CanadianContent discussion

Emmkay wrote: "Welcome, Carlyn! I just added your book to my to-read list - sounds fascinating."
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it. You'll find it a quick read.

Welcome Carlyn - thanks for sharing your book and joining us here for some great CanLit and terrific discussion!

Welcome Carlyn! I am looking forward to reading your book.

Natasha wrote: "Welcome Carlyn! I am looking forward to reading your book."
Thank you and thank you, Natasha!

❀ Susan wrote: "Welcome Carlyn - thanks for sharing your book and joining us here for some great CanLit and terrific discussion!"

Thanks Susan. I'm looking forward to it.

Hi there! My name is Sarah, and I'm from Northern Ontario. I studied book publishing -- which is where I discovered how much I love CanLit and also how little I've read -- and now I work at a library. So happy to have stumbled across this group!

Great to meet you Sarah! Welcome!

I am a burgeoning Canadian author who has had the fortune to travel our great nation from coast to coast. I have served in both the public and private sector, and when not writing, I can be found either bugging my long-suffering wife, being rambunctious with my two young boys, or helping create structures and buildings as a day, and sometimes evening and weekend, job.

I am proud of our great land, and no small part of that is due to our artistry with words.

@Stephen - welcome. I hope you get some time to read into your busy life, we will certainly share many suggestions in this group!

Thank you, Susan. It's appreciated.

Hello, my name is Colleen, and I'm originally from the Maritimes - New Brunswick to be exact. I studied English Lit back in the day, but now ply my trade as a social worker, and am currently working over at SickKids Hospital. I've lived in Fredericton, Winnipeg, Halifax, and now Toronto, and over the years I've developed a love for those books that speak to our own geography. I'm also married to Craig Davidson (author of Giller shortlisted Cataract City, and Precious Cargo), and so I have a vested interest in promoting CanLit writers. Happy to have found this group, and looking forward to getting to know you through our mutual love of books! :)

Nice to meet you Colleen! I hope you enjoy our group. It is amazing how much our members read!

I was very happy to meet your husband at the Grimsby Author series and am participating in one book one Brant to read cataract city!

Craig spoke highly of that series! :) Thank you for the warm welcome Susan! :)

Colleen, I also briefly met your husband at the Gananoque Literary Festival last spring, and at this very moment, have his book The Troop in my Little Free Library!

Glad you found us. It's certainly a group that loves books, and especially CanLit. :)

Hi Allison! I'm happy I found this group too! I was actually able to join Craig in Gananoque for that festival and loved the parlour sessions - so intimate and very unique! And that is quite neat to hear about The Troop - it's a rather unsettling read! Can't wait to start digging into some good books with all of you!

Welcome Stephen and Colleen, nice to have you!

Hi everyone.

The pertinent facts: I read / I collect / I obsess about English-Canadian fantastika. Fantastika is an old-fashioned word recently revived by John Clute which encompasses non-mimetic fiction.

In short: sf & f, supernatural horror, magic realist, fabulist, and surrealist works.

I guess it should come as no surprise, then, that I am one of the admins of the Sunburst Award.

www.sunburstaward.org

Welcome Peter. We've got a small dedicated group here who reads Canadian SFF and are always excited to talk about it.

Oooh some of my favorite genres as well Peter. Can't wait to hear your recommendations!

Welcome Peter - Unlike Shvaugn who lobbied hard for more attention to your favourite genres, she, Barbara, Mary Anne and many other members read that genre a fair bit. I haven't tried too many sci fi or fantasy books myself. I enjoy magic realism (at least what I think that means.)

Many are fans of the Sunburst Awards as well. Because you aren't currently accepting emails I couldn't send you a quick private note. Wanted to alert you that you need to change your link to .org rather than .ca for the Sunburst website to open. (Was trying to be discreet.) You can just "edit" your original post at the bottom right.

Glad to have you join us. Looking forward to your thoughts. There are a lot of potential sci fi & fantasy books that made the Canada Reads 15 book longlist. Looking forward to finding out which books advance tomorrow and will be interested in reading your comments.

Welcome Peter! I am sure that you will find some great discussions here as there are very diverse tastes in our Canadian reading amongst our group!

Shvaugn wrote: "Welcome Peter. We've got a small dedicated group here who reads Canadian SFF and are always excited to talk about it."

Shvaugn wrote: "Welcome Peter. We've got a small dedicated group here who reads Canadian SFF and are always excited to talk about it."

Mj wrote: "Welcome Peter - Unlike Shvaugn who lobbied hard for more attention to your favourite genres, she, Barbara, Mary Anne and many other members read that genre a fair bit. I haven't tried too many sci ..."

Hope this reply isn't overlarge. If it is, well, I'll gt the hang of it ... eventually.

Many thanks for the warm welcome and the nice words about the Sunburst. We are volunteer run and so I'll pass the sentiment on... :)

Mj, thank you SO much for pointing out that .ca / .org mixup. If I had a nickle for every ... I still wouldn't have enough books.

Just a quick couple of recommendations:

If Guy Kay publishes a new book, I buy it and read it. And wind up liking it more than I can say.

A first time novelist from MTL, Sylvain Neuvel, published Sleeping Giants last year. I hadn't read a debut hard sf novel that good in a very long time.

