Books! Books! Books! Alberta Readers' Choice Panel

The past few days, theatre was taken over by books in my life! Certainly not a bad thing, as anyone who has been to my house could easily tell you that books and reading take up a huge part of my life. 

Saturday, I attended a Writer's Corner at the Jasper Place Library facilitated by Jason Lee Norman, EPL's Writer in Residence.  The panelists were the 4 Edmonton Authors whose books were 4/5 of the Current Alberta Readers' Choice Short List.  On hand were Todd Babiak (Come Barbarians), Theresa Shea (The Unfinished Child), Diana Davidson (Pilgrimage), and Michael Hingston (The Dilettantes).  Jason Lee Norman moderated the event and the panel answered questions about research, challenges, inspiration and how it feels to have your book nominated for this award. I was invited to speak as a reader of two of the books, Come Barbarians and Pilgrimage, as those were our first two #yegbookclub selections, and there were readers for the other two books to speak about those, as well.  It was great that the two books I had not yet read could be purchased that day, so I came home with two new books which both sounded like great reads and I got all my books signed by the authors! Can you say fangirl? All in all, it was a great afternoon activity.  I am hoping to get to a few more of the Writer's Corners at the EPL, and since the next one will feature Edmonton playwright, Chris Craddock, I figure that's a double-whammy of theatre and writing for me! The date is not set yet, but once I find out when that is, I will let you know! Voting is still open for the Alberta Readers' Choice Award so click the link and pick your choice.  There is also a 5th book by Calgary author Tyler Trafford - Almost a Great Escape. 

A note: for all you writers out there - it was mentioned that Jason Lee Norman's collection 40 Below: Volume 2 is still accepting submissions.  Check it out if you have a great winter story and submit!

Next post - more books - #yegbookclub number three!

#yegbookclub - On April 14th we talked about Pilgrimage by Diana Davidson

This past Monday I was joined on twitter to discuss the latest #yegbookclub selection, Pilgrimage, by Diana Davidson.  It was a lively discussion that grew as more people joined in and we were even visited by the author who shared some answers to questions about the book.  If you haven't had a chance to read it, I recommend, particularly if you are interested in early Alberta history.  The book takes place in the 1890s in and around Lac St. Anne and Fort Edmonton and bravely tells the stories of several women of different social situations and cultural backgrounds. Themes of pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood are strongly woven into the tapestry of the Northern new frontier.  As well, the challenges of clashing cultures is explored from more than one point of view. It has moments of passion and sadness and offers a unique look into our present location as it was. It made me reflect on how things are today and how some things have changed greatly, but other things not nearly as much as you would think. If you want to follow the conversation use the tags #yegbookclub and #Pilgrimage to search the message stream.

The next #yegbookclub selection is (drum roll please)...

Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofmiuk

The book already has a bit of a pedigree:
WINNER – City of Edmonton Book Prize
FINALIST – Georges Bugnet Award for Novel
NOMINEE 2011 – International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
A Richard and Judy Book Club pick for fall 2010
Picked as one of Richard and Judy’s “100 Books of the decade”
A #1 Edmonton Journal Bestseller
An Amazon.ca Best Book of 2009

The next Book Club will be On Monday, May 26.  I am bumping the time to 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. as several of our participants had to leave in the middle to put kids to bed. Hopefully this helps out! There is a flexibility to the Club that I am hoping allows everyone who wants to participate to join in. I will again make a list of prompts to help guide the discussion, but really, the beauty is that you can talk about whatever you want!

I hope to see you all there!

#yegBookClub - Off to a Great Start!

Last Monday night, I poured myself a glass of wine and prepared a small plate of cheese and crackers and settled in for the first #yegBookClub on twitter.  Our book was Todd Babiak's Come Barbarians, and it was a great start to what I hope will be an oft-repeated activity. 

I pulled some of the discussion and wrote a Storify - so if you are not on twitter and want to get a sense of what the discussion was like you can check it out here. Metro News also did a story on it and you can find that here.

For me, it was a great way to dive back into reading.  I read a lot, but lately I have been grabbing a snippet or two before I drift off to sleep and having a purpose at the end of the book made me have a much more engaged read.  I was in Book Clubs in the past (years ago) and always loved the opportunity to discuss and share my feelings and opinions about characters and events.
What was really cool about this was talking about books with complete strangers who I could connect to by the virtue of the shared experience of the book.  Wow!  What a way to use twitter for engagement.

I hope that more people join for the next one and that this can become an ongoing thing. The beauty of twitter is that anyone can engage in the conversation.  There is no membership beyond participation, and even if you just want to follow the discussion, that is still being a part of it.  I like that we are starting with Edmonton authors, too.  Isn't it great to have homegrown artists whose work can be shared in the community?  That is not to say that all the participants on twitter are from Edmonton.  I know I had one friend from Calgary and one from Toronto join in the discussion. 

So on to the next #yegBookClub:

Book: Pilgrimage by Diana Davidson
When: Monday, April 14th at 8 p.m.
How: Read the book.  Log on to twitter.  Use #yegBookClub to tag your posts and to follow the discussion. Bring questions and comments and have fun.  I will provide some moderator points to keep us going if the conversation needs a boost (it's the former English teacher in me!). Feel free to pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and please, DO NOT clean your house or dress up or even feel you need to put on make-up. Join the Discussion!