Q&Q Omni Category: Quill at large
The most recent 250 items in this category are below. To find something specific, please use the search box.
It’s my party and I’ll smile if I want to
On May 18 at Montreal’s Mainline Theatre, Andy Brown, perhaps Montreal’s most innovative English-language publisher, couldn’t stop grinning as he passed out homemade birthday cake... Read the rest »
Let it BPPA
When Heather Reisman finally does convert all of her big-box bookstores to aromatherapy and exercise-accessory emporiums, book-biz comedians will have to find a whole new... Read the rest »
Reviews are your friends
In an essay in The Malahat Review’s recent issue on reviewing, poet Jan Zwicky declared that reviewing books is similar to “talking to a friend,”... Read the rest »
Wasn’t that a party
It was bookselling by way of Fellini as the Western Book Reps Association hosted its annual summer bookfair in Vancouver, an event that saw, among... Read the rest »
Summer stories
With so few summer book releases, the book trade’s party scene tends to fizzle just as Toronto’s sidewalk patios open up for the warm weather.... Read the rest »
A great gimmick
Fundraising is a tricky proposition. There are innumerable good causes – cancer research, food banks, endangered species, to name a few – all vying for... Read the rest »
The coolest month
Two events at the suddenly trendy Gladstone Hotel helped kick off the spring launch season in Toronto. The downtown hotel hosted the House of Anansi’s... Read the rest »
A million vacations
The launch for an anthology celebrating the travel-writing genre couldn’t have come at a better time for Torontonians suffering through record cold temperatures and snowfalls.... Read the rest »
Shot from the hip
In August of 2002, Toronto micro-press Misprints Press launched the first in a series of pocket-sized chapbooks that pay homage to that most prolific of... Read the rest »
Winter frolic
In January, literary agent Anne McDermid welcomed a host of publishing executives, writers, and book types to a combination house-warming party and fete for client... Read the rest »
Insolvency blues
Organizers of this year’s Book Publishing Professional Association cabaret – which hit the stage in December, revived after a hiatus in 2001 – didn’t have... Read the rest »
Heavy fêting
The mostly launchless days of summer came to an end in early September with a series of book events in Toronto. HarperCollins Canada launched Andrew... Read the rest »
Writers' fortunes
Author Jack Batten won the $10,000 Norma Fleck Children’s Book Award in early September for The Man Who Ran Faster Than Everyone: The Story of... Read the rest »
Summer schmooze
The summer dry spell between publishing seasons was enlivened in late July by two literary events in Toronto. Toronto Life magazine held its annual bash... Read the rest »
Crimes and passions
It’s definitely one of the more entertaining literary prizes – pull the string on the gallows-shaped Arthur Ellis Award and you’ll make a miniature hanging... Read the rest »
The book of Bök: Experimental poetry claims the Griffin
After taking the stage at the Griffin Poetry Prize ceremony in Toronto in late May, Christian Bök delivered an impassioned defence of the avant garde,... Read the rest »
From B.C. to Montreal
There was a tang of nostalgia in the air as Patrick Lane hosted 300 guests at the 18th B.C. Book Prizes in Vancouver in late... Read the rest »
Food for thought
Toronto chefs, writers, and foodies packed restaurant Mildred Pierce in the city’s west end on April Fools’ Day for the chance to catch American chef... Read the rest »
Another great event
Nominees, jurors, and various publishing folk crowded Toronto’s Arts and Letters Club in March for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s first annual Great Literary Awards... Read the rest »
Novelwriting 1.0
Dave Striver loved the university — at least most of the time. Every now and then, without warning, a wave of…well, it was true: a... Read the rest »
Hunting Hartley GoodWeather
It should have been a straightforward assignment: confirm that Hartley GoodWeather, the pseudonymous author of the forthcoming mystery DreadfulWater Shows Up (HarperFlamingo Canada, April) is,... Read the rest »
Dream reader
Working 65-hour weeks as an Ottawa Citizen crime reporter wore heavily on Jeremy Mercer, who says he almost collapsed under “all the darkness.” Seeking an... Read the rest »
The last hurrah
The last big evening of the fall launch season in Toronto began, of all places, at the ChumCity building, the headquarters of Citytv, Bravo!, and... Read the rest »
Giller thriller
Folks in the book business have been saying for years that no one knows how to throw a party like Jack Rabinovitch. This year’s Giller... Read the rest »
Encouraging genius
McClelland & Stewart celebrated its sense of tradition at its annual fall launch party in Toronto in late September – even as the event broke... Read the rest »
Saloon songs
There was a big turnout, and plenty of free beer, but did the launch of Nicholas Pashley’s Notes on a Beermat at Toronto’s Granite Brewery... Read the rest »
Glam factor
East bowed to west when Toronto Life magazine held its yearly summer-fiction-issue shindig at Toronto’s Bistro 990 club in late July. All four authors featured... Read the rest »
Into Africa
