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If there is one thing yesterday’s interview with Spencer Gordon taught us it’s that new thinking has the potential to be reinvigorating at both the individual and community level. I have some thoughts on how to make the book world a better, more efficient, and more enjoyable place to be. But implementing these projects will take elbow grease that I am simply unable to spare, so I offer you these three ideas for free.

Friends, these are a gold mine—so do not forget me when you collect your Orders of Canada, your Nobel Prizes, and your oversized cheques from various granting bodies after bringing one of these ideas to fruition.

Book Award Fantasy League

I recently had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Spencer Gordon, discussing important topics such as where he writes and how he pulled himself out of an early funk to complete a collection of short stories.

This spring, students from Malvern Collegiate Institute's Writer's Craft class conducted interviews with Canadian poets as part of a class project. The interviews will be posted on The Great Canadian Writer's Craft page on Open Book throughout June. In this interview, Malvern Collegiate students Connor and Matt speak with poet Garry Thomas Morse (Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour, Talonbooks, 2013).

Connor & Matt:

Your correspondent, while faithful, is also rather tardy in filing his dispatches from the front. Let’s just say it’s not an accident that I don’t work as a journalist. Here are some belated notes regarding the Griffin Poetry Prize, which was awarded last Thursday to David McFadden and Ghassan Zaqtan (trans. Fady Joudah).

These last few weeks, I’ve been sitting in my Tommy Bahamma chair on the beach in Wilmington, North Carolina, reading through Elizabeth Bachinsky’s The Hottest Summer in Recorded History (Nightwood, 2013). It’s hot today: 88° degrees, clear blue skies. The surfers are doing there thing near Johnny Mercer’s Pier. School’s officially out now, so the beach is more lively— but still manageable. I smell hotdogs grilling somewhere nearby. I’m enjoying the late morning sunshine with my friend Megan, who is getting her tan on. She loves A.R. Ammons’s poetry, having grown up in his hometown of Whiteville (pronounced something like Hu-Why-It-Val).

Tonight at 7pm, finalists for the 2013 Trillium Book Awards will be reading from their nominated works at the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street). One of the evening’s readers is Sandy Pool, author of the wonderful— albeit terrifying— Undark: An Oratorio, nominated in the category of English-language poetry.

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF INTERNET CURIOSITIES FROM THE BOOK WORLD

Stackers
Please enjoy: The avant-garde art of book stacking in stores of Japan.

Binders
The Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition for 2013 has been won by...(drum roll please)...Dominic Riley! Way to go, Dom! He takes home the Sir Paul Getty Bodleian Bookbinding Prize and a cool £10,000. Check out the winning design and other finalists here.

This spring, students from Malvern Collegiate Institute's Writer's Craft class conducted interviews with Canadian poets as part of a class project. The interviews will be posted on The Great Canadian Writer's Craft page on Open Book throughout June. In this interview, Malvern Collegiate students Penelope Plessas and Laura Maier speak with poet and editor Jason Christie (Unknown Actor, Insomniac Press, 2013).

Penelope Plessas & Laura Maier:

It is Friday and it is sunny out and there are patios that demand our presence, which is say it’s time for me to mail it in again!

This week I’ll be spending a few words on The house is still standing, Adrienne Barrett’s first collection of poems. And I even managed to wrangle someone to do some of the stamp-licking for me! Katia Grubisic edited The house is still standing and I asked her to talk a bit about her editorial relationship with Adrienne while working on the book. Here's Katia:

This spring, students from Malvern Collegiate Institute's Writer's Craft class conducted interviews with Canadian poets as part of a class project. The interviews will be posted on The Great Canadian Writer's Craft page on Open Book throughout June. In this interview, Malvern Collegiate students Katrin Bell and Mia Shabsove speak with Jenny Sampirisi, author of is/was (Insomniac Press, 2008) and Croak (Coach House Books, 2011).