The Launch Party

by Douglas Gibson

Doug being introduced by ECW Publisher Jack David

During my days as publisher at M&S I took a jaundiced view of launch parties for individual books. It turned our hard-working publicity department  people into almost full-time cocktail party organisers, and provided expensive free drinks for thirsty media types who couldn’t remember the name of the book they were supposedly celebrating, and writing or broadcasting about. To get away from this pattern, we held one big celebration, at the AGO (with all of our authors distinguished by a rose or corsage). It became a major attraction of the fall season, year after year, with a huge turn-out. It was so successful that Quill & Quire complained mildly about the company’s “Imperial style.”

Now that I’ve had the experience of attending a launch party for one single book, and one single author  — me – it occurs to me that I underestimated the sheer selfish pleasure that an author experiences in that brief spell in the sun, as congratulations beam around. Certainly, the event at Ben McNally’s store (which in my brief speech of thanks I called “a beacon of enlightenment in the dark canyons of Bay Street”) was a very pleasant one, with friends popping up from all over. I was tied down at the signing desk from the start, and so wasn’t really at the party. But my friends played their part so nobly that we ran out of books to sign (with over 120 gone) and the ECW gang was pleased.

The next morning, like a sitcom character I was swinging my right arm and wondering aloud what was wrong with it. Jane pointed out that I’d just signed over 120 copies of my book. This is an occupational hazard I could learn to enjoy.

— Douglas Gibson

Doug's permanent position for almost three hours.

An excerpt on W.O. Mitchell on the Canadian Encyclopedia blog

by JK

Your weekly dose of Stories About Storytellers continues at the Canadian Encyclopedia blog. This week, Doug presents W.O. Mitchell, performer and mischief maker. To read the excerpt, head over to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

(Have you missed the previous excerpts? You can still read the selections on Morley Callaghan,  Paul Martin, Barry Broadfoot, Brian Mulroney, Mavis Gallant, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau,  Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro.)

“A life turned into art”

by JK

Writer, editor and journalist Jonathan Webb praised Douglas Gibson’s stage show on his blog otherpeoplesbooks. Webb, notes

Gibson has transformed his memories of literary acquaintances over the course of a lifetime into an infinitely expandable performance. It’s a trick he learned from the best. . . . He’s happy to impart secrets. The audience of more than fifty at the Bookshelf in Guelph on Friday night was pleased to be taken into his confidence. They came away with a bit of insight into how books are made. They heard a number of good stories. And they were treated to a masterful performance, a life turned into art.

Read the rest of the review here.

Stories About Storytellers on stage: Stephen Leacock

by JK

Thanks to Candida Paltiel at Mining Stories Productions and her team, we’ll be featuring weekly snippets of Doug’s one-man stage show. In this week’s clip, we see Doug talking about Stephen Leacock.

For upcoming performances of Stories About Storytellers the show, head to the events page. For more on Stephen Leacock, see chapter 1 of Stories About Storytellers.

Stories About Storytellers Companion Reading (#4)

by JK

Many early readers of Stories About Storytellers have remarked that they finish reading it only to rush to pick up one of the other books Doug has so lovingly described. So to make it easier, this recurring feature revisits some of those books and reminds you why they’re worth a read. Last time, we revisited Man Descending by Guy Vanderhaeghe, and this we’re featuring . . .

The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (2005)

Not only did I fail to edit this book, I failed to publish it. But in my book I mention it as One That Got Away.

That’s because my visit to James Houston’s cottage in Haida Gwaii (then the Queen Charlotte Islands) had left me so impressed that I had a proprietorial view of the islands, and their stories. So if I had caught wind of the fact that an unknown Vancouver writer was at work on a book about the legendary golden spruce that had been felled at night by a confused conservationist making an obscure point (then disappearing at sea, before his trial exposed him to the wrath of the Haida nation) I would have snapped it up, sight unseen.

Not that the book suffered by being published elsewhere, going on to win the Governor-General’s Award, and just about every other non-fiction prize available. I’ve since visited the scene of the crime, and am sad to report that the once-golden spruce (a freak of nature that made it a source of reverence to the Haida people) is now a grey, shrunken felled tree rotting away quietly in the water where it fell. But the book, which encompasses a history of the Haida, and of the islands, and of resource logging in B.C., is a superb piece of work.

For Doug’s tales of Haida Gwaii see 176-178 of Stories About Storytellers.

Literary Review of Canada: “His is a straining intelligence, ever onward”

by JK

Stories About Storytellers has been positively reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. Reviewer John Burns writes,

“Relives in 21 chapters the (few) perils and (many) pleasures of life in Canadian publishing. It is filled with markers of not just editorial diligence . . . but also a life well lived: friends drawn around a well-fortified table, scenes of children (Gibson’s and authors) playing soccer under indulgent supervision, much travel and adventure (usually to badger authors or celebrate their wins — or both) and even more hijinks. . . .

Let us celebrate Gibson’s enthusiasms. . . .  [and] Gibson’s gleeful encounters with Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan, W.O.Mitchell, Pierre Trudeau, Robertson Davies, Peter Gzowski and others – all dead now, all fixed in the amber of the past.

Gibson is too bright, too spirited and too gentlemanly to prefer the past merely for its own sake. His is a straining intelligence, ever onward, as these accounts plainly show. . . .

With this book he reveals a little of the ugly duckling turned swan himself.”

South to Windsor

by Douglas Gibson

Jane and I drove to Windsor for a double-billed event: a publishing panel at 2:00 p.m., followed by the one-man show (60-minute version) at 4:00. So after a long drive we were proud of our timing when we checked in at our hotel at 12:00. Only to learn that the Writers Festival folks had been calling the hotel in a panic. Didn’t I know that the show had been moved forward . . . to 11:30?

Well, no. So in horror I learned that 60 people had sat there eagerly awaiting me, to go away disappointed, with the news that my event would run later (against a popular already scheduled 4 o’clock event). We got about half of them back, but it was an embarrassing case of broken telephone.

The publishing panel, with Jack David (my publisher, and thus a model of wisdom in all things), Alana Wilcox from Coach House, and Jack Illingworth from the Literary Press Group, and me, was led by local publisher Dan Wells. I’m not sure that we left our audience feeling joyful optimism about where publishing is headed, but we spoke truth to lack of power.

My show was notable for being conducted in a fine Group of Seven Gallery. I had to apologize to a gallery visitor as we put up the screen in front of an especially fine MacDonald landscape, while he peered around it. And we filled the seats available, with Alistair MacLeod arriving late (he was involved with the rival event) just in time to miss my properly admiring account of his work. But as he came in, I said, “Oh, I’m going to have to stop saying rude things about Alistair . . . he’s just come into the room.”

Martin Deck, who runs the university bookstore, gave me a fine introduction, and vote of thanks, and I rushed off to sign lots of books (“Best Windsor wishes”).

On the way back the next day we took a side trip to Point Pelee. The birds were otherwise engaged, but I got to dip my toe in the water at the very southernmost inch of Canada’s mainland. Nearby teenagers were amused by this Tip Dip.

— Douglas Gibson

Trailer for Doug Gibson: Cartographer of Canadian Storytelling

by JK

You’ve already seen him on the page and on the stage, but Mining Stories Productions wants to bring Gibson and his storytellers to the screen. Director Candida Paltiel is at work on a documentary that will look at the relationships between publisher, authors, and the country they live in. Have a look at the trailer for an overview or the project and some tantalizing glimpses of Gibson’s one-man show:

More info on the documentary is available here.

Thanks to Candida and her team, we’ll also feature vignettes on various authors for the next few weeks, giving you a taste of the stage show and the documentary to come.