One year, Aunt Myrtle gave you a decorative item for Christmas. You didn’t know what it was then, and the one time you asked, she told you it was a candy dish-cum-centrepiece. It looked like some kind of calcified brain. You stuffed it in the trunk of your friend’s car as he left after a weekend of debauchery. You don’t know what happened to that thing, but you like to think that when your friend unpacked the trunk, he screamed a little. If only you’d thought to glue eyes to it.

Don’t be Aunt Myrtle.

Give the gift of words this Christmas.

This article by Kate Taylor in the September 09th Globe and Mail is a pretty interesting look at fiction, and why it’s important. Thanks to Nik Burton from Coteau Books for sharing it!

Congratulations to Saskatchewan Publishers whose books took home Saskatchewan Book Awards last night at the SBA’s annual Gala awards celebration:

Prairie Feast: A Writer’s Journey Home for Dinner by Amy Jo Ehman took home the First Book (in memory of Brenda Macdonald Riches) Award.

Hagios Press took home the 2010 Publishing Award for Sandra Ridley’s Fallout.

Purich Publishing took home the First Peoples’ Publishing Award for James (Sa’ke’j) Youngblood Henderson’s Indigenous Diplomacy and the Rights of Peoples: Achieving UN Recognition

Purich Publishing was also awarded the Award for Publishing in Education for Dwight G. Newman’s The Duty to Consult: New Relationships with Aboriginal Peoples.

Congratulations to all of the nominees (a full list of nominees can be found here, at the Saskatchewan Book Awards’ website) and to all of the winners (the full list of winners is available here)

SPG’s website has a brand new (and much updated) look, as you’ve probably noticed by now. Our online bookstore is just to the right of the main screen, complete with online payment completion options, search functions, and lots and lots of books. The new website was designed by Ryan J. Thompson and was implemented by the kind and awesome folks at Digital Digs.

SPG would like to acknowledge the support of Saskatchewan Lotteries through SaskCulture for this project, as well as the support of the Canadian Book Fund from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Saskatchewan Designation Logo

The Saskatchewan Designation Project is the work of a partnership between the Saskatchewan Publishers Group, the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, the Saskatchewan Library Association, and the Saskatchewan Book Awards, which culminated in the creation of a distinctive sticker with a logo for use as a unique visual identification for recognizing and identifying Saskatchewan produced literary, musical, and visual materials, especially in libraries.

The SPG invites Saskatchewan publishers to consider inclusion of the logo in the design of upcoming books. This logo is available in high-resolution from the SPG.

Stickers are available to teachers, teacher-librarians, librarians, and merchants on request from SPG.