BOOK TRAILER: @clairecameron revisits her truck stop tour for the ebook launch of The Line Painter cc: @kobo

I love an author who celebrates the launch of an ebook by revisiting one of the truck stops on her tour for the original paper version to ask which edition truckers prefer: p or e? Claire Cameron has done just this for her novel The Line Painter, which I devoured in one sitting. Maybe you should too?

Brainstorming, book trailers, and what it means for authors to put themselves on the line and at the centre of their own book promotion—there's a lot to discuss here.

Buy The Line Painter at Kobo.

(As a complete aside, I flew in last night from Winnipeg and upon take-off the flight attendant approached two women reading side-by-side. She gestured to the woman reading from a pbook and said, "You can keep reading." Then she gestured to the woman reading on a Kobo ereader and said, "But you have to turn off your book.")

Live-to-Chat: Nick Crowe (A Cold Night for Alligators) cc: @randomhouseca

The Intangiview: Anne Giardini (@UnlessbyShields) #canadareads

intangible: imprecise or unclear to the mind interview: discuss formally for the purpose of an evaluation intangiview: an imprecise discussion for the informal purpose of good times

This week, I'm shining a spotlight on Canada Reads contenders Angie Abdou, Terry Fallis, Ami McKay and Anne Giardini, acting on behalf of her mother, Carol Shields (Unless) but answering as herself.

 Next up: ANNE GIARDINI (THE SAD TRUTH ABOUT HAPPINESS and ADVICE FOR ITALIAN BOYS) 

Q: What was the last book you saw someone else reading?

Anne: I Wonder, by Marian Bangjes.

Q: What sound most terrifies you?

Anne: The sound of a man crying.

Q: What sound most humours you?

Anne: The sound of conversation around a table, with glasses and dishes also making the sounds they do when being used.

Q: What sound most impresses you?

Anne: The SFU pipe band, particularly the drummers.

Q: What sound do you most often parrot, or aspire to parrot?

Anne: The sound of someone talking intelligently.

Q: If I asked you to write a short story featuring this image, would you first ask questions of it? (If so, what questions would you ask?) Or have you already arrived at the ending, in which case, what’s the outline for your story?


Anne: My Husband’s Wife’s Cats. A story from the perspective of a second wife about her husband’s cats, which belonged to his first wife, and which the second wife hates. The second wife (she thinks of herself in this term) gradually comes to see that the husband, a writer, who manifests love for them, in fact loathes them and every gesture he makes toward them is fueled by underlying almost concealed bile. Then, again over time, the second wife becomes aware that her husband pets and dotes on her in the same way that he pets and dotes on the cats.  She escapes from the house one evening after a tense discussion capable of various interpretations but which strikes her as menacing. She gets to the next town in her small Smart car, but goes back to the house to take the cats away with her.  To retrieve the third, she has to climb a heavily loaded bookshelf, which breaks and the wood and books and part of the ceiling falls on her and the three cats, which are, however, able to leap out of the way.

Q: What knowledge have you gained about the publishing industry as a result of your participation in Canada Reads?

Anne: For me, as my mother’s daughter, being involved in Canada Reads has reminded me that publishers provide us with books, and that books are cultural goods that are quite different from most things we can be said to consume. Books provoke thoughts and strong feelings and loyalty of all different kinds. Readers identify with books in what can be a fervid or tribal manner. I know myself to be highly competitive, but I do not feel at all competitive about Canada Reads. I do not at all see this as a competition in the traditional sense. One of my favourite sayings is that a rising tide floats all boats, and that is the effect I believe this program has for Canadian books and writers.

Q: Looking at the below picture, is there one emotion that stands out more than another?


Anne: Mostly I was pleased for the other writers, who seem very talented and deserving of having their works recognized. It was too busy a moment to be missing my mother, although I heard a piece of her advice to me from time to time in my left ear: "Be serene."

Q: Outside of your home, what’s the one place you frequent most to refuel?

Anne: The house my mother and father bought some years ago in France. My siblings and I have all taken our families there for years and we just adore it. It isn’t glamorous, but it is in a beautiful location in Burgundy (near the "3." if France were a clock). Population 1,460.

The street (Chemin de Linde) is very short with only a few houses on it. The house is identifiable because it has two flower pots high up on the stuccoed wall that usually have geraniums in them (rather spindly geraniums).

There is a very short driveway beside the house that leads to a garage that we don’t own but you can park in front of the garage in the driveway. No one uses it other than us and we (seem to?) have a right of way on the driveway.

