You Haven’t Changed a Bit Launch at Audreys

The You Haven’t Changed a Bit launch last night at Audreys Bookstore attracted more than 50 enthusiastic short story lovers. Friends, family, and colleagues came out in support of Astrid Blodgett, who read her award-winning story, “Ice Break,” that was chosen for the Journey Prize Stories in 2012.

As ever, the wonderful owners and staff at Audreys were gracious hosts, providing a space full of books, chairs, and even a microphone for Astrid to make sure that everybody would hear her softer voice. The fun continued after the reading, with people enjoying wine and cheese and chocolate while Astrid signed book after book after book.

Richard Van Camp wasn’t able to make it to the launch last night, but he has finished reading the book and sent some enthusiastic words our way:

“Astrid Blodgett explores lives in flashpoint and innocence meeting regret forever in “You Haven’t Changed a Bit” (University of Alberta Press).  My favourite stories are ‘New Summer Dresses’ and ‘Ice Break.’ What a read. Congratulations, Astrid, on a collection I’ll be thinking of for a very long time. “

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Petroleum History Society’s Book of the Year: We Gambled Everything

Arne Nielsen’s memoir, We Gambled Everything: The Life and Times of an Oilman, has received the prestigious Book of the Year award by the Petroleum History Society. Arne received a congratulatory letter and an invitation to the awards ceremony on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 27 as a part of the PHS’s Annual Meeting at the Petroleum Club in downtown Calgary.

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Arne’s book has been on the Calgary Herald‘s Best seller list three times since its publication in November, 2011 and is available in EPUB and Kindle format.

There will be a book launch at the Calgary Petroleum Club (319 – 5th Street SW, Calgary) in the Trophy Lounge at 4:40 pm on Thursday, May 23rd.

Disinherited Generations Launch at the Provincial Archives

A very special event took place on April 12, 2013 at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. About 150 people celebrated the publication of Disinherited Generations: Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nations Women and their Descendants, by Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer, and the donation of the Indian Rights for Indian Women Collection to the Provincial Archives of Alberta.

From the opening Blessing to the closing words by Nellie Carlson, and with the participation of friends and family, the program had the perfect combination of tears and laughter, showing us all – some who were well aware of the battle and some who knew very little about it – what these remarkable women had to endure to regain rights for themselves and their children.

Special guests at the event were: Chief Bruneau, who welcomed us to his territory; Jim Robb, a lawyer who worked with Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer for this historic cause; The Hon. Anne McLellan; Muriel Stanley Venne and other leaders in the native community, and many members of Nellie and Kathleen’s families. Gillian Rutherford of CBC Radio ensured that the event was recorded for posterity.

The families of the authors gifted Linda Goyette with a Pendleton Blanket to honour her contributions to the publication of this important oral history book.

The staff at the Archives were key to the success of the celebration, and special thanks go out to Provincial Archivist Leslie Latta-Guthrie and Jaclyn Landry for their support and hard work. The Archives’ acceptance of Jenny Margetts’ collection means that the materials recording the struggle of the women of the Indian Rights for Indian Women organization will be cared for and available to the public.

We are all proud to be part of something so important and that records the difference Nellie, Kathleen, and their colleagues made through decades of activism. Thank you all who made this evening so memorable and such a success!

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AATSEEL Awards Winner: Dr. Alla Nedashkivska

Alla Nedashkivska had to keep a great secret: she learned back in October from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, that her book, Ukrainian Through its Living Culture, had won the prestigious AASTEEL Award in 2012 for Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy. The Awards Committee representative told her that  ”the pool was strong and the competition extremely stiff.”

Dr. Alla Nedashkivska believes that placing language learning within a cultural framework enlivens the learning process and jumpstarts contextual conversations in the classroom. She has crafted a textbook that presents a modern version of Ukrainian, one that will encourage students’ interest in learning, with the goal of building proficiency in the language and knowledge of Ukrainian culture and society. Ukrainian Through its Living Culture is excellent for studies over a longer period, using the intermediate exercises to start, then progressing to the advanced exercises to cement comprehension. An absolute must for anyone teaching or learning Ukrainian at senior levels.

Alla was invited to attend the awards ceremony and to present her research at the annual conference held in Boston. Congratulations Alla!

Heather Zwicker & the 3M National Teaching Fellowship

In 1986, the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and 3M Canada joined to reward exceptional contributions to teaching and learning at Canadian universities. The community of 3M National Teaching Fellows embodies the highest ideals of teaching excellence and scholarship with a commitment to enhance the educational experience of every learner.

One of this year’s recipients is Heather Zwicker, Professor and Vice-Dean at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Arts. Heather is an excellent addition to the more than 250 Fellows throughout Canada, working to enhance teaching and learning. While it is difficult to keep up with Heather, keep reading to learn about some of her recent projects.

The University of Alberta Press was delighted to work with Heather as one of the editors and a contributor of Not Drowning But Waving, a welcome progress report on the variety of feminisms at work in academe and beyond.

