Janette Platana
What You Need nominated for the Trillium Book Prize
Quite improbably, were you to have asked me, What You Need has been nominated for the Trillium Book Prize, which is Ontario’s “leading award for literature.” Also nominated in the English-language category are Kevin Hardcastle’s Debris, Lynn Crosbie’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Robert Hough’s The Man Who Saved Henry Morgan, Karen Solie’s poetry collection The Road In is Not the Same Road Out, and Sweet Affliction by fellow Peterborough resident and friend Janette Platana. Follow that link above to see the finalists in the other categories. They’re going to feed us all a fancy dinner in late June and tell us the winners there. Janette and I may or may not be wearing Petes jerseys on the night in question.
May has been a good month. Nice things come in bunches. Thanks to everybody for everything.
Four Events Down, One To Go
Brent van Staalduinen, yours truly, Teri Vlassopolous at The Bookshelf in Guelph, Ontario (photo courtesy of Teri Vlassopolous)
It’s been a busy week, but a good one, with events in Peterborough, Ottawa, Guelph, and Toronto. I’ve had the good fortune of doing all these launches with fellow Invisible author Brent van Staalduinen (Saints, Unexpected), and we were joined in Peterborough and Guelph by the wonderful Teri Vlassopolous (Escape Plans). A big, warm thanks to everyone who came out, who listened to our readings, said hello, bought books, and said kind things. When you only come out of hiding every so often, it’s nice to be greeted by nice people. I’d also be remiss if I failed to thank Janette Platana, who joined us in Peterborough, and Phoebe Wang, who graced us with her presence in Toronto. Thanks to the venues, too, who were uniformly welcoming.
Only one more event currently scheduled, but it’s a good one: Authors for Indies is tomorrow, April 30, and I’ll be at Books and Company in Picton, Ontario from 1:00 until 4:00 making recommendations, and happy to chat, so think about stopping by if you’re in the area. Also there will be Invisible’s publisher, Leigh Nash, who’s actually a poet in real life, and poet/editor Andrew Faulkner. Come by, say hello, and if things are slow we can go next door to Miss Lily’s, have a coffee, and talk baseball and books.
That about wraps up this round of launches and appearances, but I expect there will be more events to follow through the summer. Look for info here.
The Recommend
[Janette Platana’s A Token of My Affliction] is a magnifying glass that you hold up to an assortment of lives that look a lot like your own, and through that magnifying glass you see all the fascinating and horrible microscopic entities crawling over the surface and within the minuscule cracks of those lives.
— On Janette Platana’s stories, for 49th Shelf‘s “The Recommend”
andrew (g) forbes 