Winnipeg publisher pulls off coup

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/04/2004 (8079 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg publisher has scored big in the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award nominations.

Nominees Blue Becomes You (by former Winnipegger Bettina von Kampen) and The Expedition (by Clayton Bailey, who originally hails from Marquette) were both published by Great Plains Publications.

It’s quite a coup for a regional, independent publisher to have published two of the six award nominees.

The other nominees for the $5,000 national award are: Black Bird (Knopf Canada) by Michel Basilieres, The Island Walkers (McClelland & Stewart) by John Bemrose, Kalyna’s Song (Coteau Books) by Lisa Grekul and Ten Thousand Lovers (McArthur & Co.) by Edeet Ravel.

Bailey has been in Winnipeg promoting his novel. He’ll be at McNally Robinson’s Portage Place location today at 2 p.m. Von Kampen has just finished her second novel, which will be published this fall by Great Plains.

The winner of this year’s first novel award will be announced in October. Previous winners include Michael Ondaatje, Joy Kogawa, W.P. Kinsella and Rohinton Mistry.

Sex and the City actress and sex-book author Kim Cattrall builds on her sexy reputation with Sexual Intelligence, a tie-in companion book to an HBO documentary of the same name, Publishers Lunch reports.

In the TV-book combo, Cattrall, who was born in Liverpool, England, but raised in Canada, explores the mysteries of sexual desire. Madison Press Books will publish.

Her previous book, Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm, was a bestseller.

Proving himself to be a savvy opportunist, the winner of the Donald Trump reality show The Apprentice is apparently planning to become The Author, too.

MSNBC gossip columnist Jeanette Walls quotes sources who say Bill Rancic is close to signing a deal with a major publisher.

But don’t expect a lot of behind-the-scenes dirt on the hit TV show. An “insider” says the project will be “an inspirational business book,” reflecting Rancic’s earlier entrepreneurial life.

Simon With Two Left Feet, a bestselling children’s book by Winnipeg author Angela K. Narth, is set to leap off the page.

Narth’s publisher, Ottawa-based GWEV Publishing, has signed an agreement with entertainment company Cinerio Inc. to develop multimedia products and animation features based on kids’ books produced by GWEV.

Cinerio, an Ottawa animation production house, has been granted full access to children’s books produced by GWEV, including national bestsellers like Narth’s book and How Do Crocodiles Fly? by GWEV co-founder Sylvia Helen Vincent, according to GWEV.

A University of Winnipeg professor of English has won an award for the book she co-edited.

Deborah Schnitzer co-edited The Madwoman in the Academy: 43 Women Boldly Take on the Ivory Tower (University of Calgary Press) with Debbie Keahey.

The book, featuring writing from several local women, was awarded Scholarly Book of the Year at the recent 2004 Alberta Book Awards Gala.

Schnitzer’s new book of poetry, Loving Gertrude Stein Loving Gertrude (Turnstone Press), is to be launched Wednesday at 8 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park store.

New in paperback:

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (Little, Brown), a huge bestseller in 2002, features a murdered 14-year-old as its unlikely narrator.

Quebec journalist Gil Courtemanche fictionalizes his own experiences in Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Vintage), an account of the events that led to the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Author Melissa Fay Greene tells the story of the survivors of the Nova Scotia Springhill mine collapse of 1958 in Last Man Out (Harvest Books).