Some of the leading literary scholars in the British Commonwealth, and the writers they had selected to win regional Commonwealth Prizes – including Anita Rau... Read the rest »
Marking the years
The Encyclopedia of British Columbia was a double winner at the B.C. Book Prizes gala in Vancouver in early May, taking home two of the... Read the rest »
Hello to new faces – and goodbye to a familiar one
It was a fitting gift, the shepherd’s crook presented by incoming HarperCollins Canada president David Kent to his predecessor, Claude Primeau, who celebrated his retirement... Read the rest »
The really new New Testament
It didn’t take long for the hype to begin in earnest following Doubleday Canada’s announcement that it had inked a mid six-figure deal for Nino... Read the rest »
We’ve been twitted
Although romance titles alone command a larger share of the book market in Canada than all the CanLit classics combined, genre writers still bear the... Read the rest »
Book TV you’ll never see
If strong fall sales were supposed to send a current of good cheer through the bookselling industry, little of it was in evidence at the... Read the rest »
Authors unbound
The literary gala is an unusual event. On these rare occasions, writers emerge from dark studies, put on presentable (for the most part) outfits, and... Read the rest »
It's fall, let's party
The setting was chic – Toronto’s Bar Italia – but the atmosphere was homey as several dozen well-wishers munched sandwiches and listened to poets read... Read the rest »
Milestones
There was the George Bell book, which was on the way to stores when the Toronto Blue Jays’ left-fielder was traded to Chicago. And the... Read the rest »
The great Griffin
Who is Scott Griffin? That was the burning question on the minds of members of the Toronto literary and publishing community as they crowded... Read the rest »
Goodbye, Anne!
Anne Millyard, former co-director of Annick Press, has said goodbye to the company she and Rick Wilks founded 25 years ago. The company threw a... Read the rest »
Summer reading
E-books, superstore woes, out-of-control returns – with the trade gearing up for an interesting fall, every day seems to bring a fresh portent of publishing... Read the rest »
They've got drive
It’s rare in the book business, we know, but about two dozen sales people and booksellers took a day off in May to play a... Read the rest »
But will it get reviewed?
When Globe and Mail books editor Martin Levin wrote a column earlier this year suggesting, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, that there ought to... Read the rest »
Cattus in the hattus
Classical scholars who are also Dr. Seuss fans have reason to celebrate this fall: A small Illinois publisher will release the first ever Latin edition... Read the rest »
Scenes from the show
Clockwise from top left: She may not have been the biggest-selling author at the show, but she was the youngest. Ten-year-old Jaya Bastedo (right) travelled... Read the rest »
Montrealers paint town
Sold out, sold out, sold out: that was the story at nearly every event at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, held recently in Montreal.... Read the rest »
Dueling over bacon and eggs
Dead bodies with your eggs Benedict? This may sound like dangerous and exotic fare, but the crowds who turn out for the Books ’n’... Read the rest »
Drama kings
John Harvey and Leonard McHardy have been selling books to the Canadian theatre community for 25 years, but to their friends and colleagues they are... Read the rest »
From rain forest to urgan jungle: Knopf Canada author Riska Orpa Sari's long journey
How does a Borneo jungle guide interpret the wildlife at a Toronto publishing party? Riska Orpa Sari, the 30-year-old author of Riska: Memories of a... Read the rest »
Flagging a problem
Think mergers, convergence, bear-hugging CEOs: has corporatism finally supplanted nationhood in the popular consciousness? Does the idea of a nation still have meaning? ... Read the rest »
'Tis the season
When will Jack Rabinovitch be named to the Order of Canada? Writer June Callwood suggested at this year’s Giller Prize dinner that someone should be... Read the rest »
All about me: Why is everyone writing memoirs?
New rule: not just anyone gets to write a memoir. Sorry, but a slender celebrity and a publishing contract isn’t good enough any more. No,... Read the rest »
On Donner, on Zeppa...
There’s another bright new star in the galaxy of Canadian book prizes. The Donner Canadian Foundation announced in mid-May, at an elegant dinner in downtown... Read the rest »
Best in the west
The 15th annual B.C. Book Prizes gala was a triumphant evening for novelist and creative writing teacher Jack Hodgins, who picked up the Ethel Wilson... Read the rest »
Maybe they wrote Shrill & Crier
Booksellers and industry types who subscribe to PW Daily, Publishers Weekly’s e-mail news service, were confronted with some bizarre and baffling stories at the beginning... Read the rest »
O Sono trio
Its nonsensical name comes from its founder’s surrealist fiction, but there is nothing very mystifying about what’s kept Sono Nis Press in business for 30... Read the rest »
Dream weaver
Alice Munro was a special guest at the 20th Canadian Literary Awards, held in early February at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio. Munro, who rarely makes... Read the rest »
Showtime!
