This past Friday night I joined two great Canadian writers for a public reading as part of the Leacock Summer Festival in Orillia. The festival is Ontario’s largest summer literary gathering and this year’s edition was another great success.
The Friday night program was held at Swanmore Hall, just steps away from the home of Stephen Leacock. Scott Gardiner, who was shortlisted for this year’s Leacock Medal, opened the program with a reading from his hilarious political satire, King John. This is a wonderful book made even better by Scott’s outstanding reading. Reading aloud is not easy but when it’s done well, the story comes alive. Next on the bill was Drew Hayden Taylor, a very funny aboriginal writer who certainly knows how to handle himself at the microphone. He had the audience in stitches reading from a selection of his works including his newest book Me Sexy.
I spoke third, which was a little intimidating given how much laughter Scott and Drew triggered. The capacity crowd seemed to enjoy the four brief selections I read. All in all, it was a great evening. Thanks to Fred Addis and Bruce Meyer, the festival organizers, for inviting me. This was a good warm up for the many other speaking and reading gigs that are being lined up for me in the fall when TBLP is re-released by McClelland & Stewart.
Well after several months of debating with myself, I broke down today and bought the Sony Reader PRS-505. I love books and reading so much that I wanted to experience how we might be reading and storing books in the future. This little device uses very cool electronic ink technology that makes the experience almost like reading regular ink on paper. What’s more, no power is consumed after the page appears on the screen, and only a small amount of power is used to turn the pages. In fact, a full battery charges gives you 7500 page turns (or more than 20 readings of TBLP!). I’ve already downloaded several books from the Sony eBook Store. The device holds about 160 full-length books in its memory. With the slick insertion of a standard SD card, you can literally carry thousands of books with you in this slim, sleek, and light little wonder. I’ve only had this new toy for a couple of hours so I can hardly offer a well-informed review, but I’ll keep you posted.
About a month ago, the good folks at CEO TV shot a segment about TBLP and my day job as a PR professional. They also sent a camera crew up to Orillia for the Leacock Award weekend to help round out the segment. Well, it aired nationally on Global a week or so ago and in case you need a laugh, you can watch it here…
I’ve just returned from the family cottage on Georgian Bay where I’ve just spend two weeks offline with my family. It was wonderful despite an unusually high mosquito count. I read several books, swam, slept, ate, and watched movies at night with my two sons. It was strange being completely discounted for two weeks (although my BlackBerry worked sporadically if I stood at the highest point on our property and stuck my BB in the air like the Statue of Liberty’s torch) but I managed. My in-laws arrived from Nova Scotia and we had a great visit. We saw some wildlife when we dropped off our recycling one day and my mother-in-law took this great shot.
We also took them on a day trip to Orillia to visit the Stephen Leacock Museum. Here are a couple of shots showing me sitting in Leacock’s library and the display in the Leacock Medal Room showcasing books and artifacts from the 61 year history of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
I’ll be back to Orillia on July 25th to do a public reading at the Summer Leacock Festival. I have to read for 30 minutes so I’ll need to decide which sections to present. My heart rate is slightly elevated already.
Stay tuned for more information about all the events I’ll be doing in the fall to coincide with the release of the McClelland & Stewart edition of TBLP.
After a very eventful yet wonderful spring, I’m off to the cottage for two weeks with my wife and two sons for our summer vacation. I’m looking forward to reading and continuing my fledgling efforts to map out the sequel to TBLP. In the meantime, the M&S edition of TBLP is well into the production process now. The cover design is complete, cover copy is approved, and the book layout, all 314 pages or so of it, is done. I met earlier this week with the publicity team that will be doing all they can to make sure copies of TBLP fly off bookstore shelves in October. I’ll be doing a number of speaking/reading gigs to support the novel including the Ottawa International Writers Festival and the Headwaters Arts Festival in Orangeville. There’s apparently an article about, and/or review of TBLP podcast coming out this weekend in the Hamilton Spectator written by Mark Leslie Lefebvre. I hope to be able to read it just before packing up the minivan and heading up the 400 to Twelve Mile Bay.
(Update: In fact, two Mark Leslie Lefebvrearticles ran. You’ll find the TBLP podcast review article here and a second interesting piece here on how independent authors are using podcasts to build an audience adn break through into traditional publishing. Nice job Mark and thanks!)
By the way, a segment on Global Television’s CEO TV about yours truly and TBLP will air Saturday, July 5th at 11:30 a.m. You should also be able to catch it on the CEO TV website by Monday, July 7th.
I’ll check in as soon as we’re back. (I’m not sure how I’ll survive offline for two weeks but I’m looking forward to trying…)
My wife, two sons and I have just returned from Orillia, Ontario where we’ve spent the weekend attending a number of events surrounding the Leacock Medal for Humour. It was a wonderful time spent with the incredibly warm and welcoming people who manage one of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious literary awards. I was presented with the Leacock Medal at an amazing dinner for about 250 people at the Geneva Park Conference Centre on shore of beautiful Lake Couchiching. As is tradition, I spoke for about half an hour trying to strike the right humourous-serious balance. I think it went well. Before and after the dinner my time was spent inscribing books. Don Ross, the owner of the great local bookstore, Manticore Books, took care of selling 65 copies of TBLP while I handled the signing.
The medal itself is amazing. The photo above doesn’t do it justice. It’s solid silver and shines like it’s emitting, and not just reflecting, light. It was quite simply one of the high points in my life so far.
To top it all off, the whole family sat in the Toronto Dominion Bank Comfort Zone, four leather arm chairs, at field level along the first base line for the Toronto Blue Jays - Baltimore Orioles game this afternoon. At one point we looked and found ourselves on the Jumbotron. My ever-resourceful son Calder took this photo.
Here’s the new cover from Douglas Gibson and the great creative team at McClelland & Stewart. I love it. I really like the way the Globe and Mail quotation free forms its way around the cover. I also think the wordplay on “Plans” with the “s” scrunched in at the end because of bad planning, is great. I think it will be difficult for bookstore patrons to walk by this cover, and that’s the whole point. It says satire and humour more effectively than the original cover. Plus, the prominently placed Leacock Medal doesn’t hurt either. Full steam ahead…
My friend and fellow writer Mark Leslie Lefebvre just wrote an article for Canadian Bookseller magazine about the rise of free podcasting as a way of building a pre-publication audience for a book. This is the approach I tried out with TBLP. The TBLP podcast was up and available in its entirety many months before the novel was ever published in print. I’m convinced the interest and community engendered through the podcast really helped when TBLP finally became an actual book. The article is interesting and foreshadows possible changes in the world of traditional publishing as more and more authors employ social media tools like blogging and podcasting to drive interest and build audiences. Thanks for the profile Mark!
On a whim last fall, I submitted TBLP to the Independent Publisher Book Awards in the U.S. in the regional category, Canada-East Fiction. Well many months later, the results were finally announced today. As if winning the Leacock Medal weren’t enough good news, TBLP just won the gold medal. Known as the “Ippy” awards, they recognize excellence in independent publishing, including self-publishing. Now that TBLP will be published by McClelland & Stewart in the fall, and I hope any subsequent books I may write, this may be the only independent Publisher Book Award I’ll ever win.
All of this seems too good to be true. I sure hope I’m not in for a run of bad luck…
Welcome to terryfallis.com where award-winning novelist Terry Fallis blogs about his writing life and podcasts his first novel, The Best Laid Plans, winner of the 2008 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour.
