I didn’t mention it earlier because I didn’t want to place hype where there might not be any. Late last month I received a phone call from Chapters/Indigo HO. They were interested in carrying Recipes of a Dumb Housewife as a regular stock item, would I send along a review copy. I did. Received another phone call from them to discuss distribution problems: Ingram only offered 15% discount and no returns. (This is because of…
Recently in one of the discussions taking place on Chapters’ Community pages authors have been sharing images of their work spaces, prompted by Gail Anderson-Dargatz who received an invitation from Hal Wake, artistic director of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival. Each week the festival website will feature the writing room of a different BC writer, both in photograph and essay. Gail thought it would be nifty if we did the same sort of…
It strikes me that today it’s necessary to be a dynamic thinker, to not only think outside the box, but recycle the box. Dynamic thinking most especially applies to publishing, which is directly affected by the rapidly evolving world of communication. You’ve read my enthusiasm about the new Espresso printing machine. There’s some fascinating reading about the Espresso and what’s happening right now in publishing in a reproduced speech Mike Shatzkin, savvy publishing visionary, gave…
As many of you know we used to carry historical sewing patterns. I remain in contact with a few of the remarkable people who research and create these patterns, designers who often work for little financial return in the face of overwhelming odds. One of these designers is Deb Salisbury of The Mantua-Maker. Deb has been a costumer for as long as I can remember, and now not only sells her patterns wholesale to other…
Charles de Lint is a master of urban fantasy. Combine that with his remarkable skill as a storyteller, his love of music, Celtic and Native legend and you have a tale that is enchanting, captivating, restorative. Forests of the Heart returns to de Lint’s imaginary town of Newford, and draws heavily from native desert culture pitted against uprooted Celtic culture, all of it existing on an alternate plane that truly is just one step to…