Heather Zwicker is a creator of and contributor to Hook & Eye, a blog that is both an intervention and an invitation. The contributors write about the realities of being women working in the Canadian university system.

Her recent work includes Edmonton Pipelines, a collection of digital maps and literary provocations by four collaborators: Daniel Laforest, Heather Zwicker, Maureen Engel and Russell Cobb.

Given all of this activity in addition to her marvellous teaching, congratulations are definitely in order!

Sad News from Gail Greenwood

We are saddened to lose one of our most cherished independent booksellers, Greenwoods’ Bookshoppe. Here, owner Gail Greenwood says goodbye and thank you.

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Hello Booklovers,

Today I’m deeply saddened to announce that our last day of business will be Saturday, October 6th, 10 AM – 4 PM. (I wanted to extend professional courtesy and respect to David Suzuki and Jeff Rubin while selling tickets for their event on Wednesday, October 3rd – now sold out!).

My decision to close was precipitated by the recent death of my brother and business partner, Brad. He skillfully managed all store affairs and guided me on so many occasions. He was my rock.

So many thanks:

• To all the authors we hosted for so many varied events and signings – You helped put us on the map and kept us there.
• To all my sales reps – You were our lifeline to publishers and your hard work gave us so many opportunities.
• To all my booksellers past and present (Scott, Karen, Tania, Kirt, and Renee) – You have been the wind beneath my wings, especially through this difficult time for all of us.
• MOST OF ALL, to Edmonton booklovers – It has been my pleasure and privilege to have built so many relationships and to have been your bookstore of choice.

Thank you. Thank you for 33 years of wonderful support. It was a great ride and I will cherish it always.

Sincerely,
Gail

Recognitions Abound for UAP Authors

Wherever you look, you’ll find one of our authors recognized for his or her work. Whether poet, scholar, scientist, or novelist, our authors’ work is acknowledged and appreciated in many ways!

The Poet:

rob mclennan has been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Competition. One of his poems was chosen from more than 2,300 submissions to be one of the 36 works on the longlist. Congratulations, rob!

The Novelists:

Russell Wagnersky, one of the contributors of an anthology forthcoming from the University of Alberta Press, has been longlisted for the Giller Prize. His short story collection, Whirl Away, also made the shortlist. We’re keeping our fingers crossed, Russell!

There was one more familiar face/name on the long list for the Giller Prize: Annabel Lyon and her newest book, The Sweet Girl. She is the author of the award-winning book,  The Golden Mean. UAP was pleased to publish Annabel’s lecture, Imagining Ancient Women, this year. Way to go, Annabel!

More to come about The Scholar and The Scientist in our future posts!

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Alberta Book Awards, 2012 Edition

The 2012 Alberta Book Awards were better than ever, with over 200 people in attendance. What a tremendous showing from the literary community! Jackie Flanagan’s keynote speech was the perfect start to the evening, delivered with emphasis, empathy, and emotion. Her talk about F.M. Salter, father of Alberta letters, and her well-expressed views on the importance of culture and literacy received a warm reception.

It went on to be a particularly stellar night for Alberta’s university presses. The University of Alberta Press had a hand in four of the award-winning projects:

• Alice Major won the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for her remarkable book, Intersecting Sets. It was doubly sweet, coming on the heels of a phone call telling her that one of her essays from the book had won a Gold award in the National Magazine Awards. “Ultraviolet Catastrophes” was published in a special joint issue of The New Quarterly and Arc Poetry Magazine.
• Susan McCaslin came all the way from Victoria, BC to win the inaugural Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry for her book, Demeter Goes Skydiving. And surely Robert was sitting beside Susan and Kath MacLean, who recently won WordFest’s Anne Green Award, cheering them on.
• Ann Hall’s marvelous book, The Grads Are Playing Tonight!, won the Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award. This was a tough award for us, as two other UAP titles were in the running. Our hearts were in our mouths and our hearts were on our sleeves, thrilled for the one author and bleeding for the other two.
• It was heart-warming to hear the whoops and congratulatory susurration as Peter Midgley’s name was called. He took home the Lois Hole Award for Editorial Excellence for his work with Jalal Barzanji, on The Man in Blue Pyjamas. Jalal, his wife Sabah and daughter Niga were in the audience.

Sarah Carter and Patricia McCormack won the Scholarly and Academic Book Award for Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal Women of the Canadian Northwest and Borderlands, published by Athabasca University Press. This is another remarkable book from topnotch scholars. (UAP and AUP co-published Sarah Carter’s award-winning book The Importance of Being Monogamous in 2008).

The University of Calgary Press was named Publisher of the Year. Our director, Linda Cameron, as President of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta (BPAA) and winner of the award last year, had the honour of handing the trophy to Donna Livingstone and her gifted team. NeWest Press, another crowd favourite, was runner-up for its consistently excellant work.

A highlight of the evening was seeing Wayne Arthurson take home $10,000 for the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award, sponsored by the Edmonton Public Library, for his book, Fall From Grace.

