Can-Can at the Can-Con

08/13/2010

 
The Conference of Canadian Speculative Arts and Literature, better known as Can-Con 2010, will take place over the weekend of August 20th to 22nd.  I’m pleased to be a guest at the Con along with GOH, Marie Bilodeau, and several other Ottawa SF luminaries.  If you will be in the Ottawa area and have an interest in speculative fiction or writing of any kind or just feel in the mood for something fun and different, I encourage you to attend.  SF Cons are a great bargain for your entertainment dollar!

The Con opens at 5pm on Friday at the Travelodge Hotel on Carling.

My schedule:

Friday, 6pm, Time to Write: – how should a writer manage his/her time?  Yes, you want to write, but when? Writers talk about time management and tips to get going on the days you really don't feel like you can.

At 7pm, I’ll be attending the book launch of Marie’s new novel, Destiny’s Blood.

Friday, 9 pm, How to Prepare your Manuscript for the Market: -- This discusses the long (and sometimes arduous) process that a *completed* manuscript
must undergo before it is published and reaches the local bookstore.  From editing to sales pitches, from finding an Agent to release timing, this covers all
the tasks that authors usually are unaware of -- but are needed before a book reaches the bookstore's shelves.

Saturday, 11am Reading: I’ll be reading some of my short fiction.

Saturday, 5pm   Book Launch of my new Novel, Stealing Home

Sunday, 10 am Writers’Workshop with the inimitable Matthew Johnson.

And, of course, I’ll be around for all the other fun events that the Con has to offer.

Anyone who wants to attend my Book Launch but won’t be attending the rest of the Con ($40 at the door), you should let me know by Thursday so I can make arrangements for your admittance.
 

The Joy of Bookstores

07/18/2010

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Anyone who has ever been to my house will not be surprised to know that I love books.  My personal library generally runs between one and two thousand volumes – and would be a lot bigger if it were not for my frequent moves and life changes.  However, unlike some book lovers I know, I also like bookstores – preferably ones that sell nothing but books.  Other than antiquarian book dealers and a few independents, that type of bookstore is pretty rare in North America.  While I understand the business pressures that require bookstores to stock candles and chocolates, games and DVDs, it actually diminishes my pleasure in shopping there.  Which is why I mostly shop at Chapters on-line.

Venturing into the anchor store of Blackwell Books in Oxford, England was, therefore, a real treat.  Other than a small coffee and tea shop for weary browsers, the entire 4 floors (over 150,000 books on seven miles of shelves) of this local landmark was devoted to books.  Blackwell is a chain in the UK (and also a publisher of educational texts) and I can’t attest to the quality of their other stores but I spent 90 happy minutes and (and over 100 pounds) wandering from shelf to shelf – without even getting to half their sections.  A combination of University and generalist bookstore, you can pretty much find anything that suits your fancy.  I bought a collection of short essays about France between the wars written by Joseph Roth, a biography of Paul Dirac, a novel by Australian Stephen Toltz, recommended to me by a lovely Aussie woman, named Mary, whom I had met in Tuscany and several others.  And when I checked out they actually apologized for making me wait while they served the one person in front of me.

A few days later, I dropped into another famous bookstore, this time Shakespeare and Company in Paris.  Though not the original store founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, it has its own significant literary provenance which you can read about here.  The store was crammed to the gunnels with all sorts of literature, with large sections devoted to poetry and, of course, the ex-patriot community who hung out there in the 1920s.  The only non-book item in sight were book bags, being sold to fund libraries in third world countries.  Apparently there are sleeping quarters above the store for young writers to stay at.  They pay their rent by working a few hours at the store.  Any takers?
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