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Cover Reveal for “The Barrens: A Novel of Love and Death in the Canadian Arctic”

Delighted to share the superb cover for The Barrens: A Novel of Love and Death in the Canadian Arctic by our agency clients Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson, coming in May 2022 from Arcade Publishing.

Below are all the blurbs we’ve already received for this engrossing novel.

“I’ve rarely come across a novel that’s simultaneously so economical and fulsome, that’s as restrained as it is brimming with unspoken wisdom, and that manages all this while also being propulsive in its storytelling. It’s bravura work that demands a wide audience.”—Peter Geye, author of Wintering and Safe from the Sea

“The Barrens grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go, a riveting adventure story written by a father-daughter team who clearly have wilderness chops.”—Michael Punke, author of The Revenant and Ridgeline

“A deeply compelling tale, told in vivid, elegant but concise prose, The Barrens carried me along, swiftly as the river at the heart of the story. The central character, Lee, will break your heart, although she’ll have none of it. Love, loss, life and death, against a landscape as raw and ancient as the human heart. Most highly recommended.”—Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall

“As harrowing as the whitewater adventure it chronicles, The Barrens is an epic tale of wilderness survival and death in the techno age. The writing throbs with presence: the life-force embedded in Canada’s northern frontier landscape and in the life-scape of its queer young heroine as she journeys toward selfhood. Co-authors Kurt and Ellie Johnson reveal the pulse of identity, born of the stories we weave. A mesmerizing, devastating read.”—Carol Bruneau, Canadian author of Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis

“The Barrens is the raw and moving story of two young women paddling by canoe down one of North America’s the most remote rivers—of their coming of age, their love, and terrible loss. I’ve rarely come across a text that is so visual, and so tangible. The Barrens is a vivid portrayal of the Canadian subarctic, and of the human drive to persevere.”—Alex Messenger, author of The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra

#debutnovels #wildernessfiction #canoeing #paddling #Canada #ThelonRiver #queerlit #writers #writingcommunity

Sold: Pedro Mendes’s “Ten Garments Every Man Should Own: A Practical Guide to Building a Permanent Wardrobe”

Delighted to report another sale I’ve made to a publisher from the literary agency side of my business, Philip Turner Book Productions. The sale is to Canadian publisher Dundurn Press for a useful nonfiction book titled  TEN GARMENTS EVERY MAN SHOULD OWN: A Practical Guide to Building a Permanent Wardrobe. The book, by my author client Pedro Mendes, is described in a Deal Memo I placed in Publishersmarketplace.com on Monday:

Men’s style journalist, editor of Toronto’s The Hogtown Rake menswear blog, and veteran CBC Radio producer Pedro Mendes’s TEN GARMENTS EVERY MAN SHOULD OWN: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO BUILDING A PERMANENT WARDROBE, an illustrated guide to dressing well by building a classic wardrobe, an approach to identifying sustainable apparel that aligns with 21st-century environmental values, to Scott Fraser at Dundurn Press, in a nice deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in fall 2020, by Philip Turner at Philip Turner Book Productions (Canada).
philipsturner@gmail.com

For more background on the book, the author, and Canadian creatives I count among my friends please visit my other blog, Honourary Canadian. While we now have a Canadian publisher, I am still working to place the book rights in the States, so please reach out if you know of a US publisher who may be interested in the book.

 

“Hono(u)rary Canadian”–My New Blog

Perce-Roche-tumbler6Along with The Great Gray Bridge, which is designed and built* upon a WordPress theme, I maintain a blog–currently on tumblr–where I share briefly written posts with photos and quick hits. It’s often handy when I’m traveling or running around town, away from my desk.** That site was formerly named after this blog, but I’m officially refocusing it–its emphasis will now be on Canadian content and covering Canadian issues. I’m renaming it Hono(u)rary Canadian, in a bid for transnational wit. I make no singular claim to that title, for I know that Canada draws interest and affection from many in the US. I use it though, as kindly Canadians have said it about me, and because I do cherish a near-lifelong deep and personal connection with Canada. In fact, from the time I began The Great Gray in October 2011, Canada has played an important role in my coverage, constituting roughly 20-30% of my writing, links, and sharing. I’ve connected with many Canadian readers over the past two years, and have found there many Facebook friends and Twitter followers. I’m hoping to connect with even more Canadian readers with the newly named site, and more deeply.

Given my interest in Canadian literature, authors, indie music, geography, and politics–and the enjoyment I find in writing about them, this is a natural extension for me. I also plan to write about Canada’s next federal election, which will take place no later than 2015. I’ll also be sharing photos from my many years of travel in Canada, beginning with the image that I’ve chosen as the signature visual for the site. It shows the monumental Roche Percé or ‘pierced rock’ on the Gaspé Peninsula in the most eastern portion of Quebec. I visited the region on a solo vacation in the autumn of 1988. The mighty rock juts in to the Atlantic Ocean with its massive pointed prow facing toward shore. It is a wonder of the world, no kidding. A visitor can only get near it at low tide, as I did on one lucky occasion. I remember spending about 3 hours scampering in and out of the surf and trying to get as close as possible to the pierced opening, with the huge bulk of it towering at least a hundred feet above me. The image at the bottom of the post is a ‘selfie’ I took the same day, long before that term was in the vernacular. It’s a place I hope to see again someday, next time with my family.

I invite you to visit Hono(u)rary Canadian in the days, weeks, and months to come. I’ll post on both sites, share often between them, and do lots of cross-linking. My interest in reading, book culture, live music, city life, media, and current events, and my writing about them–covering New York City, the US, and Canada–is growing so that I need the two sites. Thanks for reading me at one or both of them.