When I am there, every atom of my body is happy and at peace. Even the skin on my arms. Especially the skin on my arms. I feel as if the air there is a kind of embrace.

Q: There’s a lot of humour in your novel The Sad Truth About Happiness. Outside of your own writing, what’s your favourite kind of humour? Is it text-based or performed? Silent comedy or outrageous pratfall? Pistol-like pun or wandering anecdote? A joke you can repeat or something “you had to be there for?”

Anne: Isn’t humour absolutely the glue that holds us together? It must prevent more crimes hourly than any threats or sanctions can do. And pity the poor sap who has been born without or lost the knack of laughing at herself. Text and spoken aloud both work well for me. I love a funny scene or smart line, but wit above all, and quick wit even above that. I know a few people who have that gift and I am entirely in their thrall. One of them told me once that I am the best kind of audience because I forget a punch line and so it can be reused and I will laugh anew every time. I would like to like pratfalls, and I do see abstractly that they are funny, but it is the wit that gets me and not the clown.

Q: "Do what interests you. Find time to do something you absolutely love. Do whatever you choose to do as well as you possibly can. Don't just start projects, complete them. Take yourself lightly and the world a bit more seriously. That is probably the sum total of what I know about happiness."—Anne Giardini, Globe and Mail, March 28, 2009

You came to law unexpectedly, and storytelling quite naturally. If you were to start any new projects, a long term relationship with another practise, do you know what it would be and why?

Anne: Likely it would be writing plays or screenplays. I watch so little TV and so few movies that I am not at all bored by them, in fact, I am often captivated by images. I would interested in writing for a more visual medium. A weekly hourlong series set on the west coast would be a fascinating new project.

Q: Do you have a distinct memory of when weather played an important character in your life?

Anne: I remember waking up on October 16, 1987 in my dorm room in Cambridge UK feeling as if cotton wool were in my ears. My room seemed saturated in silence and I realized that there must have been quite a lot of noise that had just come to an end. I opened the curtains and saw the devastation left by a storm in the night, including a massive oak that had fallen; one of its branches, much more massive than an automobile, lay less than a metre from my window. I could not believe that I had slept through the storm. I still regret missing it all.

Another memory is from when my family lived on the Breton coast when I was 15 and 16. My father drove me each day to my lycee in a nearby city and on the way we would listen, in French or English, to the weather reports. The phrase "Beaufort scale" always takes me back to those cozy drives to that school I loathed.

Q: Outside of writing, what art forms do you participate in? And which art forms do you admire most in others?

Anne: I do cook and not badly, although I take shortcuts such as using a mandolin to cut onions and a little gadget from Lee Valley to chop garlic. I like to cook for a dozen people and then start or incent a good discussion. I sing very badly, but to sing well would be a joy I might give a limb for. I am chair of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival, and so I go to quite a few readings, and sometimes lead panels. Lately I have been more interested in dance. Ballet BC does some fascinating work. And I admire art of all kinds enormously and love going to galleries. A recent passion is Brian Jungen.

Twitter: @UnlessbyShields

Follow along with Canada Reads at www.cbc.ca/canadareads.

The Intangiview: Ami McKay @SideshowAmi (The Birth House) #canadareads

intangible: imprecise or unclear to the mind interview: discuss formally for the purpose of an evaluation intangiview: an imprecise discussion for the informal purpose of good times

This week, I'm shining a spotlight on Canada Reads contenders Angie Abdou, Terry Fallis, Ami McKay and Anne Giardini, acting on behalf of her mother, Carol Shields, but answering as herself.

Next up: AMI MCKAY (THE BIRTH HOUSE)

Q: What was the last book you saw someone else reading?

Ami: Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.

Q: What sound most terrifies youl?

Ami: A train whistle, especially if I can’t see the train or the tracks. It makes me think of George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life and of dreams not coming true.

Q: What sound most humours you?

Ami: Trombone with Harmon mute. I was eleven years old when I figured it out. Oh, Charles Schulz. Oh, laughter behind the teacher’s back. Oh, giggles and bliss.

Q: What sound most impresses you?

Ami: Mavis Staples singing, “Hard Times Come Again No More.”

Q: What sound do you most often parrot, or aspire to parrot?

Ami: I tend to express random bits of emotion through singing rather than speaking: “Love it . . .” “Hate-ful.” “Girl-friend.” I picked up the habit (and learned to be brave) from boys who danced to New Order, wiped my tears and gave me Cher hair.

