Nigel Beale's Biblio File Podcast

Published in 1908, Anne of Green Gables is the first in a series of bestselling novels by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery . Although often dark and complex, and at times racy, the ‘Anne’ novels are today considered by most to be children’s books. Inspired by similar girls’ stories of the time, and her own childhood experiences in rural Prince Edward Island, Montgomery’s writing has affected g...

Copyright activist, speaker, teacher (how about ’speacher’…or ’spreacher’), columnist, science fiction novelist, short story writer, co-editor of  Boing Boing ,  and the very manifestation of articulate dynamism, Cory Doctorow was in Ottawa to promote his novel Little Brother.  a fast paced, current-day 1984-like polemic calling for teens to subvert security measures, especially those used by gove...

Kate Pullinger is a novelist who also writes for film and various digital platforms. Born in Cranbrook British Columbia she went to high school on Vancouver Island, dropped out of McGill University, worked for a year in a copper mine in the Yukon, traveled, and eventually settled in London. Pullinger has written two short story collections; her novels include When the Monster Dies (1989), Where Do...

 Listen here as famed author of The Life of Pi and self proclaimed political gadfly Yann Martel absorbs a barrage of punishing jabs I throw at him over his book What is Stephen Harper Reading? and punches back at a (former) Canadian Prime Minister whom he clearly holds in disdain.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...

Larry Thompson established Greyweathers Press several years ago because of  a "love of beautifully designed type skillfully arranged on a well-proportioned page." His original plan was to print letterpress books only, however, as his enterprise evolved Larry became interested in relief block prints and now includes these in his work. Editorial focus is on the literature both of 19th and early 20th...

Researching ‘literary’ Portland (Maine) before trekking down there, I came across mention of Rabelais Book shop . What an interesting concept it’s built upon:  the vertical integration of new titles on food, wine, gardening and farming, with rare out-of-print  books. Patrons therefore inhabit several distinct categories: Book lovers and collectors from around the globe, food lovers and cooks from...

After working his way up through the publishing trade during the 1950s and 1960s, Tom Doherty became publisher of Tempo Books in 1972 and later Ace Books. In 1980 he established his own publishing firm Tom Doherty Associates Inc., with the help of several investors including silent partner Richard Gallen (of Dell Emerald Books fame), and with it the Tor Books imprint. Early Tor titles included Nor...

David Hartwell has worked as a Science Fiction and Fantasy editor for Signet, Berkley Putnam, Pocket (where he founded the Timescape imprint and created the Pocket Books StarTrek  publishing line), and Tor (where he headed Tor’s Canadian publishing initiative, and introduced many Australian writers to the US market). Since 1995, his title at Tor/Forge Books has been "Senior Editor." He chairs the...

Roderick ‘Rocky’ Stinehour is a very pleasant, accomplished gentleman from Vermont. He’s also recognized internationally as a printer of high repute and a designer of beautiful, scholarly books. His career spans over much change in printing technology and the way in which books are produced and distributed. In 1950, after graduating from Dartmouth College, he, along with his wife and brother, esta...

Claire Van Vliet is the owner of the Janus Press founded in 1955 located, since 1966, in Newark, Vermont. Janus Press has to date produced approximately 100 publications — books, pamphlets, and broadsides- , many of them designed, illustrated, type-set, printed (sometimes on paper made by the artist), and bound by Van Vliet herself  in a well-equipped studio, printshop, bindery of her own design....

Galway Kinnell was born February 1, 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island. He has been hailed as one of the most influential American poets of the latter half of the 20th century. Educated at Princeton and Rochester Universities, he served in the United States Navy, after which he spent several years traveling, in Europe and the Middle East. His first book of poems, What a Kingdom It Was, was published...

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002) was born in Armenia in 1908. His photographer uncle, George Nakash, brought him to Canada in 1924. After apprenticing in Boston with John H. Garo, Karsh settled in Ottawa in 1932, where he began his professional career. By 1936 he was photographing visiting statesmen and dignitaries, among them President Franklin Roosevelt. His December, 1941 portrait of a bull-doggish Win...

Writer, journalist, comic reader, Cartoon Historian, intermittent blogger, and over-tired family man Brad Mackay is the author of a biographical essay which appears in The Collected Doug Wright Volume One (Drawn and Quarterly, 2009).   First of a two-volume set, the book – designed by well known Canadian cartoonist Seth -  presents a comprehensive look at the life and career of one of the most-rea...