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, another first time novelist, is being released in about 10 days. I lucked into an ARC. Blown away, was I. Just blown away.

Now I gotta go package the last remaining books to go out to the jury...

'night all.

I loved Cataract City-boy was that dark , but I have read somewhere that Craig uses another name sometimes-I'm not really sure why he does that or what that is about. But Cataract
City was really a great read. I hope to read it again some time.

Craig Davidson is also Nick Cutter. Nick publishes with Chizine Press; Craig is less discriminating but probably earns more.

Hey Alan, Craig will be pleased to hear you enjoyed the book! :) And yes, Peter is right, he also writes horror under Nick Cutter (The Acolyte was published by Chizine; The Troop, The Deep and Little Heaven are published by Simon and Schuster's Gallery Press). It was his agent's idea to separate the two very different genres so as not to confuse readers. But Craig is equally as proud of both. And it's Mr. Cutter who pays the bills so we're happy to have him around in this household! :)

Hmm. So Nick is the earner! Gee, I'd've thought that Rust and Bone would have given Craig the edge.

Show's you what I [don't] know. :)

Well great to have all those Canadian reads regardless of the name on the cover! I find I read just about every genre.

Me too Barbara! :) My book choices are all over the map. So long as the writing is solid, I'm happy to read any genre. Although I will admit the horror stuff can sometimes be a bit much for me - I'm a big scaredy cat!

@Colleen - it is great to hear the inside track!! I have Precious Cargo on my TBR list along with Cataract City before One Book One Brant! So much too read, so little time!

Hello everyone. I just joined this group and so happy to find it. I am Linda and live in Newcastle ON but lived in Toronto all my life until this year. I love reading Canadian authors and try to get as many as I can.
My blog: www.finallytimetoread.blogspot.ca

Welcome Linda! Great to meet a fellow blogger. feel free to add you blog link in the Promote Your book/blog thread in the Sharing a Love of Reading section. :)

Welcome Linda!

Thank you for the welcome.

Just another starving writer. I am in the shadows of the Rockies in Central Alberta.

Currently, I am working on a series that begins in Russia in the 1860's and moves to Alberta in the 1870's and follows a family and their fellow colonists, generation by generation.

While the first two books could be classified as historical fiction, they are mostly in the realm of military action.

The latest in the series covers the WW2 and Korean Conflict years, all from a Canadian, especially Western Canadian perspective.

Welcome R.P. - i hope that you enjoy the CanLit discussions here!

Hello. I am Kathleen, a lifelong reader from beautiful Nova Scotia. I look forward to discovering 'new to me' Canadian authors, learning where and when one can go to meet and hear some of our own authors reading and discussing their books. Canada Reads is awesome in my opinion.

Welcome Kathleen!! We are happy to have more members from beautiful Nova Scotia and look forward to chatting with you about books -- you are right Canada Reads is totally awesome! A few of us from Southern Ontario will be at the final debate representing our group - @Allison, @May and myself.

Ditto re the Welcome Kathleen!! My only claim to a Nova Scotian heritage is a grandfather born in Sydney Mines, Cape Breton but who moved to Ontario before I was born so I didn't get a chance to visit during summer holidays. We have some great members currently living in Nova Scotia who I'm sure will give you the traditionally warm Maritime welcome.

Like you I do enjoy Canada Reads and have been following it avidly since 2014. Others have been following much longer so you'll find lots of discussion in this group. Looking forward to reading your thoughts in our Canada Reads thread.

Hello Kathleen, from a fellow Bluenoser!

Hi I am Grant Hamilton from Ottawa. I am a book author, indie game developer, and project manager. I am a proud Canadian and am always interested in supporting Canadian content.

Welcome Grant - you will find many supporters of Canadian content here!!

Hi everyone, I'm an avid reader & author from Toronto Canada. In addition to being a bookworm, I love to travel. I'm also an activist, I went to school for gender studies and disability studies (BA, MA) and now working doing education around gender based violence at a non-profit.

My novel, set in Toronto, is coming out in March Dancing With Ghosts. It's about a girl coming to Toronto for university, and struggling with her mental health as she navigates an abusive relationship.

Welcome Emily - sounds like a great story - so relevant as post secondary schools struggle to support students. I hope you enjoy our group - your TBR pile will certainly grow!

Hi,

I'm a Goodreads author who lives on Vancouver Island. Great to see a group like this interested in Canadian content. Three of my fictional books are set on or around the island.

Welcome Rob! Thanks for the feedback!

Welcome Rob, I love Vancouver Island and hope to get back there this summer. You should add your books to the BC folder. Look forward to chatting books!

Hi everyone, I'm a new author. My first novel, The Water Beetles, will be published on April 11 by Goose Lane Editions. It's based on the true story of my father's experiences as a boy during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. It was listed on the CBC's "most anticipated of spring 2017" list and a couple of others.

Glad to be here, and I'm enjoying reading everyone's enthusiasm for books.

Thank you for your warm welcomes Susan, Mj and Diane.

Welcome Michael! Congrats and I hope you enjoy the reading discussion. :)

Welcome Linda, R.P., Rob, Grant, Michael, Emily and Kathleen. (Really hope I didn't forget anyone).

Kathleen, I'm a transplanted Nova Scotian currently calling Halifax home.