Q: If I asked you to write a short story featuring this image, would you first ask questions of it? (If so, what questions would you ask?) Or have you already arrived at the ending, in which case, what’s the outline for your story?

Ami: As wonderful as bottom shelf kitty is, second shelf kitty is the one that gets me thinking. That cat is a lion. He’s one of a pair of lion statues that grace the front steps of the New York Public Library at Bryant Park. He’s got a mane that doesn’t stop. He comes alive at night and prowls through the stacks, pawing books off the shelves that he thinks will make the world a better place. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, How the Other Half Lives, Leaves of Grass, The Complete Works of Shakespeare—laid open to the St. Crispin’s Day speech in Henry V.

But he’ll remember, with advantages, what feats he did that day.

Q: As an author, what knowledge have you gained both about the publishing industry and yourself as a result of your participation in Canada Reads?

Ami: I don’t know if any of these things have to do with Canada Reads, but they’re all lessons I’ve learned in the last little while.

1. No matter how hard I try to distill important thoughts and ideas down to tweets, I always end up getting distracted by things that don’t fuel my craft. Sure, it’s fun to be cheeky or clever or even profound in 140 characters, but to what end? Twitter brain is not good for writing novels.


2. Start every day by saying “thank you.” Then you can begin to ask questions.


3. Wait as long as it takes for honesty to arrive.


4. Make sure content = meaning. 


5. Make sure everything = meaning.


6. The best writing comes when I’m willing to fight for it.


7. Take care of your teeth, multiple root canals suck.

Q: What’s going on in this picture? In fact, if you could pitch rhubarb Canada Reads style, what is it about rhubarb that all of Canada should know?

Ami: I am so f-in impressed by rhubarb—the speed of its growth, the subtle variation of colour in the stalks, the velvety largeness of its leaves, the fact that it is food and poison all at once. The crowns in my yard were there long before I arrived and by all local accounts they are older than me. The buds look so freakish, otherworldly, sexual, when they emerge from the ground in the spring. Why does everything have to be a contest? This is not a pitch. This is truth. Rhubarb is, quite simply, glorious. God, I’d swoon if someone compared me to rhubarb.

Q: Outside of your home, what’s the one place you frequent most to refuel?

Ami: Memory. (Is there a Google pin for that?)

Q: How did you get the nickname Steampunk? (*TING*)

Ami: An online pal I’ve never met (we really need to change that, J) once said to me, “See you on the other side, Steampunk.”

I like it. I think I’ll keep it.

(I’m more steampunk in sensibility than in every day practice . . . but, I do have a few choice accessories that make me Fin de Siècle-happy.)

Q: Your writing studio is in the loft of your barn. What other stories inhabit the barn?

Ami: Bat stories. Loads and loads of tales starring bats.

Q: Do you have a distinct memory of when weather played an important character in your life? Maybe a particular day or event?

Ami: My first summer of graduate school in Indiana, we had a month (maybe more?) of drought. When rain finally arrived, the dust gave up its hold on the streets in thousands of angry little bursts of dirt. The rainfall came down so hard and steady, I bet my roommate I could lean over the railing of our front porch and wash my hair. I didn’t know it at the time, but the woman who lived next door to us was watching. The next day she knocked on the door and said, “I just wanted to meet the girl who washes her hair in the rain.”

Q: Outside of writing, what art forms do you participate in? And which art forms do you admire most in others?

Ami: I’ve been making and writing music for most of my life. Every few years I pick up a new instrument just to see if what I can do with it. (Celtic harp, didgeridoo, tin whistle.) I’m thinking accordion, next.

I have a burning desire to take flamenco dance lessons. Everything about the art form appeals to me. I’d sing in the band. I’d stomp and clap and throw haughty looks across the room. The skirts, the shoes, oh, yes.

Q: Would you do us the honour of trying a doodle of one of the following? Eraser. Horseshoe. Potato Chips.

Follow Ami on Twitter: @SideshowAmi

Visit Ami at www.amimckay.com.

Follow along with Canada Reads at www.cbc.ca/canadareads.

The Intangiview: @TerryFallis (The Best Laid Plans) #canadareads

intangible: imprecise or unclear to the mind interview: discuss formally for the purpose of an evaluation intangiview: an imprecise discussion for the informal purpose of good times

This week, I'm shining a spotlight on Canada Reads contenders Angie Abdou, Terry Fallis, Ami McKay and Anne Giardini, acting on behalf of her mother, Carol Shields, but answering as herself.

