#FTRWeek: You See Us Trollin’, You Hatin’

Web Banner from freedomtoread.ca. // Barbara Klunder (illustration), Reva Pomer (design), Webcom (printing) Did you know that it’s Freedom to Read Week? Yes, you heard right. The annual celebration of intellectual freedom started on Sunday, and Five Rivers thought we should join the party. Five Rivers has been lucky to have all our books challenge-free, but we still believe that every time you pick up a Five Rivers book you are exercising your freedom to…

When Words Collide Festival Report

From the Desk of Senior Editor, Robert Runté When Words Collide (Calgary) convention was once again wildly successful, with great programming, wonderful Guest of Honour speeches, and 650 wonderful-to-meet-and-talk-with attendees. Small enough convention to feel ‘intimate’, but large and diverse enough that one constantly learns new things. The cross-genre format of WWC leads to a lot of cross-pollination. (For example, the launch of Sleuth at WWC this year, a new mystery magazine from the people…

Five Rivers at When Words Collide Festival

From the Desk of Robert Runte: Five Rivers will have seven authors and two staff attending the When Words Collide Festival in Calgary, August 14-16, 2015. It’s my favorite writers convention because of the high proportion of writers, the cross-genre orientation/cross-pollination, and the high quality of the programming. I missed that Susan MacGregor (pictured below) was going to WWC this year until after I’d already done the poster, but she’ll be there too, and doing…

Defining the “Canadian” in the Canadian Voice

“What is Canadian literature? What is a Canadian novel? I am not going to be so foolhardy as to attempt to define these terms; many have wandered into this wilderness—and returned, what else but bewildered if they were honest, or with simplistic or outdated notions if they were naive; this is hardly surprising—the country is changing around us even as we speak, stirring up a host of conflicting ideas and interests, and to look for…