• Judge expresses “tentative view” the government will make its case against Apple
• Granta Books’ billionaire owner to take over editorial and operational control
• Anansi announces Broken Social Scene contest winners
• Chinua Achebe buried in Nigerian hometown
• How pop culture contributes to the dictionary

• Lydia Davis wins Man Booker International Prize
• Martin Short to write memoir for HarperCollins
• New York bookstore thrives despite uncertainty
• CNN anchor Piers Morgan to write memoir
• U.S. publishers embracing more international titles

Amazon announced the launch of Kindle Worlds, a new digital publishing platform for fan fiction, touted as the first legal commercial platform of its kind.

Despite the prevalence of online fan fiction, copyright laws make it illegal to profit from it. Kindle Worlds, however, has acquired licences for three book series from Warner Bros.’ Alloy Entertainment: Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar, Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard, and Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith. More licences will be announced soon. Royalties will be paid by Amazon to rights holders of the original work, and authors will receive a royalty rate of 35 per cent of net revenue for works of at least 10,000 words.

Concurrently, Amazon launched a pilot program for shorter works (between 5,000 and 10,000 words), which are typically priced under $1. Authors will be paid a 20 per cent royalty rate.

Fan-fiction submissions are being accepted as of today, with the digital storefront to launch in June.

Trevor Cole

The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the winners of the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Awards. The seven recipients are mid-career artists who have been recognized in the seven arts practices funded by the Canada Council: writing and publishing, integrated arts, dance, media arts, theatre, visual arts, and music.

Writer Trevor Cole is one this year’s winner. Cole’s third novel, Practical Jean, won the Leacock Medal for Humour in 2011, and his first two novels were both nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award. Before starting to write fiction, Cole was an editor and journalist with The Globe and Mail.

Other winners include contemporary puppeteer Julie Desrosiers, performer Sandra Laronde, filmmaker Lindsay McIntyre, playwright Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, sculptor and installation artist Reece Terris, and jazz musician Ben Wendel.

• Amazon Publishing reveals Breakthrough Novel Award finalists
• ChiZine accepting terror and supernatural fiction submissions
• Plagiarism controversy hits poetry community again
• Children’s publisher Barefoot Books leaves Amazon
• Association of American Publishers merging with the Association of Educational Publishers

First Nation Communities Read has revealed Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse (Douglas & McIntyre) as the winner of the annual community-reading program.

Chosen from more than 35 submissions, a jury of librarians from First Nation public libraries in Ontario called Indian Horse “strong, humane, and engaging.”

Now in its 10th year, the First Nation Communities Read program was developed to promote and increase awareness of aboriginal authors and illustrators, and to encourage family literacy, inter-generational storytelling, and the understanding of aboriginal voices and experiences.

Public libraries in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, B.C., the Yukon, and Northwest Territories will promote the program with a poster featuring Indian Horse. Wagamese will visit First Nation communities in Ontario and participate in other First Nation Communities Reads activities.

 

• Book trailer for David Rakoff’s posthumous book
• Authors discuss “likeability” of fictional characters
• Tragedy motivates Indian school to open student book bank
• Harry Potter first edition auctioned in U.K.
• Gerbrand Bakker wins Independent Foreign Fiction prize

Franklin the Turtle and Scaredy Squirrel made appearances at Kids Can Press’s 40th anniversary party on May 16, joining thousands of children at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre as part of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading Festival of Trees.

Click on the thumbnails to see photos from the day.

The winners of the Atlantic Book Awards were announced last night at a celebration hosted by CBC Radio’s Louise Renault.

The winners are:

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature
Live to Tell, Lisa Harrington (Dancing Cat Books)

Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association’s Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
The Metamorphosis: The Apprenticeship of Harry Houdini, Bruce McNab (Goose Lane Editions)

Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing
The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil, Susan Dodd (Fernwood Publishing)

Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction in Memory of Robbie Robertson
French Taste in Atlantic Canada 1604–1758: A Gastronomic History/ Le goût français au Canada atlantique 1604-1758: une histoire gastronomique, Anne Marie Lane Jonah and Chantal Véchambre (Cape Breton University Press)

Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing
In Search of R.B. Bennett, P.B. Waite (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

E.J. Pratt Poetry Award
Paradoxides, Don McKay (McClelland & Stewart)

Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction)
Anna from Away, D.R. MacDonald (HarperCollins Canada)

Lillian Shepherd Award for Excellence in Illustration
I Is for Island:  A Prince Edward Island Alphabet, Hugh MacDonald; Brenda Jones, illus. (Sleeping Bear Press)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
Dirty Bird, Keir Lowther (Tightrope Books)
atlantic-book-award-winners-announced

Rogers Communication Award for Non-fiction 
In the Field, Joan Sullivan (Breakwater Books)

 

• Canadian writer Eliza Robertson named regional Commonwealth short-story prize winner 
• Tweet reveals five Nobel Prize in Literature candidates
• Amazon U.K. receives more grant money than it pays in taxes
• Hilary Mantel prefers books with action, gets impatient with romance
• Publishers experiment with digital-only titles

A monster crowd was on hand for the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading festival at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. The two-day kidlit event featuring signings, readings, and workshops also included ceremonies for its signature prizes.

The winners are:

Blue Spruce Award
Kate & Pippin, Martin Springett; Isobel Springett, photog. (Puffin Canada)

Silver Birch Express Award
Margaret and the Moth Tree, Brit Trogen and Kari Trogen (Kids Can Press)

Silver Birch Fiction Award
Making Bombs for Hitler, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch (Scholastic Canada)

Silver Birch Non-fiction Award
No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs, Rob Laidlaw (Pajama Press)

Red Maple Fiction Award
The Vindico, Wesley King (Putnam/Penguin)

Red Maple Non-fiction Award
Real Justice: Fourteen and Sentenced to Death, Bill Swan (Lorimer)

White Pine Award
Dark Inside, Jeyn Roberts (Simon & Schuster)

Le Prix Tamarac
Le mystère des jumelles Barnes, Carole Tremblay (Bayard Canada)

Le Prix Tamarac Express
Billy Stuart: 1. Les Zintrépides, Alain M. Bergeron; Sampar, illus. (Éditions Michel Quintin)

Le Prix Peuplier
Le zoo de Yayaho, Geneviève Lemieux; Bruno St-Aubin, illus. (Bayard Canada)

• State attorney’s “straightforward case” against Penguin in ebook price-fixing case
• High-school students compete in national poetry contest
• Qantas releases books for airline travel
• Digital book signings help authors’ careers
• Obama’s memoirs earn big money

 

All Big Six publishers are expected to testify in U.S. federal court against Apple during its ebook price-fixing trial, which begins June 3.

According to a court document filed yesterday, executives from Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Random House, and Simon & Schuster will admit to conspiring with Apple to adopt the controversial agency model, in an attempt to increase ebook prices and quash Amazon as a competitor.

Last August, Hachette, HarperCollins, and S&S settled with the U.S. government, reimbursing ebook consumers for more than $69 million. Penguin settled in December and Macmillan in February, leaving Apple as the sole defendant. The original lawsuit filing alleges that the publishers colluded in “private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants,” an accusation denied by all parties in affidavits submitted to the court.

 

• Toronto Star’s eReads series nominated for online media awards
• Dan Brown’s Inferno craze hits Toronto
• Self-published book shortlisted for Commonwealth book prize
• The real cost of self-publishing
• Brooklyn Library to create oral history project

The winners of the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian comics were announced at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival on May 11.

The winners of the awards, which recognize the best in Canadian English-language comics, were chosen by jurors Joe Ollmann, Pascal Girard, Jonathan Goldstein, Natalia Yanchak, and Julie Delporte.

The ceremony was hosted by actor and comedian Scott Thompson. The evening also saw Albert Chartier inducted into The Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame.

Best Book was won by Michel Rabagliati, the author of The Song of Roland (Conundrum Press). In 2006, Rabagliati won the Doug Wright Award in the same category for his novel Paul Moves Out (Drawn & Quarterly).

Nina Bunjevac was a first-time DWA nominee and her book Heartless (Conundrum Press) won the The Spotlight Award (aka “The Nipper”).

David Collier’s Hamilton Illustrated (Wolsak & Wynn) won the Pigskin Peters Award, which recognizes experimental and non-narrative efforts. In 2005, Collier’s The Frank Ritza Papers was nominated for a Doug Wright Award for Best Book.

If you’re experiencing withdrawal since Chris Hadfield parachuted back to Earth last night, Maclean’s has you covered.

