Posted by: Jill Murray - author of Rhythm and Blues

Signing a book for dance buddy Jane, at Babar en Ville

WHOOSH! That sound you just heard? That was February rushing by. And the thump? That’s me, landing on my butt in March, thinking “did that just happen? Did I just do that?”
Do what, exactly? Everything. Seriously:

1- Launch Rhythm and Blues (a teen comedy of ambition, identity and Auto-Tune!) with my favourite Montreal writer friends, at Babar en Ville.

Reading and mingling with guests, including authors P.J. Bracegirdle, Monique Polack and J.L. Scharf, and illustrators Susan Mitchell and Suana Verelst.

2- Keep the party going all month with SweatFest, with my dancing buds at Studio Sweatshop, where we all did twenty eight street dance classes in twenty eight days.

3- Finish a whole manuscript draft for a future project of unknowable fabulousness.

4- Read 5 1/2 books, including C.K. Kelly Martin’s I Know It’s Over, Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun, Chris Cleave’s Little Bee and Gayla Trail’s Grow Great Grub.

5- Do fun authory things like go to writers union workshops, and speak on a panel for Yes Oui CANSCAIP, to help other writers figure out how to get their books out there.

The Babar en Ville party was warm, and fun, with lots of food. I got up and did a reading, and there was plenty of time to chat with new friends and old, and sign a few books!

At the end of SweatFest, there was a prize draw, and two intrepid SweatFesters, Janice and Julio, won copies of Rhythm and Blues, and Break on Through.

SweatFest Winner, Janice

And here’s a hot tip: February is over, but the winning is not! If you’re in Montreal, and want to pick up a copy of Rhythm and Blues or my first book, Break on Through if you go to Babar en Ville between now and March 17th, you still have time to enter our contest to score dance classes and Reebok, shoes!

Posted by: Tan Light - Digital Sales and Marketing Coordinator

This past weekend Swedish author Henning Mankell made a rare Canadian appearance at the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram and Bluma Appel Salon. There were nearly 400 people in attendance, which was pretty amazing considering the beautiful weather. I think Mankell’s draw is a testament to his amazing storytelling.

After an introduction by the CBC’s Michael Enright, Henning Mankell took the stage for a rather honest interview in which he shared with us many stories from his life, including his personal philosophy that he should do two things everyday - learn something new, and have a good laugh.

Here are some of the things I learned that day:

1) Mankell has been involved with the Memory Book Project in Uganda.

For him, this project is especially important due to the extremely high death rate in Africa. Malaria and AIDS kill thousands annually and many children never know their parents. However, illiteracy is just as rampant, making the creation of a memory book difficult.
He told us a heartbreaking story about a young girl who had hovered on the periphery of the group Mankell was working with. Eventually, she came closer and held out her memory book for him to see. Inside was a blue butterfly. “My mother liked blue butterflies.” She told him. That was her only connection to her mother. Mankell said it was the best book he had ever read.

2) Kennedy’s Brain has been filmed and will be released in Europe this Spring.
Click here to watch the trailer.

3) Mankell is working on a new Wallander novel after almost 10 years! It will be the last one in the Wallander series. We should see it next year in Canada.

4) Mankell writes every day. Once, while in Stockholm, he had to stay in a place with no lights or furniture. To get in his daily writing, he opened the oven, turned on the oven light, and set up his typewriter. That is dedication!

5) He also reads 2-3 books per week.

Want to watch the interview? The Toronto Public Library will post the interview here next week.

Posted by: Nita Pronovost - Senior Editor, Doubleday Canada

In one of the stranger moments in my publishing career, a few weeks ago I found myself in a morgue with one of my authors. Fortunately, neither of us was performing an autopsy. Fortunately, neither of us was dead.

In Nicholas Ruddock’s brilliant debut novel, The Parabolist, a group of earnest young med students in the seventies dissects a body—through skin, tendon, flesh and bone they slice, as layer by layer, they unravel the mystery of a murder and the truth about their own lives. So, when it came time to drum up some promotional ideas, Nick, a family physician and an incredible writer (yes, some people have way too much talent), thought it might be neat to shoot a short video in a morgue. I had to agree: that did sound neat.

So that’s what we did.

I didn’t think much more about this—about the reality of this—until we actually arrived at the site. We were escorted through fluorescent hospital halls to those ominous stainless steel doors, and then it suddenly set in with a shock: this was not a movie set. Our plans were delayed because there was an actual autopsy in progress.

We returned a few hours later to learn that the “job” had been completed, and that “the crew” had cleaned up the morgue. We were ready to enter.

As we walked in, I couldn’t help but notice the small details: the chemical smell of disinfectant in the air, the line of rubber boots along a wall, the clipboard that read: “Processed Limb: For Disposal” … and in the centre of the room, that cold metal table, where a short time before, a person had been unravelled—skin, tendon, flesh, bone.

Here’s the thing: those are my toes in the video. I had volunteered to be the body in our shoot, proving that I will do just about anything for the love of book. I soon found myself lying on that freezing table with a white sheet draped over me, toes exposed and tagged. I’ll admit it: my heart was racing, and I was feeling more than a little spooked, but as we progressed, I started to relax into the role. I mean, how many times in my life would I get to play dead?

