Frontenac House News
Patria Rivera shares the Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry // Oct 29, 2007
Puti/White by Patria Rivera shares the Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry with Trill & Mordent by Luisa Igloria.
The Global Filipino Literary Awards are given by OUR OWN VOICE, a literary arts journal for Filipinos in the diaspora. The 2007 Awards honour the best in fiction, poetry and non-fiction published in 2005 and in 2006 by Filipino authors from around the world.
Puti/White published by Frontenac House Press as part of Quartet 2005 was shortlisted for the Trillium Award for Poetry in 1996. In 2005, Rivera’s poem, “Rare species”, was selected as the second prize winner in the Eric Hill Award of Poetic Excellence competition held by QWERTY, a literary journal published by the English Department of the University of New Brunswick. Born and raised in the Philippines, Rivera lives with her family in Toronto’s east end. Her co-winner Luisa Igloria is an associate professor in the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
Puti/White will be submitted to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. for special cataloguing and included in the Global Filipino Literary Awards Collection housed permanently in the Library’s Asian Reading Room. An official press release will appear in The Phillippine News and Asian Fortune, both newspapers with a nationwide circulation in the United States.
International Book Launch Boffo in Manyberries // Oct 16, 2007
The people who turned out for the launch Saturday of And God Created Manyberries by Calgary author Ron Wood outnumbered the people who live in the friendliest little hamlet on the planet. The saloon of the Ranchmen’s Inn was packed to capacity.
“They drove in from Saskatchewan, Medicine Hat, Calgary and Edmonton, and they came from Orion, Etzikom, Seven Persons and Bow Island,” says Rose Scollard of Frontenac House, “and they not only bought books for themselves but for friends and relatives living as far away as Whitehorse, Vancouver and Toronto. People were lining up with five to ten copies of his book. It took three hours for Ron to sign all the books that were purchased by his fans.” Those who had already read the book, a collection of stories about dogs, cats, and politics centred around the Ranchmen’s bar, insisted that it was more than fictional, and that it captured the spirit and characters of Manyberries exactly. In fact, a couple of them went so far as to say it captured the spirit and character of most Canadians.
“In all the years I’ve been involved in publishing, I have never witnessed a launch such as this one,” said editor David Scollard. “The crowd was one of the biggest I’ve seen at a launch and the sales were staggering. We did notice, however, a lack of international media personnel but assumed that when they left the Medicine Hat airport they turned right, instead of left as we had advised in an earlier press release. People do tend to turn to the right when they arrive in Alberta.”
Author Ron Wood in his usual state of blithe unawareness offered the only complaint. “The pheasant season opens Monday,” he said, “and I didn’t bring my shotgun and I’m going to have stay here until Wednesday to finish all the glasses of wine people bought me.” Wood was last seen leaving with a group of four pheasant hunters because he wanted to meet their dogs.
Further launches are planned in two other Canadian hamlets: Calgary and Ottawa. The Calgary launch is at Pages Books on Kensington, 1135 Kensington Rd. NW, Wednesday October 17 at 7:30 pm.
The Ottawa launch is on November 14th at Smith Books, 56 Sparks Street, just three minutes from The Hill (Signing at 12:00 noon and Launch at 6:00 pm). “If sales continue at the present pace,” says Rose Scollard, “we are on track to bragging rights over a Canadian best-seller.”
And God Created Manyberries // Sep 24, 2007
Frontenac House is delighted to invite you to the Launch of:
And God Created Manyberries
by Ron Wood
ISBN 978-1-897181-15-7
List price: $19.95
And God Created Manyberries will receive its International launch Saturday, October 13th, between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm at the Ranchmen’s Saloon in Manyberries.
For those who cannot make it to Manyberries there will be a Calgary launch at Pages Books on Kensington, Wednesday October 17 at 7:30 pm.
And an Ottawa Launch on November 14th at 6:00 pm at Smith Books, 56 Sparks Street, just three minutes from The Hill. There will also be a book signing by the author at 12:00 noon on that day.
The Book
Bizarre political plots, schemes and wild-eyed government policies inspired by conversations overheard in the dining room of the House of Commons
The Ranchmen’s saloon in the Alberta hamlet of Manyberries, is home to some of the shrewdest political discussion in Canada.
On the surface, a bunch of old-timers are sitting around drinking beer and complaining about taxes and the government. But first impressions are deceptive – this is not mere tavern talk. Listen more closely and you’ll find scalpel-sharp dissections of double-talk, political correctness, hypocrisy and lazy thinking. Nobody is spared: inept and uncaring governments, both federal and provincial; self-serving politicians demanding credit and glory without having earned it; everyday guys who always want more than their share and more than they give; and members of the media whose stock in trade is trivia at the expense of real news.
And beyond the political parables, there is a unique menagerie of genuinely memorable characters. They’ll drive you half mad with their double standards and crazy schemes, but they’re irresistible in their humanity. By the end of the book you’ll feel you know them better than your own family.
The Author
From television anchorman to award-winning radio news director, from Press Secretary to Preston Manning to communications adviser for Opposition Leaders John Reynolds and Stephen Harper, Ron Wood has an insider’s knowledge of how politics really works.
The cover for And God Created Manyberries was designed by Vance Rodewalt, the renowned Calgary Herald political cartoonist.
For more information, interviews, bios, photos, review or promotional copies, please contact Ron Wood: (403) 289-9796 or Rose Scollard: (403) 245-2491, editor@frontenachouse.com.
Trade Fiction Book Award // May 14, 2007
Frontenac House is delighted to announce that Nancy Jo Cullen’s Pearl was awarded the Trade Fiction Book Award in the 2007 Alberta Book Publishing Awards.
The jury described the winner as “fully realized,” and “a little gem; portraying a small, contained world with a singular connection to Alberta history. It is real and rough, but flows with a bang-on deployment of tone and vernacular entirely suited to the subject matter.”
Pearl is a poetic exploration of the life of the legendary Pearl Miller, early Calgary’s most famous, and successful madam. Drawing on her research in the Calgary Police Archives and other historical materials relevant to Miller’s world Cullen fuses traditional lyric lines and experimental uses of form and language to fabricate a poetic biography of Calgary’s mythical brothel keeper.
Frontenac House, who was named Publisher of the Year in the 2006 Awards ceremony, had a second book nominated in the same category – A Bad Year for Journalists by Lisa Pasold.
Meet men who are “double damn tough” – and women who are even tougher! // Apr 24, 2007
Rhyming Wranglers:
Cowboy Poets of the Canadian West
Selected by Ken Mitchell
978-1-897181-13-3
$18.95
Frontenac House is pleased to announce the publication of Rhyming Wranglers, a collection of the greatest Canadian cowboy poems as selected by Ken Mitchell.
Rhyming Wranglers includes not only poets from pioneer times, and the current stars of the cowboy poetry festival circuit, but such major outlaw poets as sheri-d wilson, Sid Marty and Corb Lund. While the poems (and poets) vary greatly, they all speak the authentic lingo of the cowboy and they demonstrate author Ken Mitchell’s contention that cowboy poems achieve literary status for their witty and colourful language, their social insights, and their moving stories.
Rhyming Wranglers will be launched at the Pincher Creek Cowboy Gathering, 1-2 pm, Saturday, June 16th, 2007. There will also be readings at the Calgary Stampede for Window on the West at the Roundup Centre July 14, 12:30 pm and July 15, 1:30 pm; and again at the Saskatchewan Festival of Words in Moose Jaw.
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