This from the incom­par­able Brit­ish Council’s con­tem­por­ary writers web­site:   Born in South­port in 1969, David Mitchell grew up in Mal­vern, Worcester­shire, study­ing for a degree in Eng­lish and Amer­ican Lit­er­at­ure fol­lowed by an MAin Com­par­at­ive Lit­er­at­ure, at the Uni­ver­sity of Kent. He lived for a year in Sicily before mov­ing to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught Eng­lish t...

What’s the dif­fer­ence between a First Edi­tion, a Fine Press Edi­tion and an Artists’ Book? Joshua and Phyl­lis Heller work with me to help define the bound­ar­ies.    The two of them estab­lished Joshua Heller Rare Books, Inc . in Wash­ing­ton DC, in 1985. The com­pany spe­cial­izes in “con­tem­por­ary fine print­ing and beau­ti­fully illus­trated books, the Private Press Move­ment, mod­ern fin...

John Bid­well is Astor Cur­ator of Prin­ted Books and Bind­ings at the Pier­pont Mor­gan Lib­rary , before which he was Cur­ator of Graphic Arts in the Prin­ceton Uni­ver­sity Lib­rary. He has writ­ten extens­ively on the his­tory of paper­mak­ing in Eng­land and America.  The Prin­ted Books and Bind­ings col­lec­tion at the Mor­gan con­tains works span­ning West­ern book pro­duc­tion from the ear...

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet before James l came to the throne. Events in the play reflect many of the real world concerns that  Englishmen had about being ruled by a foreigner. At the play’s end, Denmark’s line of  rulers is extinguished, and a foreigner (Fortinbras) takes the throne. James was married to Anna of Denmark, some feared that if he were to attempt a military takeover, he might call on th...

Crime novelist Denise Mina is the author of a trilogy of novels set in Glasgow: Garnethill (1998), which won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger; Exile (2000); and Resolution (2001).     Sanctum (2002), is the story of a forensic psychiatrist, convicted of killing a serial killer. The Field of Blood (2005) is the first in a new series, the second in the series, The Dead Hou...

Terry Griggs is the author of a collection of short stories,  Quickening , which was nominated for a Governor General’s Award, and two novels, The Lusty Man , and Rogues’ Wedding , shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Award. She has also written two books for children, Cat’s Eye Corner , shortlisted for a Mr. Christie’s Book Award and a Red Cedar Award, and most recently a sequel, The...

Karl Siegler is a founding member of the Association of Book Publishers of British C olumbia and the Literary Press Group of Canada ; he has served as president of the Association of Canadian Publishers twice, and was one of the founding members of the Simon Fraser Centre for Studies in Publishing and its Masters in Publishing Program. He’s also the publisher at Talonbooks. Talonbooks has publishe...

Ha Jin was born in China in 1956. After Tiananmen Square, he emigrated to the United States. Unlike most exiled writers Ha Jin was not established in his native language; he had no audience in Chinese, and so chose to write in English.   He has published three collections of poetry, including Between Silences and Facing Shadows , and three collections of short fiction, Ocean of Words , received th...

This past Spring at the Blue Met Writers Festival , Donald Antrim conducted a workshop entitled: Fiction and Memoir: "Writing Ourselves" It was designed to explore the ‘challenging and often frustrating process of reading into one’s own work;’ and to identify aspects of that work which may have been underdeveloped, unnoticed, or even, avoided. As the syllabus put it: "Fiction and memoir are not, a...

Originally from Vancouver, Professor Rohan Maitzen has an Honours B.A. in English and History from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. and Ph. D. in English from Cornell University .  Since 1995, she has been a member of Dalhousie University’s English Department . Her main teaching area is the Victorian novel; she has a particular admiration for George Eliot and assigns her greatest nov...

Born in Los Angeles in 1946, Robert Bringhurst is an award winning Canadian poet, typographer and author. Perhaps best known for  The Elements of Typographic Style – a reference book of typefaces, glyphs and the visual and geometric arrangement of type, he is also a respected translator of poetic works from Haida into English.  He lives on Quadra Island, near Campbell River, B.C. We met in Ottawa...

A.B. Yehoshua was born in 1936 to a fifth-generation Jerusalem family of Sephardi origin. His first book of stories, "Mot Hazaken" (The Death of the Old Man) was published in 1962. He was an important member of the "new wave" generation of Israeli writers who differed from earlier writers by focusing on the individual rather than the group.  Franz Kafka , Shmuel Yosef Agnon , and William Faulkner...