Behind the scenes of Canada Reads 2016!

Okay, I think everyone I know knows this by now (along with a lot of people I don't know!), but
Bone and Bread was selected to be part of Canada Reads 2016!

You can click the image to go to the Canada Reads CBC page.

Cue massive, ongoing celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My last post was about my love of book clubs, and Canada Reads is about as close as we get to a national one.

It has been a little over a week since my whirlwind trip to Toronto for the day it was announced, and although I think I have responded to everyone who sent me kind messages of congratulations, I want to say thank you again!! It makes it even more exciting to know that people are excited right along with me.

So here's the Canada Reads scoop. I found out a little bit ahead of the announcement that Bone and Bread was on the shortlist, and a little bit after that that Farah Mohamed was going to be defending it. I arrived in Toronto late on the night Jan. 19th. Just before midnight, I received an email letting me know who the other writers and defenders were going to be. I was extra curious because the smarties over at the Goodreads CBC Books group had been speculating for a few days about who the panelists might be, based on all the clues that had been dropped. (They actually got a bunch of them right!) If I had gone to bed early, the way I knew I should have, I wouldn't have read the email and stayed up for another hour Googling everyone! Really, the night before a photo shoot, one's only homework is probably getting a good night's sleep. Oh well. I guess that's what makeup and coffee is for.

The first of the other writers I saw after arriving at CBC were Michael Winter and Anita Rau Badami -- the two I already know! After hair and makeup, while we were waiting for the others to arrive, I was excited and suggested we take a photo in front of the lunch table:

With the lovely Michael Winter and Anita Rau Badami. 

(My expression here: nervous-face.)

Smiling! With two brilliant writers: Michael Winter and Anita Rau Badami.

Fun fact re: Anita Rau Badami -- we met a dinner party in Montreal!

Fun fact re: Michael Winter -- well, I kind of feel like every fact about Michael Winter is a fun one, but I have been a fan of his writing long before I started running into him at events and festivals in the context of being a writer myself. His novel The Architects Are Here is one of many books I read (and loved) while working on Bone and Bread, but he has such a powerful voice that there is a short passage present in the novel where I had put down his book and felt the spirit of Michael's inimitable style upon me. Of course, only Michael Winter sounds like himself and I'm sure this part is only detectable to me, but there are a few sentences in my novel that wouldn't be there, quite in the form they are, if it wasn't for him. So thank you, Michael!

Finally, everyone was there and it was time to take photos.

With Michael Winter, Anita Rau Badami, Lawrence Hill and Tracey Lindberg

Photo (along with most of the others here) by Laura Meyer of Anansi

I think it was Lawrence Hill (a former Canada Reads winner and therefore already a pro) who explained the right way to cradle your book for the photo -- so you don't cover up your name. Top tip! The professional photos are being rolled out by CBC in their various promotional materials for Canada Reads, which I will repost here as they become available.

At the photo shoot, I got to meet Farah Mohamed:

Thank you, Farah. You are amazing and 

I'm so happy you liked my novel!

Farah Mohamed is the founder and CEO of G(irls)20, an organization that empowers girls and young women around the world to create a new generation of female leaders. Having read about the organization as well as her many other professional accomplishments, I was more than a little intimidated to meet her, but she immediately put me at ease as she is incredibly warm and approachable and fun. She also seems like a fierce debater!

After the photos, we all had lunch. Later, we shot some individual videos (which I dread watching...quippy I am not. Also at that point, after touch-ups, I had so much makeup on that my face felt weird. I think I might end up looking scary in HD...)

I had a chance to meet the other defenders (Clara Hughes, Vinay Virmani, Bruce Poon Tip, and Adam "Edge" Copeland), who were all as lovely as you might imagine. I would say more, but it probably isn't my place at this point! But honestly, I am so impressed by the accomplishments of the five panelists, and (thanks mostly to Google) by what I know of their level of engagement with social and cultural issues, across their widely different fields. I was really interested to learn about their projects, and I'm happy that the show will shine a light on them, too. It seems as though CBC has put together a group of people with real character to participate in Canada Reads 2016. (Hopefully I won't be insecure enough to feel differently if any of them turn out to hate my novel! But probably I just won't listen...)

The defenders said a few times over the course of the day that they all got along so well that they were going to have a hard time fighting it out, and I can easily believe it. (And so I say: why fight? Just let there be a five-way tie this year!)

At one point over lunch, Tracey Lindberg and I agreed that amid all the other things to be happy about with Canada Reads, we were both extra excited about the free books:

I know other Canada Reads fans will be jealous of this sweet stack.

