For those of us who can’t make the drive to Banff, or if you have to work during the daytime activities, Thursday night is always your best bet for Wordfest joy. A multifaceted mixtape and literary assemblage of well-written, well-spoken wordsmiths, pundits and music.

Social Publishing: Industry Insiders

First up, a heady pre-dinner panel at the Auburn, with three very different writers discussing Social Publishing and digital media, and what it means for the industry. Novelist and Huffington Post blogger Emma Ruby-Sachs (@EmmaRubySachs)started the discussion, declaring social media as the democratic platform, allowing public interaction across a nearly universal communication medium. Releasing incremental … Read More

Christmas came early this year:

Calgary’s first zine fair is at first a little overwhelming. But not in that comic-con ‘oh-my-god-it’s-shoulder-to-shoulder’ madness. More in that there’s simply so much content, and with little frame of reference, where do you start?

The Zine Tree Collective describes zines as “a self-published magazine or pamphlet made outside of mainstream press and professional media, by all kinds of people about all kinds of things.” The first apparent thing is that these are front-to-back labours of love, with the authors and creators of the zines displaying their work proudly behind their tables. Willing to chat, and still punching together new issues with their long-reach staplers as they do so. 

 … Read More

Ezra Levant wrote a book about how great the oilsands are.

I didn't read it.

WordFest announced its lineup for 2010 this afternoon, with a full international roster of local, national and international talent.

There are 74 authors, industry insiders, musicians and poets participating this year and the full roster can be accessed on the WordFest website. Here are some of the subjectively chosen highlights:

Musician, journalist, author and filmmaker Dave Bidini returns to the festival for the fourth time with his latest sports themed book, Home and Away: In Search of Dreams at the HOmeless World Cup of Soccer.

Susana Cook, a playwright and actor from New York, uses satire as a weapon against abuse of power and isms of all kinds.

The Beauty of Humanity Movement is Camilla Gibbs' latest novel. Set in … Read More

After 15 years at the helm as founding general director of Wordfest, Anne Green will be stepping down after this year's event.

Green has grown the festival into an internationally recognized event, hosting a broad range of authors, famous and obscure, in Calgary and Banff.

Jo Steffens will assume the lead role at the festival after October, returning home to Calgary from New York City. Steffens represents a new direction, with familiarity and knowledge of new technologies. In the world of e-books and e-readers, it was time for a fresh face.

In New York, Steffens was a curator at The Municipal Art Society and ran their bookstore. She also founded the Independent Booksellers of New York.

To hear about this year's lineup of authors … Read More

Those keeping up with the Dark Knight's current DC comics adventurizing will get the second level of this awesome t-shirt, but I think anyone can appreciate it based on the sheer strength of its adorableness.

(via Comics Alliance)

This interview with David Eggers brightened my morning. The entire thing is worth reading, but the really relevant bit is isolated here.

Also, huge kudos to the interviewer for releasing the correspondence into the wild. I've been utterly demolished by subjects with wrecking-ball egos in the past -- I think everyone has -- so the person on the receiving end of his tirade certainly has my sympathies. That isn't to say Eggers -- and all the folks who've impaled me on my own words -- aren't totally justified in their frustrations, just that sharing your embarrassment this openly is a tough thing to do, and it deserves respect.   

(via RPS)

Wordfest announced its lineup on August 25 and, once again, it's a great mix of local and international talent.

Shani Mootoo, Wayson Choy, Wil Ferguson, Roland Pemberton (a.ka. Cadence Weapon), Zoe Whittall, Lorna Crozier, Hal Niedzviecki, graphic artist extraordinaire Seth and manga/Haida mashup master Micheal Nicoll Yahgulanass are among the Canadian highlights.

There's also the big names: John Irving (almost a Canadian) and Douglas Coupland. Appearing before the lauch of the fest, Margaret Atwood will host an evening at Knox United Church and after the festival, Rex Murphy hits town.

Phwew. And those are just some of the Canadians (and Irving).

Rukhshana Khan, Mathew Skelton, Miguel Angel Arenas, Joan London, David Huerty and many … Read More

(With a nod to Lindsey Wallis for the story and Patrick Boyle for the headline)

Amazon.com may have just overstepped some lines. According to some online sources, the site, under pressure from a publisher who no longer wanted their books to exist in electronic form, deleted the works of a particular author from all of the Kindles of people who had legally purchased them.

Yep, folks went through legal channels to download books, under the assumption that they now owned the book and could read it whenever they wanted. At least Amazon gave them a store credit in place of the book, but in some views, this is tantamount to a Chapters employee coming into your house and taking back a book from your shelf. Thinking that it's different shows a … Read More

Here's a plug for some of my non-newsy writing. Last summer I took a hiatus from the ol' newspaper to write a memoir about my Opapa's German boyhood. (He grew up under the Nazis, joined the Hitler Youth and eventually lived as a refugee. Today he's a tree-loving old man who spends most of his time on Google Earth. But you gotta read the whole thing to learn full story.)

I wrote the memoir, Mr. Tree, through The Banff Centre's literary journalism program, spending a month in a cozy old fishing boat landlocked in the forest. It was incredible. Not only did I have the perfect office, but I also learned a ton from the other writers in the program — authors who know way more about writing than I do.

Actually writing the thing was torturous — a beautiful … Read More