Rockcliffe Park Public School is holding it’s semi-annual Book Fair next weekend with thousands of books for sale. The Details:
When:
Friday, November 5th from 10am to 9pm
Saturday, November 6th from 10am to 6pm
Sunday, November 7th from 11am to 5pm
Where:
Rockcliffe Park Public School
370 Springfield Road
Ottawa
It’s that time of year again to put wit to words and pen to paper. Apartment 613′s second annual fall fiction contest is on! From now until Nov. 5th they are accepting submissions on any topic, 1,000 words max, that’s got some connection to the Ottawa area. As one of the judges for last year’s contest, I can say first hand that there are some excellent short story writers in Ottawa and I am looking forward to seeing this year’s top three. Details of the contest can be found on the Apt. 613 website. Top prize is a free pass to the next Ottawa Writer’s festival and a gift certificate to Octopus Books. Good luck!
The fourth installment of the Ottawa Press Gang’s Letterpress Gazette arrived and it is great! The gazette, letterpressed in the old fashion style double sided foolscap, has articles on fine press work, grammar and the King’s Landing printing office along with printers’ poems, letpress quiz and a wonderful Halloween postcard. I must say I am deeply impressed (pun intended) with the latest offering and look forward to many more.
The fall edition of the Ottawa Writers Festival starts today (running Oct. 20-26th) and looks to have another great line-up of talks, panels, and events involving a number of outstanding authors.
One event I am very excited to be attending is a talk being giving by William Gibson, one of my favourite authors who’s work I’ve continually enjoyed since reading Neuromancer in my teens. Gibson is such a forward thinking author with an exquisite stylistic prose that I am certain his talk, and hopefully Q&A, will be very interesting and entertaining.
At the Small Press Fair on the weekend I managed to pick up a few copies of Apt. 9 Press’ new titles. After months of working on the material, Cameron Anstee has put together an excellent descriptive bibliography of local Ottawa poet William Hawkins’ published work dating all the way back to the 60s. Complete with reproduction broadside poems from the 60s and vintage news articles, the Wm Hawkins Folio is an absolute gem of a small press production and an important piece for rediscovering the history of a great Ottawa poet.
The Wm Hawkins Folio was coincided with the publication of Sweet & Sour Nothings, a long forgotten collection of poems by Hawkins which were originally published in the 1980 Anthos Anthology. Unfortunately these poems were never published as their own title, despite best intentions in the 80s, nor reprinted or discussed for the past 30 years. So, our hats-off to Apt. 9 Press for publishing this long-lost Hawkins title, with the text freshly edited by Roy MacSkimming, for us all to read and enjoy.
It appears Cameron’s work with the Hawkins material has also earned him some notice and praise on Rob Mclennan’s blog.
This video on How Ink is Made has been floating around the various letterpress and book arts groups around here and on the net, so thought it was about time I shared it too. Enjoy!
Once again the Ottawa Small Press Fair will be taking place at the Jack Purcell Community Centre this Saturday from 12-5pm. Unfortunately we will not be there with a booth this time, but I will certainly be there in person to see what the local small presses have been up to over the summer.
Had this fun little article called Confessions of a Used-book Salesman passed my way and got a bit of a kick reading it. It’s from the point of view of the new age book dealer that looks to focus primarily on books that can be scanned via PDA for immediate price comparison on Amazon then flipped as quickly as possible. His comments on how, if flipped quickly profit margins of $1 or less are acceptable, make me want to cringe at the thought of seeking out, buying, listing and shipping a book all for a buck….ughhh….
With a philosophy of “It’s also rarely worthwhile to investigate anything that looks truly old or anything that doesn’t have a barcode…”, I don’t think that us “traditional” book sellers have much to work about.
The St. Brigid’s Centre will be hosting a wonderful evening October 20th centred on the five fantastic female Irish writers who were touched by Ottawa native Helen Hansen’s story of stroke recovery through therapy based on writing. Her efforts came to the attention of Catherine Dunne, who invited Helen to Ireland and introduced her to fellow writers Celia De Freine, Ivy Bannister, Lia Mills and Mary Rose Callaghan. Now they have come back to Ottawa to share an evening of great Irish literature and music to raise funds in support of stroke research. We hope to see you there!
Tickets $35.00 at door or $30 in advance from ticketweb.ca
Well, first and foremost, apologies for the lengthy pause in posts but unfortunately Rogers somehow decided that my own website was seen as a threat to my IP address and therefore blocked my modem’s access to my own website. After a few calls with them, they still didn’t know how to undo it so I had to physically exchange my modem to acquire a new IP address and regain access to my own site. Go Rogers!!!
The first weekend this month saw us at the Con*cept Convention in Montreal with our perrenial Con partners Cornell Booksellers. Overall we were both rather a bit disappointed in the show, perhaps as a result of coming in with too high of expectations. While the Con did have a couple good headliners like Tad Williams (Otherland series) and Nicki Clyne (Cally from Battlestar Galactica), it seemed the majorityof other panel participants and speakers where relatively unknown or off target making the couple of the panels I attended somewhat lacking.
The Dealer’s room was a good size with plenty of vendors, but unfortunately while many con goers seemed interested in our stock, it seemed only the $20 and under books found new homes. If it weren’t for a reasonable sized last minute sale as I was packing up, we wouldn’t have even broke even. Perhaps expectations were a little high with World Con as our previous experience in Montreal, and therefore I may be a little harsh, but I must admit I was surprised that for a city of Montreal’s size and variety, only a few hundred people attended the convention and that so few Canadian authors were participating or speaking. I guess just a miss on our part, or the right people for the books we had weren’t there. Not to be discouraged, we will certainly be doing Can-Con next year in Ottawa (www.can-con.org) and have our sights set for the World Fantasy Convention being held in Toronto 2012 (www.worldfantasy.org).
