, strikes Quillblog as a much punchier and more intriguing title).

Montgomery’s book has been scoring appreciative reviews. The Guardian calls it a “remarkable debut … a travel story as dark and twisted as one might ever wish to hear.” And a B+ Entertainment Weekly notice says the book “offers a heady blend of history, memoir, and anthropology.” The New York Times is appreciative, too: reviewer Holly Morris says “Montgomery is a thoughtful and entertaining guide, and his story has rich layers of history and anthropology.” Morris does have one criticism, though — she wished for more “introspection” and found the book too “outward-looking.” Now that’s a complaint you don’t hear every day.

(Thanks to Bookslut.com for a couple of the links.)

Related links:
Click here for the New York Times review
Click here for the Guardian review
Click here for the Entertainment Weekly review