Next up: TERRY FALLIS (THE BEST LAID PLANS)

Q: What was the last book you saw someone else reading?

Terry: I was on a bus yesterday in Toronto and sitting in front of me was a young woman reading what was clearly a library book. It was Ami McKay’s The Birth House. I immediately contacted Ami through Twitter to let her know. She was thrilled.

Q: What sound most terrifies you, both natural and artificial?

Terry: The middle-of-the-night mechanized roar of the street cleaner as it approaches and then howls past my bedroom window (a childhood fear with staying power). On the natural side of the ledger, an unexpected crack of thunder does the trick.

Q: What sound most humours you, both natural and artificial?

Terry: A baby blasting a burp can always put a smile on my face. The opening music of a favourite sitcom.

Q: What sound most impresses you, both natural and artificial?

Terry: The thunder of Niagara Falls is very impressive. As for artificial, I’ve always been impressed with, as Douglas Adams once said, “the whooshing sound a deadline makes as it goes by.”

Q: What sound do you most often parrot, or aspire to parrot, both natural and artificial?

Terry: I can do a pretty good simulated page-ripping sound, which is a wonderful skill for an occasionally frustrated writer. I aspire to parrot the sound of Stephen Fry in full rhetorical flight. (I don’t know whether that’s a natural or artificial sound, but I’d sure like to be able to “do it”.)

Q: If I asked you to write a short story featuring this image, would you first ask questions of it? (If so, what questions would you ask?) Or have you already arrived at the ending, in which case, what’s the outline for your story?

Terry: A young taxidermist sparks a worldwide craze when he uses his two beloved late cats as bookends in his library. A photograph runs in a leading international design magazine and the young cat-loving taxidermist is inundated with orders from around the world. He never takes another vacation, yet he is happy. Two recently-acquired kittens bat around a ball of yarn at his feet, as he goes about his work. To protect them from the shock, he wisely does not allow his new kittens up on the workbench.

Q: As an author, what knowledge have you gained about the publishing industry as a result of your participation in Canada Reads?
 

Terry: I’ve certainly learned that Canada Reads sells books. My humble novel is now in its fifth printing and the cover is now emblazoned with the Canada Reads logo. How wonderful and unexpected is that? The opportunity to meet the other authors, defenders, booksellers, publishers, and avid readers has been amazing. As an enthusiastic participant in the world of social media, it’s been fun to be involved with the online Canada Reads community. I have really enjoyed the connections I’ve made on Twitter and the blogs. I just hope I actually get to meet them all, just to put the “social” in “social media.”
 

Q: Below is an image of your home library. But it’s the guitar I want to ask about. I’m a newbie and still haven’t earned my callouses. I need convincing. If you could pitch the guitar Canada Reads style, why should Canadians learn to play the guitar over the piano, the recorder, or any other instrument?

Terry: I’ve been playing guitar and writing songs since I was 17 y ears old. While there’s one guitar in the photo, we have about seven in the house! It has always been a good friend to me. When I backpacked through Europe as a university student, I had a guitar with me. I played in a band while at university and our lead singer then was Andy Maize, who is the co-founder and lead singer in the Skydiggers. I really love the guitar in the photo. It’s a Yamaha acoustic-electric guitar that is very comfortable to play and never goes out of tune. Whenever I hit a rough patch in my writing, I’ll take two steps to my left and pick up that guitar. I’ll play familiar songs or work on a new one for a few minutes, and it calms me down. Eventually, I’ll head back to my desk and my laptop to resume writing, feeling restored. I’ve always really loved the harmonic, melodic, expressive sound of a guitar. My twin brother was a better piano player than I, so I wanted to try a different instrument. The guitar was an easy choice. It’s portable, sounds wonderful, and worked very well in youth hostels across Europe in bridging the language barrier. My guitars have always been there and, I expect, always will be.

Q: Outside of your home, what’s the one place you frequent most to refuel?

Terry: While I know it may not be fashionable to admit it, I really like Starbucks (there, I said it). I have never consumed a cup of coffee in my entire life. I have just never acquired the taste. But I’m kind of addicted to the hot chocolate at Starbucks (tall, no-whip). I really like the vibe there. I was sitting by myself in a local Starbucks, using their free wifi on my iPad, when I discovered that The Best Laid Plans had made it to the Canada Reads Top 10 List. I’ll never forget that. Nobody else in the place knew , but I did. Of course they may have wondered why this guy was grinning maniacally at his iPad.

