Congratulations to Joel Thomas Hynes, winner of the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award in the category of Fiction. Hynes, an accomplished multidisciplinary, award-winning artist, tells the story of tragicomic Newfoundlander Johnny Keough in We’ll All be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night.
We are proud to announce that three WCA authors have been longlisted for the 2018 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, one of Canada’s largest book prizes.
- Ken Dryden, Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador and the Future of Hockey
- James Maskalyk, Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine
- Doug Saunders, Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough
From the 150 books by 45 publishers that were nominated for the $40,000 prize, the prize jury selected a longlist of 10 books. To read more about the prize and the 2018 finalists, click here.
Simon & Schuster Canada VP, Editorial Director Nita Pronovost has acquired Canadian rights to the next two books by BC author Roz Nay whose first book OUR LITTLE SECRET was praised by Ruth Ware, Mary Kubica, Chevy Stevens and Andrew Pyper. OUR LITTLE SECRET was a bestseller in Canada, an award winner in France, also sold Dutch, Polish and audio rights and will publish with St. Martin’s Press in the US in April 2018. The next two books, as yet untitled, are planned for publication in 2018 and 2019. The deal was arranged by Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists.
Penguin Teen Canada publishing director, Lynne Missen, has acquired North American English rights to two forthcoming young adult novels from the Governor General’s Award-winning When Everything Feels Like the Movies author, Raziel Reid. The first of the two untitled books, KENS, is scheduled for September 2018, and is a modernized re-telling of the cult classic movie, Heathers, in which an unpopular gay kid, desperate to fit in, gets more than he bargained for when he reinvents himself – inside and out – and becomes an unknowing and submissive puppet in a sadistic plan. The deal was arranged by Michael Levine and Liz Culotti at Westwood Creative Artists.
Simon & Schuster Canada’s Vice President and Editorial Director Nita Pronovost has acquired North American English rights to Ruth Marshall’s debut book, a memoir entitled WALK IT OFF: The True and Hilarious Story of How I Learned to Stand, Walk, Pee, Run, and Have Sex Again After a Nightmarish Diagnosis Turned My Awesome Life Upside Down that follows the actress’ journey after she is diagnosed with a rare spinal tumor. Told with humor and searing honesty, this memoir not only entertains but inspires readers to put their best foot forward and walk off anything life throws their way. Publication is planned for January 2018. Bruce Westwood and Meg Wheeler of Westwood Creative Artists arranged the deal.
Deborah Willis at Freehand Books has acquired Canadian English rights to Michelle Kaeser’s literary novel TOWER OF BABYLON. Publication is planned for Fall 2019 and the deal was arranged by Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists Ltd.
Alana Wilcox of Coach House has acquired World rights to Lezlie Lowe’s NO PLACE TO GO: Answering the Call of Nature in the Urban Jungle, an investigation into the politics of public restrooms. Publication is planned for Fall 2018 and the deal was arranged by Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists Ltd.
Senior Editor at Grove Atlantic Corinna Barson has acquired World rights to Toronto-based writer and photographer John Zada’s IN THE VALLEYS OF THE NOBLE BEYOND: Travels in the Great Bear Rainforest in Search of the Sasquatch – a work of narrative non-fiction that braids threads of travel/adventure with Sasquatch lore. Publication is planned for Spring 2018, and the deal was arranged by Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists Ltd.
Michael Holmes of ECW Press has acquired world English rights to THE VERY MARROW OF OUR BONES, by Christine Higdon. The debut novel tells the story of a fiddler named Lulu Parsons, whose life and attachments are irrevocably altered by the secret she has kept about her mother’s disappearance in the 1960s. Hilary McMahon of Westwood Creative Artists negotiated the deal, with publication slated for spring 2018.
Douglas Richmond at House of Anansi Press has acquired world rights to Jonathan Garfinkel’s THE ALTRUIST, a sophisticated and darkly funny post-Soviet thriller set between Toronto and Tbilisi, Georgia, during the pro-democracy Rose Revolution of 2003. Publication is slated for Spring 2019. The deal was arranged by John Pearce of Westwood Creative Artists.
We are pleased to announce that the feature-film adaptation of the late Richard Wagamese’s popular novel, Indian Horse, has won two key audience awards. The film was awarded the Vancouver International Film Festival Super Channel People’s Choice Award and the Calgary International Film Festival‘s award for Audience Favourite, Narrative Feature. To read more click here and here.
Congratulations to 2017 Governor General’s Literary Awards shortlisters Joel Thomas Hynes and Matt James. We’ll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night from multidisciplinary award-winning artist Hynes has been nominated in the Fiction category. When the Moon Comes, illustrated by painter, musician and past Governor General’s Award winner Matt James, is nominated in the Illustrated Books category.
The winners will be announced November 1, 2017.
Bill Gaston’s most recent collection of short stories, A Mariner’s Guide to Self Sabotage, received a thoughtful review in The Globe and Mail. His writing is praised as, “so clean and self-effacing that it is remarkably easy to overlook the careful technique behind it.” The article goes on to say, the collection “is further proof – as though any further proof were necessary – of Bill Gaston’s surpassing mastery of the short-story form.” Read the article here.
We’re excited about the buzz David Chariandy’s long awaited second novel Brother has garnered. The Globe and Mail says Brother, “is a celebration and a reckoning, a study of community and of family and of the ways each relies on the other, and of the power of art to build and the ability of those in power to destroy.” To read the full article, click here.