I’m not quite sure how to process this, but it seems I’m a finalist for the Canadian Booksellers Association Author of the Year Libris Award. It’s an annual honour handed out by the independent booksellers to a “Canadian author of an outstanding literary work published in the previous year that makes a significant contribution to Canadian culture. The work must combine readability with strong sales. The author should be one who has offered strong support to the bookselling industry.” (There are lots of other Libris award categories but the graphic above just shows the first two.)

I certainly wouldn’t have thought I’d be a candidate for this, particularly when the other names in the running are Alice Munro, Will Ferguson, and Nancy Richler. (Since my great editor, Douglas Gibson, also edits Alice Munro, he’s quite excited about it all.) I have traveled the province, and sometimes the country, for readings, often supported by wonderful independent booksellers, but still, this is most unexpected. Needless to say, I’m shocked and thrilled at the same time. The awards are announced at a big dinner on June 3rd at the Toronto Congress Centre. I was actually the Emcee for this dinner last year. I don’t expect to be going anywhere near the stage this time around, but it sure is nice to be in such fine company on the shortlist. Perhaps I’ll get to meet Alice Munro. Now that would be cool…

I know how Cassie Stocks feels. Late last month, Cassie won the 2013 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for her debut novel, Dance, Gladys, Dance. I was there, too. The look on her face when her name was announced from the podium was priceless, and confirmed that she had no expectation of winning. I’m thrilled for her. I know what winning the Leacock Medal can mean to a writer. I hope that it buoys her writing and her book sales and leads her to more literary recognition, because she deserves it. Dance, Gladys, Dance is a wonderful, warm, funny, and heartfelt novel that I think Leacock himself would have enjoyed.

I was honoured to be a finalist again this year for Up and Down. But I was very happy for Cassie Stocks. Write on, Cassie…

If I were to utter the words “Canadian Literature” in your presence, what would spring to your mind? Of course the question is only relevant for those of you who did not run screaming from the room or nod off into a deep coma at the sound of that phrase. But for those of you handcuffed to your chairs and otherwise unable to escape my voice, what is conjured up by those two simple words? It is not a quantum leap in logic for you to think immediately of books. They might take some of you back to your high school English class, in a good way, or a bad way I suppose, depending on the curriculum of your day. Some of you may have come to CanLit later in life when the prospect of writing an essay was safely behind you. But whatever your own experience with CanLit might be, how could you not think of books when you hear the words Canadian Literature? It seems a reasonable response. But I wonder if any of you thought first of some of the striking settings in CanLit.

Canadian Literature is not just about words on a page. It’s also about places on a map, our map. When you live and read in a country as vast, diverse, even wild as ours, a sense of place is almost always important to the story. When you live and write in Canada, the land, the city, the town, the lakes, the rivers, the mountains, the prairies, the forests, the coasts, and every setting captured in between, shape our storytelling. How could they not? Canadian readers and writers are creatures of our country, of our surroundings, of our place.

We celebrate Canadian Literature in many different ways. We buy books. We stock our libraries with them. We read them, rave about them, and pass them on. We hand out awards for them. Sometimes we even turn them into movies, TV shows, or plays. But wait, there’s more.

Project Bookmark has given us a new way to experience CanLit. Bookmarks have been around for centuries. They help us find our place in the stories we read. Well, Project Bookmark also helps us find the places in the stories we read. In fact, it commemorates important landmarks and locations in Canadian Literature with fancy, inspiring, prose-filled plaques. What a wonderful and very tangible way to honour the Canadian stories we love and where they take us.

But these plaques haven’t written themselves and then magically sprouted at a dozen locations across the country to date. It takes what so many Canadian writers struggle to find (no, not an agent or publisher, but that’s true, too), money. And there it is. Money. And here comes the pitch.

I’m honoured to be a Project Bookmark “Page Turner” in the campaign to raise funds to erect more plaques in homage to the places in our country made famous in Canadian Literature. We need more funky plaques. And to get there, we need more “Page Turners.” Many more. So join the stampede and do your part to support Project Bookmark. We have a rich literary heritage in Canada and many more “storied” locations to recognize. So what does it take? Well, not much. You can be a Page Turner like me for a mere $20. That’s less than the cost of one of my novels. (Unless of course it’s been remaindered.) Anyway, it’s cheap at ten times the price! So head over now and help Project Bookmark bring our nation’s literature to life. And if you make your donation today, April 5th, your name will be thrown into a hat of modest proportions for a draw to win a copy of my latest novel, Up and Down. (And in case there’s any confusion, that is supposed to be an incentive to donate.)

