Kathleen Molloy

I’ve bitten into the first erotica book of my CanLit challenge. Bitten, I say because this is vampire erotica. It is also a romance novel, a scientific mystery / conspiracy, and characters with exotic names such as Rio, Valian, Simaron, and Chancella.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I checked the author’s website and discovered that Susan Phelan has two other books in her The Blood Tapestry series and the other two covers feature shirtless hunks. Go to Susan.phelan[dot]com and also take a look at this Canadian author’s blog.

I was quick to nab this book while at Audreys Books in Edmonton in August. I asked the ever-friendly staff to recommend local erotica authors. They sent me to the Gay and Lesbian corner which was loaded with Ivan Coyote et al. I asked for some hetro erotica, by Canadian authors. There was all sorts of smut written by everyone-but-us.

I made my way to the front desk and asked for local authors – period. Turns out, there is no section for local authors, however, there are a few shelves for authors that had come by for a reading or signing and left some autographed copies behind. Eureka! But 3/4 of the books were by Toronto authors.

I snooped and snooped and snooped and presto discovered a signed copy of Susan Phelan’s The Cure – complete with local author sticker and sex in almost every chapter.

And now I offer it up in a new contest. By October 31 please tell us about the WORST sex scene in CanLit or in a Canadian story. Stories by Canadians don’t count if the sex hasn’t occurred in Canada. Short stories count – of course – and heck, why not poetry too? Ok, bad Canadian sex in Canadian books. Let’s hear it.

Late to post. Here are a few books enjoyed by Islanders and tourists alike this Summer.

From the August 2009 paper journal The Buzz:

- Prince Edward Island Tales - Montague Library Writers Guild

- Gail of Wind, by Gail Duguay

- The Fixer Upper, by Lorne Elliott

- Passing the Torch The Community Living Movement in Prince Edward Island

- Prince Edward Island: an illustrated history, by Douglas Baldwin

And which one will youstuff into a backpack? Go with the Montague tales, for a true taste of the island.

As Canadians reading CanLit, it is a pleasure seeing ourselves on the page. Now, with the help of Project Bookmark Canada we can see the page on the street. Huh?

Project Bookmark Canada is crossing the country to place plaques with CanLit excerpts in specific geographic locations related to those works. Toronto’s inaugural plaque remembers a passage from Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and the construction of the Bloor Street Viaduct.

From the Project Bookmark Canada website it isn’t clear which blurbs will be featured next or where. Shall we send the founder, Miranda Hill, a wish list?

I’ll compile your suggestions and send the Wish List to Hill care of Project Bookmark Canada. I’ll also give away a copy of Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion that I have ready to book cross.

Here’s how to do it:

1)      Suggest locations for a CanLit-plaques, provide titles and authors

2)      Post them as a comment here by May 30.

I understand what the term “romance writer” means and the tag “mystery writer” is fairly evident but I always get a chuckle when I hear “erotic writer”.  I want to turn my nose up and say “erotica writer”. I don’t know why. The use of erotica makes it sound like the writer is writing in the genre of eroticism. The use of erotic makes me think kinky things about the writer.

 Seems I’m not the only reader thinking kinky things about Canadian writers these days.

H.B. Fenn and Company will soon launch its Fresh Face of Erotic Fiction. Each year they will spotlight 5 Canadian writers writing erotic Canadian fiction. Their annual Fresh Face picks will be branded with a pair of cherries.Look for Fresh Face Ottawa writer  Opal Carew in the first batch.

You know… that gives me an idea for a theme for the 3^rd Canadian Book Challenge. I just may lay my hands on 13 erotic Canadian writers.

With all the blog chats about what makes a feminist blog a Feminist Blog I pose the question “What makes a feminist”. It’s curious how definition can hold us hostage.

In Ontario author Eric McCormack’s novel First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women we have a protagonist who is haunted by nightmares of women marching in protest. These nightmares plague him through his life and affect all of his relationships to the point that he is carried off by a downward spiral of despair.

 The story isn’t dire. Don’t get me wrong. The fellow just happens to have a string of bad luck wherein almost everyone he loves somehow dies under bizarre circumstances. Father figures and sailors play big roles as he floats around the world trying to out run his nightmares.From the website:First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women is the story of Andrew Halfnight, whose life—part dream, part nightmare— begins with a mother’s tragic choice and ends with a lover’s understanding. In between he experiences tempests at sea, relatives who kill for love, and lovers who sacrifice their bodies, all the while unknowingly moving ever closer to the central mystery of his, and all existence.Another Canadian title to book cross.

For the Canadian Book Challenge I’ve read 4 YA books by west Quebec authors. Weird. I don’t usually gravitate toward YA and I currently have very few teen friends these days. I have to admit that at 37 I feel COMPLETELY out of touch with anyone between 13-17. 

And that’s shameless.

It’s not only shameless – it’s inexcusable.

So I took a subscription with a Toronto-based magazine for young feminists. Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two.

The mag is Shameless:

“Shameless is Canada’s independent voice for smart, strong, sassy young women. It’s a fresh alternative to typical teen magazines, for girls who know there’s more to life than makeup and diet tips. Packed with articles about arts, culture and current events, Shameless reaches out to readers who are often ignored by mainstream media: freethinkers, queer youth, young women of colour, punk rockers, feminists, intellectuals, artists, activists — people just like you! We tackle teen life with wit and wisdom.”By snail mail:
Shameless
P.O. Box 68548
360A Bloor St. W.
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 1X1

I dove into a collection of short stories for my 11^th book of the 2^nd Canadian Book Challenge.  Under the banner Rafales, this collection comes from a local publishing house in Gatineau (old Hull) called Vents d’Ouest. The title Jeux d’adresses separates out the different “jeux” (games) in our lives from children’s games to forbidden games. Naturally, my favourite section was Jeux de mots!

