It Started With a Song
Jean Miso, left, is a composer and music teacher at Etobicoke’s Seneca School for children with developmental disabilities. Five years ago she wrote a simple song about the Remembrance Day poppy called “We’ll Never Forget“. Tailored specifically for her students, some of whom can only hum along, the song has a rudimentary melody and easy to follow lyrics that celebrate Canada’s war veterans.
The reaction to Miso’s tune was so positive she was encouraged to go one step further and create a book dedicated to the veterans of all of Canada’s combat and peacekeeping missions since World War I, including the current campaign in Afghanistan. Miso has taken special care to include each sector of the Canadian forces – army, navy, air force, tank force and medics – in short profiles and interviews with veterans.
“I wanted the students reading the book to see themselves reflected in its pages so I looked at ethnicity and gender for people to be used as role models. I see each of these people as a role model and excellent representative of the greater Canadian forces.”
Toronto’s Selecky Gets Giller Nom
Yesterday’s announcement of the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize nominees came as a wonderful surprise to the only Toronto-based writer on the list, Sarah Selecky, left (photo by Derek Wuenschirs). This Cake is For the Party (Thomas Allen Publishers) is actually Selecky’s first book, although she’s been publishing in periodicals like The Walrus, Geist and Prairie Fire, for several years. Selecky got the Giller news yesterday via Twitter, an apropos medium for a writer who asserts that “brevity is paramount.”
“Thank goodness for Twitter,” she says, “that’s how I find out about everything. I love that the form is so restrictive, restriction breeds creativity, I think.”
And prize nominations breed book sales: the first edition of This Cake is For the Party sold out after it was long-listed for the Giller so making the final cut bodes well for Selecky regardless of who ultimately takes home the $50,000 prize.
Queen’s Park Clues and Sporting Poems
Author/educator Priscila Uppal will be in Queen’s Park Sunday joining loads of her writerly colleagues and thousands of reading fans for the 21st annual Word on the Street celebration. Uppal is taking part in the Diaspora Dialogues literary scavenger hunt, a friendly contest in which participants make their way around the park collecting clues found in readings by a range of writers. Scavengers who correctly answer all the questions win prizes from the Diaspora Dialogues tent.
Uppal, a novelist and poet, has been working with Diaspora Dialogues for about five years, contributing to anthologies, giving readings and workshops, visiting local high schools. When program founder Helen Walsh initially called Uppal to see if she’d join the group as a mentor for emerging writers, Priscila had been jousting with her life partner about taking too many things on.
“But of course I said,’Yes,’ when Helen called,” remembers the writer. “If I was to design a program that I wanted to see take root in the literary community it would be Disapora Dialogues. It’s been an amazing process, I love working with them.” READ MORE
Toronto Book Awards: Shortlisted Authors All Winners
Not all the shortlisted authors could make it to the Toronto Reference Library yesterday for the announcement of the Toronto Book Awards nominees but Cary Fagan (from left), Mark Sinnett and Lauren Kirshner were able to join Mayor Miller (second from left) for the photo op. Authors Sean Cullen and Dragan Todorovic are also nominated for the prize which is worth $1,000 to each of the nominees and another $10,000 to the ultimate winner who will be named October 14 at a Reference Library gala (the Toronto Public Library co-sponsors the honour). Fagan is nominated for Valentine’s Fall, Sinnett for The Carnivore, Krishner for Where We Have To Go, Cullen for The Prince of Neither Here Nor There and Todorovic for Diary of Interrupted Days.
Mayor Miller has a tome of his own due in October from Cormorant Books — Witness to a City contains inspirational stories about some of the fascinating Torontonians Miller has met since being elected mayor in 2003. The Mayor earned a hearty laugh when he said, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to plug my own book.”
Nominee photo by Jose San Juan
Poetry Goes Public With Viva’s Help
Frank Viva is an in-demand illustrator and branding expert whose work has appeared on the cover of The New Yorker, in Time and Esquire, the New York Times and Toronto Life: commercial clients include Butterfield and Robinson, New York Life and Le Creuset. But busy as he is, Viva found the time to do a pro bono job being unveiled today (August 26) at the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street); the OCAD-educated artist has lent his talent to Poet Laureate Dionne Brand’s Poetry is Public is Poetry project, an initiative designed to etch some of Canada’s most celebrated poetry into public spaces.
A collaboration between City of Toronto’s Cultural Services, Transportation Services and the Toronto Public Library and the TPL Foundation, the project will embed two to four installations per year in outdoor library spaces. Viva’s hoarding design (above) blends his whimsical art with snippets of poems by 34 Canadian poets.