The weekly news magazine has launched its latest ebook, Chris Hadfield: #Good Morning, Earth, by reporter Kate Lunau. The book combines Lunau’s original reporting from NASA’s Johnson Space Center with Hadfield’s Twitter diary, photos, and space experiments.

Rumours are circulating that Hadfield has also signed a book deal, but there’s no word as to which publisher landed the deal.

Since February 2012, Maclean’s has published more than 20 digital titles, including most recently Maclean’s on Justin Trudeau and Maclean’s Portraits.

 

The Writers’ Union of Canada has announced the nominees for the 16th annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

The award recognizes the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author. Authors Bill Gaston, Alexander MacLeod, and Carol Malyon made up this year’s jury and chose the shortlist from 29 submissions.

The nominees are:

• Bobcat and Other Stories, Rebecca Lee (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Ether Frolics, Paul Marlowe (Sybertooth Inc.)
• The Iron Bridge, Anton Piatigorsky (Goose Lane Editions)
• Floating Like the Dead, Yasuko Thanh (McClelland & Stewart)
• Bull Head, John Vigna (Arsenal Pulp Press)

The winners for the three best collections will be announced on June 11.

• PBS introduces line of ebooks
• Regional winners announced for Commonwealth book prize
• Philip Hensher wins Ondaatje Prize
• New report suggests Microsoft won’t buy B&N Nook Media
• Fifty Shades of Grey a contraband hit in China

 

The Canadian Booksellers Association has revealed the nominees for this year’s Libris Awards. Voted by independent booksellers, the awards recognize literary achievement and contributions from members of the book industry.

The winners will be announced June 3 at the Toronto Congress Centre. This is the second year the CBA is holding its annual conference and awards in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada’s STORE trade show. Last October, CBA members voted to join RCC, and in March, the organization served notice with Industry Canada to surrender its charter.

This year, Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented to Alice Munro and Scotiabank Giller Prize founder Jack Rabinovitch.

The nominees are:

Author

• Terry Fallis
• Will Ferguson
• Alice Munro
• Nancy Richler

Fiction

• 419, Will Ferguson (Penguin Canada)
• Dear Life, Alice Munro (McClelland & Stewart)
• Revenge of the Vinyl Café, Stuart Maclean (Penguin Canada)
• The Imposter Bride, Nancy Richler (HarperCollins Canada)

Non-fiction

• The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King (Doubleday Canada)
• The Power of Why, Amanda Lang (HarperCollins Canada)
• The Universe Within, Neil Turok (House of Anansi Press)

Bookseller

• BookLore Stores (Orangeville, ON)
• Galiano Island Books (Galiano Island, BC)
• Owl’s Nest Books (Calgary, AB)

Specialty Bookseller

• Ella Minnow Books (Toronto, ON)
• Mabel’s Fables (Toronto, ON)
• Kidsbooks (Vancouver, BC)

Campus Bookseller

• Queen’s University Campus Bookstore (Kingston, ON)
• UBC Bookstore (Vancouver, BC)
• University of Toronto Bookstore (Toronto, ON)

Young Reader

• Such Wicked Intent, Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins Canada)
• The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, Susan Nielsen (Tundra Books)
• Uncle Wally’s Old Brown Shoe, Wallace Edwards (Orca Books)

Editor

• Andrea Magyar, Penguin Canada
• Nita Pronovost, Doubleday Canada
• Iris Tupholme, HarperCollins Canada

Sales Rep

• Kathryn Wardropper, HarperCollins Canada
• Christina Winfield, Scholastic Canada
• Morgen Young, Ampersand

Picture Books

• The Stamp Collector, Jennifer Lanthier; François Thisdale, illus. (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)
• This Is Not My Hat, Jon Klassen (Candlewick Press)
• Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Christmas, Mélanie Watt (Kids Can Press)

Distributor

• North 49 Books
• Penguin Canada
• Raincoast

Small Press 

• Coach House Books
• Cormorant Books
• Harbour Publishing

Publisher

• HarperCollins Canada
• House of Anansi Press
• Penguin Canada
• Random House of Canada
• Scholastic Canada

• National Reading Campaign report says young readers need choice
• Heavy summer promotion for Lemony Snicket’s new book
• Anne Frank triumphs over censorships concerns
• Juvenile offenders study Russian literature
• How news organizations are taking advantage of ebooks