This is one of my favourite times of year—when I can legitimately ask publishers to send me their latest young adult novels so that I can choose authors for the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in September. My biggest problem is that I only have two sets, with three authors each. Even in relatively small (population-wise) Canada, it's very hard to narrow down to six authors per year. The children's stage has been running much longer and has a full day of programming. That's my ultimate goal, so festival organizers— be on alert!

The festival takes place outside in a lovely hamlet just outside Guelph, Ontario. Weather is almost always cooperative, and people donate their lawns and meadows for reading space. Which means if I want to expand, I'll need to find another resident who is willing to host the site. These are long term plans for now.

On my desk to read are two new books from Tundra: The Castle on Deadman's Island, by Curtis Parkinson, and the ARC of The Battle for Duncragglin by Andrew H. Vanderwal. Arriving today should be Snakes and Ladders by Shaun Smith.

Already confirmed for this year's festival are Deb Loughead and Jocelyn Shipley, co-editors of Cleavage: Breakaway Fiction for Real Girls, James Laxer, author of Oil and the forthcoming book Democracy, and Valerie Sherrard, author of many books, most recently, Searching for Yesterday, the sixth book in the Shelby Belgarden mysteries.

It was way more exciting this year to be hearing (reading?) the ALA awards as they were announced. Various friends are there and were sending out tweets and updating their Facebook status. I'm hugely impressed that the Printz went to Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road. I haven't read it yet, but I loved Saving Francesca and Looking for Alibrandi. I'm looking forward to checking this one out. And Neil Gaiman winning the Newbery!! That's fantastic. He's such a great author for so many audiences. The Morris Award for best Debut Novel went to A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth Bunce. Another one I don't know, so I'll have to get reading!

I am impressed, though, that the JHunt awards came so close to the same decisions as the Printz. All of the books on the Printz award were on our long list. We just came to different conclusions, as is logical considering our very different process.

You can find a complete list of the winners here.

Yesterday I attended the Waterloo launch of The Young City by James Bow at the Waterloo Public Library. The Young City is the third in the Unwritten trilogy and it's published by Dundurn Press. James read from the previous volume, Fathom Five, at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in September.

The books feature Peter and Rosemary, two teenagers who end up in other worlds. In this case it's 19th-century Toronto, and because they can't figure out how to get back, most of the book takes place there.

James read passages from various places in the book and the audience asked him questions about the research he had to do to write a historical novel. He explained that he did just enough to get the details right (and that those details had some influence on how the plot played out) but that he was careful not to mire himself in the history, as is easy to do.

A most enjoyable afternoon. You can check out James's Facebook fan page here and he also has a website.

I'm a new LiveJournal user so this is an initial post to see how it all works. I'm interested in connecting with people in the publishing world as well as those who might be interested in reviewing books our press publishes. Many are academic but quite a few cross over to be of interest to the general reader.

I am the publicist for Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. We publish in the areas of literature, history, political science, sociology, social work, aboriginal studies and related humanities and social sciences. We also have a Life Writing series (memoir, auto/biography, and critical work) and a poetry series highlighting Canadian poets in mid-career.

Personal interests in publishing (and reading) are Canadian and Australian Young Adult titles.

Clare