Q: There’s a lot of humour woven throughout your book. Outside of your own writing, what’s your favourite kind of humour? Is it text-based or performed? Silent comedy or outrageous pratfall? Pistol-like pun or wandering anecdote? A joke you can repeat or something “you had to be there for?”

Terry: Hmm . . . tough question. I’d have to say I enjoy thoughtful, higher-end, intelligent humour that is housed in brilliant prose. Think John Irving, Stephen Fry or Paul Quarrington. I think it’s the hardest kind of humour to create, which may be why I find it the most satisfying to consume. Having said that, my humour predisposition is broad and welcoming. Thoughtful word play? Love it. Slapstick? Love it too. Bathroom humour? Bring it on . . .

Q: You’ve ambitiously recorded both The Best Laid Plans and The High Road as podcasts. Tell us a bit about your recording process? Do you have any tips for fellow podcasters?

Terry: I really enjoyed the podcasting process, though it is time consuming. It probably takes me about three hours to record, edit, produce, and post a 30-minute chapter episode. I start by reading the chapter into my Samsung Zoom H4 digital recorder using an Apex condenser radio-style microphone. If I mess up a sentence, which happens, oh, every third sentence or so, I keep the recorder going and simply repeat the sentence. In the end, I’m left with a raw MP3 file that’s about 40 minutes long. Then I edit in Audacity, a free audio-mixing program. In the editing process, I take out all my throat clearing, mess-ups, telephone rings, family interruptions, etc. and add in the music that opens and closes each episode. Then I upload the resulting MP3 file to my podcast hosting service and iTunes and my blog pick it up from there.

 As for tips, make sure you’re speaking into the right side of the microphone. I’ve recorded at least two chapters reading into the backside of the condenser mic by mistake, forcing me to re-record. It sounded like I was reciting the novel from inside a fifty gallon oil drum.

Q: Do you have a distinct memory of when weather played an important character in your life? Maybe a particular day or event?

Terry: When my twin brother Tim and I were 14, we were on a canoe trip in Lake Temagami with the rest of our cabin mates from the wonderful but now long-gone boys camp, Camp White Bear. A massive and violent storm hit us on our last day and forced us to get off the lake and take cover (and I use the term “cover” loosely) on the side of a rocky slope that ran down into the lake. Unbeknownst to us, there was a small pond on the top of the slope. Lightning struck the pond on top six or seven times sending ground shocks down the rocky incline, on which we were huddled. We were bounced off the ground several times and many of us were knocked unconscious for a time. The wind was fierce, and wrenched our secured canoes right off the shore, sending them miles down the southwest arm of Lake Temagami to be recovered the next day. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared before or since. Eventually, a rescue boat found us s marooned on the shore. Everyone was fine in the end but I’ll certainly never forget the weather that day. Hmm. Maybe there’s a book in there somewhere . . .

Q: Outside of writing, what art forms do you participate in? And which art forms do you admire most in others?

Terry: I’ve probably written 25 or 30 songs in the last 35 years. One or two of them might even be listenable. In a moment of insanity, I actually included one of my songs on my Canada Reads playlist of songs that best reflect my novel. “The Cottage Song” as it is very creatively called really does capture the essence of The Best Laid Plans. I wrote it in the summer of 1985 while sitting on the dock of the cottage that a group of fellow political staffers and I rented on the Ottawa River as a weekend escape from our frenetic lives in the crucible of Parliament Hill. The song reflects the stresses of working in politics and how wonderful it was to decompress on the weekend on the shores of the Ottawa River. (It was recorded in 1987. I'm the less than stellar voice and guitar player, while my twin brother Tim sings the harmonies and plays piano. You now know why music has only ever been a hobby.)

Other than music, I really wish I could paint. I can’t even paint the outside of our house, let alone artistically on a canvas. I’m a great admirer of landscape artists who capture Canada in all its vast glory so we can hang it on our living room wall. I love the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson.

Q: Would you do us the honour of trying a doodle of one of the following? Eraser. Horseshoe. Potato Chips.

Terry: I’m about as artistic as a slug. So, I went with doodling an eraser. My only regret is that I couldn’t use the eraser I had “sketched” to wipe out the drawing itself.

Follow Terry on Twitter: @TerryFallis

Visit Terry at www.terryfallis.com.

Follow along with Canada Reads at www.cbc.ca/canadareads.