Alan Brownoff was pleased to see two talented peers take home design awards: Natalie Olsen of Kisscut Design for House of Spells by Robert Pepper-Smith and our colleague Marvin Harder for Three-Persons and the Chokitapix by Allen Ronaghan.

As Jannie Edwards said in her moving acceptance speech for the James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction, “It takes a tribe to create a writer.” And the tribe was in full evidence to celebrate Fred Stenson for his work as he accepted the WGA’s Golden Pen Award, and founding board member of NeWest Press, Diane Bessai, who was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award by the book publishing industry. That tribe will be out in force as its members ponder the sudden and deep cuts to the Literary Press Group (LPG), a not-for-profit association of Canadian literary book publishers, whose mandate is to foster the survival, growth and maintenance of Canadian owned and operated publishing houses through advocacy and group initiatives.

It takes several tribes to bring off such a fabulous event. Our thanks to:

• Kieran Leblanc and Michael McLaughlin from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta and Carol Holmes and her staff at the Writers Guild of Alberta;
• the jurors for their hard work and dedication;
• the brilliant Pages on Kensington, for having books available for sale;
• sponsors AlbertaViews, The Banff Centre, Friesens, and West Magazine;
• award donors Stephan V. Benediktson, Ann Campbell, Vanna Tessier and Guy Tessier, and Aritha Van Herk;
• funders: The cities of Calgary and Edmonton, the Government of Alberta, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Edmonton Arts Council, Access Copyright Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, and Canadian Heritage.

We can’t begin to describe all the wonderful moments; if you weren’t able to come this year, be sure to plan on being part of the gathering in Edmonton next spring, when we come together once again to celebrate writers, creators, designers, and publishers.

Bill and Norma Crooks are eager to meet Jalal Barzanji after reading his memoir, The Man in Blue Pyjamas.

Bruce McCollum and Linda Cameron, director of the University of Alberta Press.

Alice Major and David Berger look forward to a gala night.

Kath MacLean (Kat Among the Tigers) and Susan McCaslin (Demeter Goes Skydiving) make an immediate connection. Both are shortlisted for the inaugural Robert Kroestch Poetry Book Award.

Michael Penny (Particles) is up for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. He is sitting with talented designer Virginia Penny (Demeter Goes Skydiving).

Emcee Paul Kennett hosts Writer’s Block on CJSW.

Peter Midgley and Jalal Barzanji visit with Brian Hades of Hades Publications.

Jerome Martin, Spotted Cow Press, congratulates Linda Cameron as she accepts the Trade Non-Fiction Book Award on behalf of M. Ann Hall, author of The Grads Are Playing Tonight!

Linda Cameron.

Susan McCaslin accepts the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award for Demeter Goes Skydiving. Her book was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes as well. It’s been an exciting spring for Susan.

Linda Cameron and Susan McCaslin.

Peter Midgley accepts the Lois Hole Award for Editorial Excellence for his work with Jalal Barzanji on The Man in Blue Pyjamas.

Donna Livingston, University of Calgary Press, Peter Midgley, and Jalal Barzanji.

Linda Cameron is delighted to acknowledge the University of Calgary Press as Publisher of the Year.

Donna Livingstone accepts Publisher of the Year on behalf of UCP and her team.

Some of the staff of the University of Calgary Press, including BPAA’s past-President, John King.

Scholar, poet, and NeWest President Doug Barbour speaks of Diane Bessai’s contributions to literary culture in Alberta and accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award on her behalf.

A big moment! The President of the EPL board and Linda Cook, director, present the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award to Wayne Arthurson for his book Fall From Grace.

Intersecting Sets, Another Great Book Launch

On October 18th, we launched Alice Major’s new book, a collection of essays, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, at the Milner Library Theatre. The launch, a collaboration with LitFest, was very well attended. Alice was joined on stage by playwright David Belke and by audio artist Shawn Pinchbeck.

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We all thoroughly enjoyed the night, including the steady beat of the drumming circle next door (!), and would like to congratulate all for a remarkable program. Alice, David, and Shawn were fabulous, provoking new ideas and conversations that will persist for some time.

Don’t miss LitFest’s Facebook page; they have posted some great pictures of the CBC Centre Stage panel discussion that took place between Alice and François Paré on October 13th at noon.

The Man in Blue Pyjamas

The launch of The Man in Blue Pyjamas: A Prison Memoir by Jalal Barzanji on October 17th was a great success. More than 150 “book lovers,” as Jalal greeted the audience, showed up to hear Jalal Barzanji, his translator Sabah Salih, and his editor Peter Midgley talk about the process of writing, translating, and editing this fascinating memoir. The event took place in the Milner Library Theatre, as part of LitFest 2011.

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Many of Jalal’s family, friends, neighbours, and colleagues as well as the Kurdish and literary communities came out to celebrate. This book launch was one of the best we’ve had – a true celebration!

There are more pictures to see on LitFest’s facebook page.