And here’s something fun… my copy is signed by author Louise Bouley. The dedication is to “Suzanne” with “Gros bisous” (big kisses) and an invitation to explore the imagination of Outaouais.

With that in mind, I am offering up this copy as a prize to a reader who shares their favourite image from  Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne Takes You Down”. Mine is: Only drowning men could see him.Post a comment to tell us yours.  I’ll pick a random winner in November. Suzanne is here: 

http://www.lyricsdomain.com/12/leonard_cohen/suzanne.html

And for readers that want a crisp copy of Jeux d’adresses, shop directly from Vente d’ouest for more local francophone authors.

Jeux d’adresses, edited by Julie Huard, Michel-Rémi Lafond, François-Xavier Simard

Ventes d’ouest

http://www.ventsdouest.ca/Livres.asp?IDL=99

You know Mark Frutkin from Fabrizio’s Return. You may have already snatched up his new quasi-autobiographical journal Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister’s Life in the Canadian Bush.

Frutkin is my 10^th west Quebec author and the whole time I read Slow Lighting I wanted to eat Spanish oranges.

Slow Lightening is the perfect title. The story is about a university student caught up in political unrest, something he didn’t create, can’t control, and can’t escape – like lightening. It’s like watching distant lightening slowly creeping toward you … and when you’re under it … KABOOM!

Frutkin mixes humour with politics; a cocktail I adore.

Find Frutkin’s books here:

http://www.markfrutkin.com/books.html#slow

Here is Frutkin’s interview with the Ottawa Citizen on Draft Resister:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=a751c3d6-c7cd-4b81-a938-cf3407e9de03&p=1

Kathleen Molloy

At a second-hand bookstore today, I picked up a copy of Speak Ill of the Dead. You will recall that I read this first book of the Camilla MacPhee Mystery series as one of my 13 west Quebec authors for the 2^nd Canadian Book Challenge. I picked up this second copy today because I had already book crossed author Mary Jane Maffini out to Winnipeg by the time two readers wrote to request that I hold on to Speak Ill of the Dead so that we could trade Canadian authors.

When I got home today, and started to prepare my Book Crossing label I discovered the following inscription:

“To Marcia, look for the Nova Scotia clues, enjoy – Mary Jane.”

Poor Marcia. I bet she’s looking under her bed for this one.  You snooze, you lose, Marcia. This signed copy is going down east as a prize to a Nova Scotian lover of Canadian mystery books. 

It’s a contest. 

To qualify:           1) you have to be a Nova Scotian reader who loves Canadian mystery books

                                2) you have to send a comment to this blog to tell readers who your all-time favourite Canadian mystery writer is and the title you’d buy twice.

3) you can also be a non-Nova Scotian lover of Canadian mystery books too and try your luck at a mystery prize

[Did I mention that there will also be a mystery prize to a non-Nova Scotian who also loves Canadian mystery writers?]

Post your comment before Halloween 2008 and I’ll pick two random readers to win.  Nova Scotians and Everyone Else are welcome to try. Post your comment and try your luck.

 I’ll be happy to know that this signed second copy of Speak Ill of the Dead is in good hands.

Author Mary-Lou Zeitoun hides out in the Gatineau Hills. In my mind, that makes her West Quebec author and as such she finds her YA novel 13 on my hit list for the 2^nd Canadian Book Challenge. She’s the 9^th west Quebec author I’ve enjoyed for this challenge and the fourth YA author.

When I was a YA I didn’t read YA and now I’m making up for lost time. Gawd, I missed a lot of YA  fun back then.

Zeitoun’s book 13 reminds me of conversations I had with my gal pals in the early 80s; giddy, filled with teen longing, and loaded with mistrust of adults.It’s written like a rambling diary and the story unfolds very much the way a girl in grade eight might talk – or blog.

It opens with “What a bunch of losers” and we learn from the get-go that Marnie is right, and her parents, and her principal, and the nuns, and even her friend Edna are wrong – all wrong, and so it goes. It’s Marnie against the world, an unjust world where girls that wear makeup get raped because they encourage it, trusted male roll-models take naked photos of stupid girls that let them, and when a punk band lead singer sucks your finger during his stage show you worry that you might have to reciprocate the sucking. And you worry that you might be a Lezzie. And you want to run away to New York so that John Lennon can fall in love with you. And you say you don’t care if boys call you a dog but it rips your gut out.

And the world isn’t fair. When you want to play the drums in music class you get saddled with the French Horn, cuz girls don’t play the French Horn.Bump it up a few decades and tell me how much this story will change.

Today Marnie wouldn’t  want to be the designer of vinyl record covers., cuz … what’s a record anyway? And she wouldn’t have to play the French Horn because no public schools have the money for music lessons anymore. And forget Spin the Bottle when you’re 13; now it’s hooking up at 10 and 11. But Marnie would still be right and the world would still be wrong.

Buy the book here:http://www.sentex.net/~pql/thirteen.html

Beer drinkers love 13. Check out this review by a suds selling beer company:

http://www.uppercanada.com/template.asp?CName=Mary-LouZeitoun13