| Calgary playwright Clem Martini has acknowledged that, unlike the noble eagle, lovely hummingbird or stately swan, your basic black crow is essentially the raucous, unruly trailer-park boy of the bird world. But he likes them anyway, for their "rakish" and noisily sociable ways. His book The Mob is volume one of the young-adult trilogy Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles, which follows the life of a crow family. Martini will read from the book at McNally Robinson for Kids on Saturday, December 11 at 1:30 p.m. The event is free, but plan on being there early if you want a spot. For more details, call 538-1794.
Stick around for the afternoon and you can hear amusing Calgarian Will Ferguson discuss his adventures and misadventures in the publishing trade. What’s more, he plans to spill some of the secret writer’s beans on how to get yourself published. Ferguson should know: the author of Happiness, How to Be a Canadian and Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw is a pro. He’ll be at McNally Robinson on Saturday, December 11 at 3 p.m. (For more on Ferguson, see also the story in this issue.)
In the meantime, here’s one way to get your work in print. If you have, or plan to write, a 30,000- to 70,000-word manuscript, it’s non-fiction, creative non-fiction or historical fiction, and it’s related to "Canadian heritage and cultural tourism," then you can enter it in the competition for this year’s Heritage Group Prize. You could win $250, plus another $250 worth of books. But the real point is that B.C.’s Heritage Group will talk to you about publication.
The deadline is January 31, 2005, but you’ll have to wait until the 2005 Shuswap Lake International Writers' Festival next June 26, in Salmon Arm, B.C. to find out whether you’ve won. Interested? All the details are at www.heritagehouse.ca.
Calgary’s own heritage is the subject of Jean Leslie’s book Three Rivers Beckoned: Life and Times With Calgary Mayor Jack Leslie. Jack Leslie was born here in 1920 and grew up to become mayor right in the middle of the turbulent 1960s. Jean Leslie reads at McNally Robinson on Friday, December 10 at noon.
Best-sellers
Best-selling books for November 26 to December 2 at McNally Robinson
Fiction
1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
2. Eleanor Rigby
by Douglas Coupland
3. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
by Helen Fielding
4. The Linnet Bird
by Linda Holeman
5. Line of Beauty
by Alan Hollinghurst
6. Due Preparations for the Plague
by Janette Hospital
7. A Complicated Kindness
by Miriam Toews
8. Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
9. Nights of Rain and Stars
by Maeve Binchy
10. Whiteout
by Ken Follett
Non-fiction
1. The Museum Called Canada
by Charlotte Gray
2. Here Be Dragons
by Peter C. Newman
3. Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw
by Will Ferguson
4. The Corporation
by Joel Bakan
5. It's the Crude, Dude
by Linda McQuaig
6. Where Shall Wisdom Be Found
by Harold Bloom
7. Points of View
by Rex Murphy
8. Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
9. Ice
by Pauline Couture
10. Bob Dylan: Chronicles Vol. 1
by Bob Dylan
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