Fortunately for me, Nick’s a great reader and a lot of fun. The shoot was fast-paced; Nick’s gallows humour quelled my jitters; and my resurrection came mercifully quickly. As the shoot rounded to a close, we needed just one more shot. Nick asked the videographer, “Where do you want me this time?”

I knew the answer, and I couldn’t help myself. “Over my dead body,” I said.

Posted by: Beth Powning - author of The Sea Captain's Wife

On the evening of January 15, 2010, the Sussex Royal Legion in Sussex, New Brunswick, was transformed into an 1860s sailing ship for the launching of my new novel, The Sea Captain’s Wife.

Angelika Glover, my editor at Knopf Canada, came from Toronto. I had obtained a costume for her from Kings Landing Historical Settlement. We helped each other into vast crinolines, long dresses, detachable sleeves. In our 1870s house, I was struck by the sight of Angelika as she stood in the hallway adjusting her collar in the mirror. And then again as I saw her coming through the back door into the winter dusk, and as she and I rustled our long skirts over the snow in the deep country quiet. This is what literature is about, I thought; the thrill of entering another time, another world.

Perhaps it was this feeling that gripped every visitor to the Legion that night. People were greeted by high school students in costume, a six-foot-tall lighthouse, the sound of a fog horn and a cloud of fog. The room’s lighting was low, with pools of light illuminating photos and paintings of nineteenth century sailing ships and shipyards, and tables covered with objects gleaned from attics, or on loan from museums: ship’s logs, sextants, tools, even a captain’s sea chest. The Sea Captain’s Wife spilled from a leather trunk on the Indigo table; the manager and her assistant had travelled an hour from Saint John. There was the swish of long skirts, the half-giddy pleasure of women dressed in period costume. One woman wore a wedding dress from the 1840s. My son was resplendent in a brown beaver top hat and silk ruffled vest. A pirate appeared wearing a hoop earring and eye patch. The room smelled of chowder that simmered on the kitchen’s big stoves, attended by many volunteer cooks. Hundreds of biscuits were baked. A sea shanty group, “Before the Mast,” sat in a boat at the front of the room next to the stage - and the stage itself was a ship’s prow, with a life-sized figurehead made for the occasion, a huge canvas jib hung from a spar, and a ship’s wheel.

At seven o’clock, people began pouring in. They came and came. People reported that three adjacent parking lots were filled and that a line stretched far down the snowy sidewalk. The sea shanty group began to sing as the chairs filled and people jostled for space along walls. My neighbour and friend Kevin, dressed in a period captain’s outfit, was the emcee. I was introduced by the event’s organizer, Patricia, the high school librarian who had worked tirelessly, serving as the hub of a wheel of about 25 volunteers. As I read, I experienced the palpable energy of 500 utterly silent people. Afterwards, I thanked people in the crowd who had helped with the book in diverse ways: the veterinarian who told me how horses were disposed of in the 1860s, the doctor who had researched nineteenth century medicine. The sea shanty group sang again. People milled about, chatting with the women who had made the chowder, swapping yarns at the artifact tables, buying beer at the Legion bar, meeting old friends.

And they waited patiently in line to buy books. I signed and signed, for two hours. One man said to me, “I heard about this event on CBC. I told my wife we were going to go to it. ‘Harry, you don’t read!’ she said. ‘I’m going to read THIS book, I told her.’” To my astonishment, a couple told me they had come from Nova Scotia. And others from Fredericton, Saint John, Sackville.

It was a success beyond the wildest expectations of SLICE, Sussex Literary Initiatives and Cultural Events. We will all be talking about it in years to come, a warm, vibrant outpouring of community pride and support - just as we still tell tales of the Age of Sail.

Posted by: Adria Iwasutiak - Senior Publicist

Last week I had the special privilege of attending a “sneak peak” screening party in honour of the television adaptation of Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam. The event was hosted at Toronto East General Hospital, where Dr. Lam works in the ER, making the entire evening a unique and memorable experience! We started off in the TEGH’s new Emergency Ward, which has not yet been used by patients. The crowd attire ran the gamut from suits to scrubs, as Dr. Lam’s colleagues, friends, booksellers, media, hospital board members and donors enjoyed a tour of the new space with wine in hand. After a warm welcome from Dr. Lam (at the hospital they call him Vince!) we headed upstairs to the E2 Lecture Hall, a lovely space for a screening.

The Neal Brothers provided us with delicious popcorn and seventy-five of us laughed, gasped and sat on the edges of our seats as the first in the HBO Canada original eight-part series played. Shawn Ashmore, perhaps better known to most of us as Ice Man from X-Men, was outstanding as Fitz and drew all of us in as the flashbacks to his romantic affair with Ming and the love triangle with Chen unfolded. Everyone had their copies of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures signed by Vincent Lam at the end of the night, and many shared how eager they are to revisit this outstanding collection of stories and share with new readers!

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures airs on HBO Canada Sunday nights at 8 pm. Visit www.bloodletting.tv for episode guides, bonus features and more.

Posted by: Brad Martin - President and CEO, Random House of Canada

McNally Robinson is one of Canada’s finest independent bookstores and all of us at Random House are saddened to hear of their difficulties. McNally Robinson is well known for its extensive events program and has always been a great supporter of Canadian authors. We are confident their two stores will remain cornerstones of their communities and we hope for the chain’s swift recovery.