Reading the car park hours
Thanks so much to everyone who came out to VPL last night for the Incite reading. It was a great, lively night and I loved reading with Tamara Faith Berger and Ben Wood. I am just about to crack Tamara’s book Maidenhead. I hugely admired Tamara’s reading. We had a great exchange about writing and thinking and so on. Ben also told me fun tales about when he was a singer/songwriter. One thing he said that stayed with me was a description of trying to persuade someone you really know will like a particular album to listen to it and the resistance therein. Great stories into the small hours. I managed to get my car locked in the car park which in turn became another story. Thank you to the very kind nightwatchman who helped me.
Malarky reading @ Incite (VPL) March 21, 2012
I am looking forward very much to reading from Malarky, along with Tamara Faith Berger (Maidenhead) and Ben Wood (The Bellwhether Revivals), at the Vancouver International Writers Festival’s reading series Incite.
The reading will take place on March 21, 2012 at 7.30pm in the Alice McKay room at the Vancouver Public Library. Admission is free.
Malarky will be for sale and I will be happy to sign copies.
Thanks a million to VIWF for inviting me. I’m glad to be returning to the Alice McKay room, where we had our Taxi! and Crossings events, of which I still have such strong, warm memories and am excited to meet both authors and learn about their work.
Crossings: a return Dec 1, 2010
Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the event I organized last night at the Vancouver Public Library, Crossings: a return.
I’m extremely grateful to the readers Julie Okot Bitek, Annabel Lyon, Claudia Casper, Renee Rodin, Lori Weidenhammer for their support and enthusiasm in this ongoing adventure of ours, their contributions were so thoughtful, considered, and engaging, alongside beautifully delivered readings from the novel and one of Betty’s plays
We were honoured to have Betty Lambert’s family at the event and a special thank you to Betty’s daughter Ruth-Ann Lambert and Betty’s sister Dorothy who (impromptu) shared such moving stories about Betty.
When I conceived of this event I could never have imagined what took place. I continue to be struck by how the dynamic of multiple writers engaging, considering and reading from the same book affords us a rich and fruitful engagement with the text. Last night’s event was about the reading of literature, it sprung from the absent minded grab of a book on the Reference shelf on the first floor of VPL, back whenever it was (likely recorded on this blog) and to have my enthusiasm for the book translate into what took place and was shared last night was so uplifting and I am v grateful to everyone who came out to the event.
Crossings is an astonishing novel, I hope readers discover it or rediscover it and I hope it’s returned to print shortly whether digital or paper.
BC Books Online
Ha! This looks very promising. A new initiative between our public libraries, publishers and schools called BC Books Online. Read more about it here
BC Books Online is collaboration between publishers and libraries to purchase electronic rights to a collection of non-fiction books by BC publishers and to make them accessible through public, school, and post-secondary libraries. It is the first time ever that publishers and libraries have come together with the objective to deliver digital content to an entire province.
Now my main question is can we see a list of the proposed titles? I am v curious to see what is included. It appears to be only non-fiction. Could a similar proposal be made to acquire digital rights to some of the buried fiction and novels that are out of print and where there are no longer circulating library copies.
It dawned on me today how to improve the current library collection.
I regularly find books in the Canadiana reference section and then discover there are no circulating copies when I try to borrow them. Sometimes if I look online the books are for sale on abe or where-ever, therefore I am going to keep a list of what’s out of circ. and if I find a copy for sale on a used books site submit a request that the library purchase it.
I am not entirely hopeful, but I think the collection should have as many of these books in circulation as is possible, even if it is only single copies. It seems vital to me to update what’s missing and am surprised this hasn’t been done til now.
I have this idealism that the public should be able to access literature, especially local literature, and the collection should not become depleted because of wear and tear and disappearing copies back in the 1980’s.