McNally classroom goes virtual

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This article was published 23/01/2021 (1694 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

McNally Robinson’s Community Classroom courses are back and, thanks to funding from the provincial government’s Safe at Home Manitoba program, are free this winter.

The classes, which are being offered online, cover a variety of subjects including art, cooking, languages, travel, personal health, writing and, of course, books.

Joanne Kelly’s Book Club, focusing on new or recent releases, is back; additionally, comedian/book lover Lara Rae will offer book-discussion sessions focusing on the classics Moby-Dick and Ulysses.

A list of courses and registration form is available at wfp.to/classroom.

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After 20 years as a national award for independently published Canadian fiction and poetry, the ReLit Awards are branching out.

The ReLit Journal, edited by Katherine Harvey, daughter of ReLit founder Kenneth J. Harvey, is launching its first issue, themed around “recovery,” later this year. Also, the organization behind the award and the journal is also launching a mentorship program for teenage writers.

Though they lack the prize money and the high profile of better-known awards, the ReLit awards have often shone a spotlight on writers who went on to achieve fame for subsequent books, including Gil Adamson, Lisa Moore and last year’s Giller Prize winner, Souvankham Thammavongsa, who received the ReLit poetry award in 2004. Manitoba poet and memoirist Maurice Mierau won the ReLit award for poetry in 2009 for Fear Not.

For more information on the mentorship, visit relitawards.com.

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A terrible year for independent bookstores was a great year for big publishers, according to U.S. sales figures published in Publishers Weekly.

According to NPD BookScan, sales in 2020 were 8.2 per cent higher than in 2019, with increases in all categories.

Strong demand from homeschooling parents led to a huge increase in young adult and juvenile non-fiction sales, which went up 38 and 23 per cent, respectively. Young adult and juvenile fiction also boomed, rising 21 and 11 per cent.

Sales of adult books also increased substantially. Adult fiction sales rose six per cent, with Delia Owens’ novel Where the Crawdads Sing selling more than one million copies last year, bringing it to more than three million copies sold since its 2018 debut. Adult non-fiction, driven by political and social justice books, rose 4.8 per cent, with Barack Obama’s 2.5-million-selling A Promised Land leading the way.

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Speaking Crow, Winnipeg’s long-running poetry reading and open-mic session, continues in its online form Feb. 2 with featured reader Tamar Rubin, a Winnipeg physician and poet whose first book of poetry, Tablet Fragments, was published in 2020 by Signature Editions.

In addition to Rubin, up to 25 other poets will be able to read from their work in the online session, with sign-up for a spot on a first-come, first-served basis.

To sign up, visit wfp.to/speakingcrow.

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A Republican senator lost his initial book contract as a result of his role in the effort to overturn the November presidential election result and in inspiring this month’s deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley was one of the group of senators seeking to block the certification of the 2020 election results on Jan. 6. The “Stop the Steal” rally that turned into a riot had ostensibly been organized to support Hawley and his confederates. Following the riot, Simon & Schuster announced it had cancelled Hawley’s contract for the book, which explores the threat to democracy posed by big technology companies. The Tyranny of Big Tech has since been picked up by Regnery Publishing.

Though not directly linked to the Jan. 6 riot, controversy around another forthcoming book prompted the bookstore considered the world’s largest to shut down early at least two nights this month.

Protestors gathered at Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., in response to the store offering online sales of a book by freelance journalist Andy Ngo, who rose to prominence with critical online coverage of Antifa. Citing safety concerns, the store closed early as small crowds gathered to protest.

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