(And if you were one of those who ran screaming from the room or lapsed into unconsciousness when I said “Canadian Literature” right off the top, I promise not to say it out loud again, if you become a “Page Turner.” On the other hand, I can’t speculate on how often I might harass you with the phrase if you don’t. The choice is yours. Now go!)

No word yet on casting but that will need to happen in the very near future along with location scouting and shoot scheduling and everything else that goes into creating a TV series. Fingers crossed and touch wood, but it seems that this might actually happen. (And it’s kind of cool to have it talked about in The Hollywood Reporter!)

Amanda Leduc and Allegra Young posing in solidarity.              

I tend to remember when I’ve been asked to take all of my clothes off and pose for a photographer. It hasn’t happened that often. So I vividly recall the day Amanda Leduc and Allegra Young contacted me many months ago. They asked if I’d consider posing naked for a calendar in support of PEN Canada. My first thought was that if they were hoping to raise money, there were probably better ways than publicly releasing a naked photo of me. Still, they persisted. Then I asked who else was going to be in the calendar sharing in this, um, exposure. I was heartened to hear the names of all the stellar writers who had already agreed. Vincent Lam, Dave Bidini, Yann Martel, Angie Abdou, Miranda Hill, Trevor Cole, just to name a few. This might be fun. Then I confirmed that there would be no group shot. I’m not sure I could have handled that. (Hell, I’m not sure I can handle what I’ve already agreed to handle!) So I said yes. How could I refuse? PEN is a great cause, an important cause. Besides, how could I look Angie Abdou or Vincent lam in the eye the next time we met at a festival knowing they agreed to doff their drawers but I hadn’t. My decision was also made easier because the photo shoot wouldn’t be for months. It seemed such a long way off back then. Well, here we are in early March, and the lens cap is about to come off followed quickly by my clothes. Man, the months whizzed by.

Since January, I’ve been on a diet. Despite earning nicknames like ‘Ribs’ and ‘Bones’ in my adolescence, for the last several years, I’ve been carrying around an extra 15 or so pounds. Okay, maybe 20. I’ve wanted to do something about it for years, but just never have. I can now report that the prospect of posing naked for a calendar was just the incentive I needed to start counting calories for the first time in my life. I’m not sure hearing a doctor say “You will have a heart attack in the next six months if you don’t lose 15 pounds” would have put me back on skim milk, but the Bare It For Books calendar certainly has. After seven weeks, I’m down nearly 12 pounds, and my triple chin is now a double. I’m hoping I’ll be a single, chin that is, by the time the photographer arrives. My friend Trevor Cole, Mr. February, lost 40 pounds(!) and posed with a strategically placed shovel, and I don’t mean resting over his shoulder. I’m not sure what I’ll use as my ‘prop of discretion.’ Perhaps a nearly-full-sized model of the space shuttle.

Of all the weird, wacky, and wonderful experiences this writing odyssey has granted in the last five years, and there have been many, none will be quite as weird, wacky, and I hope, wonderful as the great naked calendar caper. I really hope that down in the Annapolis Valley, my beloved mother-in-law does not plan to hang the calendar on her refrigerator.

Well, at least I’m Mr August. Most of Canada will be away on vacation that month and won’t be anywhere near a calendar. Probably wise.

But that’s not the whole story, lovely as it is so far. The kicker is that his late wife, Angeline Hango, won the third Leacock Medal for Humour back in 1949 for Truthfully Yours. I have a copy in my Leacock collection, and it is very funny. Apparently after this recognition, she never wrote again. It’s wonderful to have even a slight connection with the author of a Leacock Medal-winning book from more than 60 years ago.

I’m still happily very busy with readings and talks on my third novel, Up and Down, so the trick is to keep my butt in the chair in the time I have leftover and sustain the pace of my writing. I aim to complete one 5,000 word (approximately) chapter each week. Then I’ll  start back at the beginning to edit.  I’ll keep you posted.