No library holds for me! Another awesome bonus.

All in all, an exhausting but wonderful trip to Toronto. It was so nice to meet everyone at CBC, and House of Anansi publicist extraordinaire Laura Meyer took such good care of me...even helping me make it to the Turner exhibit at the AGO before my afternoon flight home.  

So I will probably share a few more Canada Reads-related things over the next few weeks before the show happens in March. I beg your indulgence ahead of time! I will try to mix it up with a few other things, so it doesn't get too tedious.

Home again, wearing my CBC fangirl shirt.

Do I look as ecstatically happy as I feel? I think so!

This is how we should all be reading

A big thank you to Corey Redekop for including Bone and Bread on his list of favourite reads of 2015 over at Speculating Canada! Looking at Corey's list, I am so inspired by the eclecticism of his choices -- it is clear that he reads a lot and he reads widely. There is fiction here across all genres: horror, sci-fi, literary, adventure, and others that sound like they truly defy categorization in the best possible ways. I think this is so important. Stories are stories and we all lose out by only reading in our comfortable little niches. Thank you so much for including the novel, Corey!

Bone and Bread is also on another list of note....the Canada Reads longlist!!!! I blogged at length about Canada Reads last year when it made it onto the longlist then ...a post you can read here. Not much has changed. I am still thrilled, flattered, hopeful, and so grateful for everything CBC Books does to promote our national literature. This year's theme is "Starting Over." Fingers crossed!

End of July - Montreal Tournament of Books - Goodreads CBC Books Monthly Group Read

It's the last day of July. July is usually the month I get the most writing done, but this year it has been the month I have done the most decluttering. I've gone through boxes and boxes of photos, sorted through huge files of saved papers, tossed things I thought I'd never get rid of, emptied a giant trunk I've had since childhood, and even went through a massive stack of unlabelled CDs to find out what was on them. I finally got a roll of film from 2002 developed. (I thought it was from 2001, from Belgium, but it turned out to be Newfoundland the following year.) Wasteful as it seems, I threw out all of my socks with holes in them (when was the last time I sewed a sock hole?) and managed to get all of the photos off of my old Samsung phone. Outside of the times I've moved, I have never done such a major overhaul. In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up --- the popular book I read that has given me the push to do all this -- the author, Marie Kondo, says that it is a process that takes about six months and that you get better as it as you go. I can easily believe it -- both parts! 

There's still lots to do, though. Two other old computers to deal with and a box of 3.5 floppy disks. Tons of other stuff to go through and (I hope) purge. It's hard to reverse three decades of clutter. We'll see if I have the stamina. I know it's important to do, but it would be nice to squeeze some writing in there, too.

Oh, and did I mention we did the books?!? My husband and I finally consolidated our collections, sold off most of the doubles and triples, as well as books we thought we'd never look at again. I think we managed to purge about 500! I'm proud of us. We even agreed on how to organize them. 

Some of the books to purge

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Librairie Paragraphe Books is running a fun showdown of books about Montreal and by Montreal authors: the Montreal Tournament of Books! Bone and Bread is up this week against Gabrielle Roy if you feel like voting! (In the first round, B & B improbably took out Leonard Cohen.)

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The CBC Books group on Goodreads (I am mostly a lurker there, but I highly recommend it to CanLit fans) is doing Bone and Bread as its Monthly Group Read in August. 

Here is the link: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/16966091-august-15---bone-bread-by-saleema-nawaz 

There is a reading schedule posted and a discussion group to follow along and comment. I have to say through experience that this is a great way to keep up with a book you've been meaning to read! I think I'll make myself scarce so people feel free to comment as they see fit, but if you do the group readalong and have any questions about the book, feel free to post them there and through coordination with the moderator I will be sure to answer them within the month. There will also be a couple of days at the end when, free of spoiler risks, I'll be available for a dedicated Q & A thread. I'm excited!

Canada Reads 2015

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but Bone & Bread is on the longlist for Canada Reads 2015!

The list was announced in December, right at a moment when I was on the point of bursting into tears after a very hard night with a four-week old baby, trying to recover from dehydration, having not slept for over 24 hours and expecting a house guest to arrive within the hour --- to a very messy apartment I had not yet managed to tidy up. It is definitely no exaggeration to say that regardless of what happens next, the appearance of my novel on the longlist felt like a gift that arrived at the perfect moment. It made me think of what Sara Crewe says in A Little Princess: "The worst thing never QUITE comes." ***

But now there are only a few days left before CBC announces the final five books, which means there are only a few days in which to savour the possibility that Bone & Bread might be selected. So this is me, savouring:

Ahhhhhhh.  Mmmmmmm.

