Fanado - what a concept!

In these days of shrinking book publishing budgets and the offloading of promotion to writers, we wanted to share some good news. Margaret Atwood, one of the founders of TWUC, has developed a new way to connect readers and writers – Fanado.

“Fanado is for creators of all kinds – authors, musicians, artists. For writers in particular, Fanado will make it easier to build an audience,” says Margaret.

Fanado is an online promotional and broadcast space: writers will be able to do a reading, host an event, be part of a interview, have one-on-one chats with fans, private video conferencing among fans, sell books, sign book covers, including live on-screenautographing and personalizing, and more, all webstreamed and archived.

Once connected, through Fanado writers will be able to sign physical books, as well. One Canadian publisher has already acquired a Fanado “channel” – a named Fanado site for their own authors and books – and more are on the way.

Atwood blogs and other lit news

Here is some Canlit news shamelessly cribbed from here and there.

Margaret Atwood has launched a blog to publicize her new book, Year of the Flood, to be released September 22. Check it out at http://marg09.wordpress.com/. Atwood must write in her sleep. Seems to me she just put out Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.

Harper Collins Canada, announced film rights to Lawrence Hill's novel The Book of Negroes have just been sold to noted Canadian director Clement Virgo’s Conquering Lion Pictures. Nice. It should make a great flick.

Canadian Literary Magazines have hit a funding wall. The Department of Canadian Heritage will no longer support small circulation mags. Says Minister James Moore in a letter to The New Quarterly. "The CPF will support a broad range of periodicals, but it will no longer offer support to titles that sell fewer than 5,000 copies total per year, or specialized support for arts and literary magazines, including those that sell fewer than 5,000 copies a year."

Atwood says it all. "The Harper Tories are out to squash the arts into the dust. They basically just hate us."

2008 Fovourites

Writer and avid reader Laura Atkinson offers her best reads for 2008:
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faolain .
Children of the Day by Sandra Birdsell
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

I did not read Lullabies for Little Criminals but it is on my list. Anything by the late great Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain is first rate. Most of her books are in Mary J.Black Library. I enjoyed Children of the Day by Manitoba writer Sandra Birdsell. Her novel, The Russlanders is one of my lifetime favourites. Moral Disorder by Atwood is a collection of her incomparable stories. I read the first story in the Guardian when I was in England. This story is a masterpiece and it alone makes the price of the book worthwhile.