The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale

Former Pittsburgh Post Gazette Books Editor Bob Hoover wrote about books with the paper for more than 20 years. We talk here, at a noisy diner in the shadow of the Heinz ketchup factory, about the role of a books editor, Pittsburgh's lively literary arts scene, blogs, the 800-900 review copies Bob receives each month, and keeping readers current about everything book related. We also talk about Bo...

John Metcalf is best known as a writer/editor who has worked with many of Canada's foremost short story writers including Michael Winter , Terry Griggs, Steven Heighton, and Caroline Adderson. Born in Carlisle, England, and educated at the University of Bristol, he emigrated to Canada in 1962. In addition to writing his own novels, short stories and essays, he for years edited the work of others a...

Chris Cleave was born in London and spent his early years in Cameroon. He studied Experimental Psychology at Balliol College, Oxford, and now writes a column for the Guardian newspaper. His debut novel Incendiary won a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award, was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize, and is now a feature film. Chris lives in London with his wife and two children. We met to talk...

Luise von Flotow is an associate professor in Translation Studies at the University of Ottawa with a special interest in translation and gender. In 1992, her translation of Deathly Delights was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Her most recent book is the English translation of Girls Closed In by Quebec author France Theoret. I spoke with Luise in her offices in Ottawa about Canada as...

Jessa Crispin is editor and founder of Bookslut.com "a monthly web magazine and daily blog dedicated to those who love to read. We provide a constant supply of news, reviews, commentary, insight, and more than occasional opinions." Author Jana Martin describes her this way:  "Certainly she's a reader, a great reader, and she knows how to make one good party after another, whether in a beer-poster-...

I was in Chicago and met with Keith Michael Fiels, Executive Director of the American Library Association . According to  The ALA Constitution  the purpose of ALA is "…to promote library service and librarianship." Stated mission is "To provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learn...

A lifelong resident of Illinois, Levi Stahl works at the University of Chicago Press . For the past three years he has maintained a literary blog, I've Been Reading Lately. He has written for the Poetry Foundation, the Chicago Reader, the Bloomsbury Review, the New-York Ghost, the Quarterly Conversation, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His short fiction has recently been published in the New Yo...

Mr. Wikipedia tells us : "Rain Taxi is a Minneapolis-based book review and literary organization. In addition to publishing its quarterly print edition, Rain Taxi maintains an online edition with distinct content, sponsors the Twin Cities Book Festival, hosts readings, and publishes chapbooks through its Brainstorm Series. Rain Taxi's mission is "to advance independent literary culture through pub...

Kathy Stransky co-owner, with her husband, of Midway Used and Rare Books on University Avenue in St. Paul Minnesota for the past 35 years, talks about the impact of the Internet, Half Price Books moving in down the street, high tech book scouts, rapid transit, and thieves, on her business. Gloom and doom? Yes, it's been hard, but still, despite diminishing returns, nothing can beat doing what you...

Today is Family Literacy Day! Literacy is defined as "the ability to understand and employ printed information in daily activities at home, at work and in the community - to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential." Four out of 10 adult Canadians, age 16 to 65 - representing 9 million Canadians - struggle with low literacy according to Statistics Canada. This means they a...

Robert Rulon-Miller is an antiquarian book dealer who lives, if not in a mansion, then at the very least in a great big house on Summit Avenue, one of the toniest in St. Paul, Minnesota. Not that toiling as a bookseller is anyway to get rich quick. He has worked hard for many years in the business, specializing in 'Rare, Fine & Interesting Books in Many Fields; 1st Editions, Americana; Literature;...

Rosemary Furtak was the librarian at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for more than 25 year. She was co-curator of  'Text Messages', an exhibit on artist's books shown in 2009 at the Center. We talk here about her early championing of the artist book genre -  her definition being: "a book that refuses to behave like a book ("like the 35,000 books that sit in the stacks"), the line between book...