For years I've had daydreams of a book of mine being discussed on this show. Ideally, defended by some well-read indie rock musician... have you noticed that the musicians' picks often win?

I'm cherishing this fantasy even more this week because my mother has just discovered CBC Radio and thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Yesterday, she was telling me about something she was listening to about Twitter and reading 50 books in a year that she thought I would be interested in!

I know there are lots of thoughts among writers, not all positive, around the notion of the themes that have been used in the program over the past few years, or the public voting that happened, or pitting fiction against non-fiction, or against the very concept of one book winning at all...but I don't think these issues are all that serious. Of course we all agree that Canada should read more than one book, but the producers are doing their best to make a lively show that will engage listeners. Another thing I've been hearing lately is a call to include poetry. And I do think it would be amazing to have an all-poetry edition. Maybe with poets as the panelists... although I suppose that might, ahem, undermine the celebrity aspect somewhat. (Well, for people outside of the literary community, anyway.) On the other hand, how else are we going to turn our poets into national celebrities?! This show should definitely happen. I want to live in a country that idolizes its poets. Hmm, but maybe this just illustrates how writers think differently than radio producers.

So can a book really change Canada, or break barriers? I think...yes. reader by reader, absolutely. Why couldn't it? I have to admit that when the theme of "breaking barriers" was announced ("books that can change perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and illuminate issues"), I did think of my novel because I believe that Bone & Bread does just that, in more than a few ways. But then we already know that all writing that put you into another person's perspective builds empathy and compassion just by taking us outside ourselves. Really, I think reading as a basic act is transformative and illuminating, so any of these books could fit the bill. And though of course I'm gunning for my own, I think can imagine great discussions emerging around all these titles. I'm especially rooting for Eden Robinson's wonderful Monkey Beach to make it through to the shortlist.

If you want to vote for your picks (just for fun...I'm pretty sure this doesn't affects the selection of the books, which is up to the mystery panelists) or just see what's in the running, you can do so on the CBC site here.

*** I'm not so naive that I actually believe Sara's notion. I do know that in many instances the worst thing does happen, but sometimes I can't help but see the world through the lenses of my favourite books.

A writer to watch!

It made my Canada Day to be named one of CBC Books' 2013 Writers to Watch!  Along with a lot of writers whose books are in my TBR pile.

You can click through the full list here. 

For another amazing list, check out Amanda Leduc's Up-and-Comers on her (lovely!) blog . This is a update on a group of writers she profiled a year ago...although if you are a writer be warned: it may make you feel insecure and unproductive or (better yet) inspired to to work harder.

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I started this post over three weeks ago now. Travel and vacation has kept me away from the internet a little more than I'd like. 

To celebrate our anniversary, D and I went on a weekend trip to Franconia Notch State Park, where we saw bears (in the backyard of our B&B!), hiked a gorge, had some amazing pizza (jalapeno-cream-cheese-stuffed crust....YUM), backed some plastic duckies in the town Lions' Club annual duck race fundraiser, caught the 4th of July "Home Day" parade, swam in the lake, visited Frost Place on Frost Day, and fulfilled a long-time yearning (er, of mine) to go to a drive-in movie, something I haven't done in almost twenty years. I am going to suggest you peruse the snack bar menu of the Northern Nights Drive-In because it is American thing of beauty. We took full advantage with chocolate milkshakes, cheeseburgers, chicken fingers...and even a meatball sub. When in New Hampshire... 

Pickup trucks are de rigeur at the drive-in

Small town drive-in

The Frost Place, one of Robert Frost's former homes

Walking the trails behind the Frost Place

Hilarious scrambling at the end of the duck race

We topped it off with an amazing meal at Manoir Hovey in North Hatley on way home. It was the kind of meal I can barely describe because it was so delicious and delightfully detailed on the menu.  Fine dining menus are a complex conceptual/literary/culinary art form, don't you think? Basically (in a prosaic, incomplete summary that does little justice to the meal), I had asparagus soup, halibut, cheese risotto, a bunch of amazing chanterelles (pilfered from D), and notably, as a pre-dessert, some apple-tarragon sorbet. Notable not only for the delicate and (at least to me) surprising combination of flavours, but also just for the concept of a pre-dessert, which strikes me as a useful one that might have almost as much mileage in it as second breakfast.  

A week after our return, we came back out to the country for a working vacation which has included lots of swimming (initially, during the heat wave), reading, writing, and napping. Just a few days left, but I hope to try and squeeze in the time to finish a second story...