With all the pressures of the publishing Christmas party circuit - catering, decorations, endless schmoozing - the annual Book Publishers' Professional Association Cabaret offers a... Read the rest »
Welcome to the funhouse
"Carnival-like” would be overstating it, but the mood was certainly festive at Toronto’s Green Room early in December as Toronto writers Derek McCormack and Chris... Read the rest »
Hail to the chief: A festival tribute to Jack McClelland
One of canada’s leading publishing house bears his name. He’s been called the greatest publisher this country has ever seen. A maverick. The man who... Read the rest »
Launch styles of the swish and famous
The Fall season’s swankiest soiree-by far-was for James Chatto's The Man Who Ate Toronto: Memoirs of a Restaurant Lover, co-hosted by publisher Macfarlane Walter &... Read the rest »
And the living was easy...
Quill was officially on vacation, but a keen sense of moral duty drew us out of the mountains and into the (urban) jungle to attend... Read the rest »
All for a good cause
Lush double martinis and mounds of hors d’oeuvre were a fitting reward for making it past the strict security at Bistro 990 (very swish!) and... Read the rest »
City slickers
Toronto’s upscale, uptown, five-star North 44 restaurant was the venue for a lavish dinner held in honour of The Second Fiddle author Yves Beauchemin and... Read the rest »
Bits of their kits: Mercer performs, Boyd holds court
April 24th 7:15 p.m.: Nipped into a seat at the austere Glenn Gould Studio for the Friday night launch of Rick Mercer’s Streeters: Rants and... Read the rest »
Coming attractions
To mark the occasion of his return to Blood & Aphorisms, that lovable flibber-tigibbet Sam Hiyate - who founded B&A around the turn of the... Read the rest »
The gathering of the clans
It lacked the cocktail-fuelled flashiness of the Giller Prize and the pomp and circumstance of the Governor General's Awards, but the new Rogers Communication Writers'... Read the rest »
Yep! Way!
Following is an imagined conversation between a mall store manager and a sales rep included in a January memo from Chapters chief operating officer Curt... Read the rest »
It was grand, so grand
As good as last year's Slushie Awards show was, it really couldn't compare with the brazen spectacle of the Book Publishers Professional Association's almost-annual Christmas... Read the rest »
The inevitable comparison (and other stories)
So the Governor General’s Literary Awards battled the glamour of the Giller with a bit of pomp and circumstance of its own. After... Read the rest »
Mind bombs
The International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront in Toronto hosted dozens of readings this year from Oct. 22 - Nov. 1, but for our money,... Read the rest »
Skinny legs and all
Waving a Maclean’s magazine article from October 1994 headlined “Publish or perish,” Random House of Canada president David Kent smiled triumphantly at the assembled guests,... Read the rest »
Scenes from the show
WHEN WILL IT END? The mere mention of Canbook is still enough to get booksellers hot under the collar. Fed up with the poor... Read the rest »
Shaving for dollars
The unpitying crowd jostled, each spectator trying to get a look at the nervous victim in his chair. A blade flashed. A collective gasp turned... Read the rest »
Trimming the winter fetlocks
It was the winking of one single pearl, recessed in the folds of a silken ascot, that first alerted us to what smoldered beneath the... Read the rest »
A belly full of laughs
For those fast enough to snaffle a ticket for the Toronto launch of Gut Symmetries – English FemLit icon Jeanette Winterson’s latest novel – a... Read the rest »
What editors want
Based on my experience on both ends of the writing-editing process, let me tell you what editors want. Editors want writers who understand grammar and... Read the rest »
Gathering of the clan
A benefit reading for PEN Canada by Gita Mehta in downtown Toronto last month occasioned a gathering of the Knopf clan, first at Nicholas Hoare,... Read the rest »
Grace under pressure
Quill is not used to these gatherings of the public. Single-title launches, where only a few are expected, or intimate little gatherings of like-minded folk... Read the rest »
Dummy Money
Would you think of setting a ship out to sea without first mashing a magnum against its mast (or bow, or head, or whatever)? If... Read the rest »
Don't Call Us... (1)
Writers know rejection in many forms: supportive note, form-letter FOAD, careless comments, apologetic phone calls: “I’m sorry, we just couldn’t get it past the board.”... Read the rest »
Don't Call Us... (2)
From the Margaret Atwood home page, http://www.io.org/~toadaly, reprinted with permission of the author Letter Sent in Reply to Requests for Blurbs by Margaret Atwood... Read the rest »
Charity Case
Some books, Quill has concluded, can be judged by their covers. Perhaps, given the obvious intensity of their treadmill days and nights, it was... Read the rest »
Calgary's Guerillas
Though Freedom to Read Week, the annual event marking the fundamental right of Canadians to read whatever they choose, ran smoothly in most parts of... Read the rest »
Fall furies
Knowing that many thousands depend on Quill to live the life of the wanton vicariously, in September we felt behooved by this group, known in... Read the rest »
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