PT & Perce Roche_0001

* My excellent designer, who adapted the WordPress theme I chose for this site, is Harry Candelario, who when I first met him was known as the Mac Doctor, for his work on Apple products. I frequently suggest him to people when they ask me to recommend a web designer. I should add he also offers helpful advice about WordPress, various Web platforms, SEO, and generally helps to increases one’s Web savvy.
** Though I may soon convert it from tumblr to WordPress.

Tweets on KeystoneXL & Canada w/a Touch of Humor

NY Times Buys Into the Harper Gov’t’s View of Keystone Pipeline

Very odd that the team of three reporters who bylined the NY Times story I tweeted about so totally bought into the Harper government’s line about Keystone, with Harper’s spokespeople raising supposedly dire consequences to the US-Canadian relationship if the president decides to nix the pipeline here. The story is written as if Harper has a renewable lease on the office Prime Minister of Canada, when there will be a federal election up north no later than 2015. As critics in Canada have pointed out, increasingly Harper’s economic strategy has been shown to be that of “strip (resources) and ship them (to the highest bidder).” That the US could frustrate this design owing to what the Obama administration may ultimately rule are overwhelming environmental concerns is at least as big a problem for Harper as it ever wil be for the U.S.

Spirited NYC Demonstration Supporting First Nations Rights & #IdleNoMore

Saturday Morning Update: Below I’d written about indie journalist Matt H., of Stopmotionsolo who was livestreamning yesterday’s #idleNoMoreRally. Here’s his comprehensive report on the demo, with good pictures and video, including a brief interview he did with me. Viewing that footage, which can be viewed via this link, I realize now how cold I had become after hours outside, as my speaking on camera seems to have been slurred by my cold lips.

A hunger strike in Canada by First Nations leader Chief Theresa Spence in Attawapiskat, a scandalously impoverished native village in far northern Ontario began 18 days ago, but the issues of indigenous peoples’ rights and environmental justice that it’s stirring up are now spreading throughout the continent, and across the continental border, into New York City where I live. This afternoon I participated in a rally organized by native Americans of NY State in support of and in solidarity with Chief Spence. As shown in the photos below, they brought placards proclaiming their support for her, and for her opposition to the onerous new Canadian law, Bill C-45. It was promoted by the government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and passed by the Canadian senate on December 14. A few days earlier Chief Spence began her hunger strike and asked Harper to meet with her and other First Nations leaders before the law is implemented. She is determined to explain her objections to the law and talk with him directly about the issues currently facing her people and many native groups. He has refused thus far and his government ministers have mostly been trying to ignore her. The rising crescendo of vigorous protests all across Canada, and in NYC today, are being mounted daily to show Harper he cannot hide from this selfless leader. Here is an up-to-the-moment report on Day 18 of her hunger strike at a link from CTV.

For about an hour in today’s freezing temperatures amid bright cold sunshine the spirited crowd of well over 100 people chanted, struck drums, sang, and danced in a circle around the central fountain in the center of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. During the rally I met a young journalist who was livestreaming the event. He interviewed me briefly, giving me the chance to tell him how the opposition to Bill C-45 had been building in Canada for months, and that it has now found a powerful catalyst in Chief Spence and her hunger strike. This indie journalist goes by the handle Mr Solo; streams at www.stopmotionsolo.tv; and tweets at @Stopmotionsolo. He gave his audience my name and that of this blog, so I hope that his viewers will find this post through the Internet and social networking. I also made audio and video of the demo, and will try to get some of that up as soon as I’m able.

I hope you can catch the spirit of the event from my pictures and a scan of the flyer handed out during the rally. To amplify all this, if you’re on Twitter please note that the hashtag #IdleNoMore has been trending all over North America this week, so please use it if you tweet on this topic. I also met Kevin Tarrant, Deputy Director of American Indian Community House in NYC. I told him that I thought he and his group  had done a great job of representing the issues from Canada, right down to the copy on their signs, not typical in a demonstration crossing borders like this one. He explained that they had read carefully on the Idle No More website and taken their cues from it. But of course, Kevin and his group really have no border separating them from Chief Spence, with whom they share bond and blood. He was pleased when I told him and a few of his fellow drummers and chanters that word of the rally was already traveling across the continent as I’d tweeted during the demo to an activist friend in Vancouver, British Columbia, Cameron Bode, known on Twitter as @vanboders. Here are Idle No More’s social addresses and connections:

Web: idlenomore1blogspot.com    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IdleNoMoreCommunity?fref=ts  Twitter: https://twitter.com/IdleNoMore


Click through to see all pictures.

Canadians ♥ Barack Obama

I love that all my Canadian pals on my Twitter feed and Facebook page are going as crazy as my Yank pals. This is a big win for lots of people!

Reading along with Richard Ford

Fascinating Q&A with novelist Richard Ford in the “Books” section of the Boston Globe over the weekend. I was mesmerized by his latest novel Canada, which I blogged about several times (1, 2, and 3) while caught up in the reading of it last May and June. These are two of the most interesting bits from Ford’s discussion with Amy Sutherland:

BOOKS: Are you a slow or fast reader?

FORD: Slow. I’m dyslexic. If you can reconcile yourself to not being able to burn through books, which you shouldn’t any way, you can slow the whole process down. Then, because of my disability, there is more for me in imaginative literature than there is for other people. . .

BOOKS: What was your reading like before this?

FORD: Dutiful. Remember when you were kid in school and the teacher was always telling you there’s more here than you see. There’s a line of Henry Moore’s, “Never think of the surface except as an extension of a volume.” I was thinking there was a volume but where the hell was it?