Nigel Beale's Biblio File Podcast

Dr. Don Nichol is an English Professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. He has been researching copyright law and its role in the history of writing and publishing for more than a decade. He is the author of Pope’s Literary Legacy, published by the Oxford Bibliographical Society in 1992, and editor, more recently, of The New Foundling Hospital for Wit 1768-1773 , a three-volume set...

Fran Durako is owner of the Kelmscott Bookshop in Baltimore, Maryland. We talk here, among other things, about her love of William Morris , fine printing and Victorian book illustration, the transition from book collector to seller, and art as a ‘positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to.’  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or g...

Novelist and acclaimed critic David Gilmour was born in London, Ontario in 1949. His first novel, Back on Tuesday , was published in 1986, followed by How Boys See Girls in 1991 and An Affair with the Moon in 1993. Lost Between Houses , published in 1999, was nominated for the Trillium Book Award. Sparrow Nights , his fifth novel, was published by Random House to rave reviews. His latest novel, A...

Martin Levin was the popular (particularly at Book Expo Canada where we met) Books Editor at the (Toronto) Globe and Mail newspaper. We talk here about namesakes in Tolstoy, guilt, tragedy, sorrow at not being able to review anywhere near all worthy books, blockbusters syphoning money away from deserving titles, getting boys to read books, graphic novels, Canadian literature as post-colonial/natio...

Canongate publisher  Jamie Byng appreciates and understands that myth and The Bible lie at the core of creative imagination and the Western Canon. He marries this knowledge with a skill for presentation and promotion that few other publishers can match. I met with him at BookExpo in Washington D.C. We talk here, among other things, about how he does it, about ambiguity, about the responsibility we...

Interview with Used/Antiquarian Bookseller Peter Ellis at his shop, Cecil Court Road in London, England.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebibliofile.substack.com/subscribe

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon was in Ottawa for the Writers Festival. We talk here about poetry as pemmican; about initials, dashed expectations, the movie Ice Age , James Joyce’s secular epiphanies, the luck of Shakespeare and Mozart, what constitutes great poetry, judgement, pigs, the depth of Johnny Depp, and hot water bottles. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this...

Nobel Prize winning poet Derek Walcott read at the Blue Metropolis Writers Festival in Montreal several weeks ago. We talk here about England, parents, Ted Hughes, William Blake, combining painting and poetry, the sea, getting laid, and returning. Like many truly great men, Mr. Walcott is, in addition to being an articulate, moving communicator, humble and approachable. This is a public episode. I...

Gill Coleridge is a partner with Rogers, Coleridge & White , one of the top literary agencies in the world. I spoke with her at the 2006 London Bookfair about how discounting squeezes authors; about the role of the literary agent, the championing of her stable of writers, her pick of England's hottest new literary talents (Peter Hobbs, Adam Thirlwell, Phil Lamarshe, Louise Dean, Jim Younger), abou...

Neil Wilson is a former journalist/broadcaster, future publisher, current long-distance runner and Founding Director of the Ottawa International Writers Festival . We talk about his love of Irish literature and poetry, his founding of the Festival in 1997, what motivates him to do what he does, and this Spring’s impressive, Beckett-backed line-up which goes on stage April 17, 2006. Copyright © 200...

Here is my interview with Stephen Page (unparalleled name for a) CEO and Publisher of Faber and former British Publishers Association President, conducted hurriedly at The 2006 London Bookfair. We talk briefly about the role and necessity of publishing houses, the impact of the Internet, discounting, supermarkets, ebooks and 3 for 2 band-aids.    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss...

Rap as rebellion, slang as hipness, and jargon as obfuscatory exclusionary pretense. These are topics discussed during my interview with world-renowned slang lexicographer Jonathon Green last month in his office in London, England. And bloody invigorating it was too. We talk about why penises are funny and beat out vaginas, why slang is negative and misogynist and how it carries a kind of inventiv...

The Rockcliffe Book Fair is one of the oldest, biggest, best used book sales in Ontario, if not Canada. Book dealers travel across the country every year to cash in on the great deals. More than 3500 volunteer hours go into the making of it annually (600 for the full year, let alone one event is, apparently, considered impressive when it comes to parental involvement in school activities). Twenty...

I’ve known  Kensel Tracy for 20 years. We met in 1985 when he was in charge of marketing at the Ottawa-Carleton Tourism Commission and I was Membership Director at the Board of Trade. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever met who is as energetic and creative as Kensel is when it comes to marketing. Over the years he has worked with Ottawa's Festival of Spring, Winterlude, Habitat for Humanity and many...