Biographer, critic, broadcaster and novelist Victoria Glendinning was born in Sheffield, and educated at Somerville College, Oxford, where she read Modern Languages. She worked as a teacher and social worker before becoming an editorial assistant for the Times Literary Supplement in 1974. President of English PEN, she was awarded a CBE in 1998. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature an...

Tanja Jacobs is a well known actress, director, teacher and coach. She has worked in the professional theatre since 1981, and performed at most major theatres in Canada. She has been nominated for ten Dora Mavor Moore Awards and has won twice. As a director, her credits include 1002 Nights, Johann's Cabinet of Wonders, Goddess , and Mid-Life Crisis . On television, besides her role as federal empl...

Born, raised and currently resident in Ottawa, Canada, Christian McPherson's poetry has appeared in a variety of print and online journals. He has won the John Spenser Hill Award and the Ottawa Public Library Short story Award. We met recently to discuss his first published collection called Poems that Swim from my Brain like Rats leaving a Sinking Ship. Listen as we talk, among other things, abou...

Ross Raisin is a young British author born in Keighley, Yorkshire. He studied at the University of London, worked as a trainee wine bar manager and completed a postgraduate degree in creative writing at Goldsmith's College. His debut novel Out Backward ( God's Own Country in England) was published in 2008, and shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Priz e . It features Sam Marsdyke, a disturbed a...

Nadeem Aslam was born in Pakistan in 1966, moved to the UK as a teenager and now lives in London. He studied Biochemistry at the University of Manchester, but left to become a writer. His first novel, Season of the Rainbirds (1993) won a Betty Trask Award and the Authors' Club First Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Awar...

This is part three of a series of interviews conducted with three acclaimed short storywriters: Rebecca Rosenblum , Nam Le , and Anne Enright. In each case we riff off those qualities which Flannery O'Connor thought best constituted a good short story. I've listed some of them here.  Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962, studied English and Philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, and went on to...

Joe Dunthorne is a graduate of the Creative Writing Masters program at UEA, where he was awarded the Curtis Brown Prize. His poetry has been published in Reactions 5, Magma, Smiths Knoll, and Tears in the Fence. His work has been featured on Channel 4, BBC Radio 3, 4 and in The Guardian and Vice magazine. We met at the IFOA in Toronto to discuss his debut novel, Submarine , why the behavior of tee...

Bruno Racine was President of the National Library of France  from 2007- 2016. Prior to this he held a variety of senior positions within the French government including: Director General Cultural Affairs for the City of Paris (1988-1993), Director of l'Académie de France à Rome (1997-2002), and Chairman du Centre Pompidou (2002-2007). He is also a writer. Non-fiction titles include his best-selli...

AMITAV GHOSH is one of India's best-known writers. His books include The Circle of Reason , The Shadow Lines , The Glass Palace , Incendiary Circumstances and The Hungry Tide . Born in Calcutta in 1956 Ghosh studied in Dehra Dun, New Delhi, Alexandria and Oxford. His first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi. He earned a doctorate at Oxford before he wrote his first novel, which w...

Junot Díaz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and is the author of Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which won the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. He is the fiction editor at the Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen professor at the...

Nam Le has won the  £60,000 Dylan Thomas Prize . It recognizes the best young writer in the English-speaking world, with the goal of ensuring that the inspirational nature of Dylan's writing lives on. I met with him in Toronto at the IFOA . This is part two of a series of interviews conducted with three acclaimed short storywriters: Rebecca Rosenblum , Nam Le , and Anne Enright. In each case we ri...

Joseph Boyden won  The 2008 Giller Prize  for his novel Through Black Spruce.  We talk here about the novel, and the psychic distance Joseph requires to write novels about Northern Ontario and the Cree; the similarities between North and South, James Bay and New Orleans; snowmobiling over vast amounts of snow-covered bush, isolation in the wilderness; bridges between communities, oral culture, Fir...

Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library , founded in 1946, is a not-for-profit organization for people interested in books and libraries. Its purpose is to stimulate public interest in the library, purchase library materials, and support other cultural and educational programs in Tompkins County. Each year since inception the Friends have held a book sale in Ithaca New York. It now ranks amo...