Rounding out the year

The press is approaching the fulfillment of a goal. In this our third year of operation we will have published five books, making eleven altogether in print. So far this year the very ambitious and gratifying project of publishing Karen Mulhallen's Acquainted With Absence: Selected Poems. Then two fine short novels, Eric Schachter's Dry Bones, and Jason Schneider's Philip Snowcroft's Finality. (Eric and Jason made us hugely proud with readings at our November Bookstravaganza in Waterloo, held jointly with Coach House and House of Anansi.) All of these books may be purchased of course through our Blaurockpress website (worth visiting anyway to admire Penny Winspur's elegant new design.)

The new books, due to appear within the next week or two, are Colin Fullerton's Like a Road, and S.K.Johannesen's The Yellow Room. Watch for the covers to appear on our website. In the meantime, here are the advance blurbs.


Like a Road, by Colin Fullerton

"My name is Jerry Carson." And so it begins. All Carson men leave home early, and between departure and return, between flight and reconciliation lies the journey. Trial by water and by fire, trials of betrayal, imprisonment, loneliness and loss. As in all fairy tales there are Helpers and Instructors: canny old men, carny freaks, a pair of hoboes, a miner, a shaman, a fortune-teller, Mary of the yoga class, Marie of the hot-air balloon. New Orleans, Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, Florida, by truck, boxcar, ship, horseback. The final trial, however, is back home in the trailer park, in a letter from the dead.

Colin Fullerton lives and writes in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is his first novel.


The Yellow Room, by S.K.Johannesen

The final days of Jørgen Mikkelsen. Artist, drifter, reluctant Resistance fighter, a man with intolerable burdens of memory and regret. Alone with his thoughts, a curiously lucid madman imprisoned in an attic, he conjures out of his past, in Europe and in America, an unforgettable parade of characters. Dominating Jørgen's disjointed narrative, however, is the demanding, imperious, tragic figure of Anna Hauge, whose circuits ran up and down the seamy streets of Vesterbro in wartime Copenhagen.

S.K.Johannesen is editor of Blaurock Press

_______________________________________________

In other news, Blaurock Press have expanded to the point we feel the need for wider distribution and publicity of our books, and so we are exploring a new partnership to this end. We are grateful for the loyalty and patience of our authors and readers. Stay tuned.

Kitchener-Waterloo Bookstravaganza

Event Date: November 2

Please join us for a celebration of new Canadian literature, happening in Waterloo on Monday, November 2nd. Toronto has its International Festival of Authors. Ottawa, Kingston and Eden Mills have their Writers' Festivals. And now, Kitchener-Waterloo has its BOOKSTRAVAGANZA!

Featuring 8 authors reading from their new books and representing 4 Canadian publishers, the Kitchener-Waterloo Bookstravaganza promises to be a one-stop-shop (or event) for all your literature needs, whether it be fables set in the Manhattan art world, poems about Quantum Theory and Detroit's sixties-era radical underground, novels about teenagers with three mothers and few options or books that reveal the afterlife is really just a romance publishing house. We hope to see you there!

The Kitchener-Waterloo Bookstravaganza!

with readings by
David Derry (Sentimental Exorcisms, short fiction, Coach House Books)
Damian Rogers (Paper Radio, poetry, ECW Press)
Eric Schachter (Dry Bones, novel, Blaurock Press)
Jason Schneider (Philip Snowcroft's Finality, novel, Blaurock Press)
Emily Schultz (Heaven is Small, novel, House of Anansi)
Cordelia Strube (Lemon, novel, Coach House Books)
Matthew Tierney (The Hayflick Limit, poetry Coach House Books)
Zoe Whittall (Holding Still for as Long as Possible, novel, House of Anansi)

Monday, November 2, 2009
Starlight Lounge, 47 King Street North
8 p.m.
Free!

Brought to you by Blaurock Press, Coach House Books, ECW Press and the House of Anansi.

Location:

Starlight Lounge

47 King Street North

Waterloo, ON

Canada

See map: Google Maps

Swimming to Fatima by Sylvia Markle-Craine

Review from Off the Shelf (published by the Book Shelf, of Guelph), September/October 2008

"With some basic ingredients she cooks up just enough magic to make perfect little fables from what on some level amounts to an album of small town gossip. By inviting readers behind closed doors, she reveals worlds rich in character, the quirky opinions and pursuits of those characters, and the diner-friendly language they use to communicate with one another." " ....at the intersection of strangeness and character Markle-Craine writes her most descriptive, sensual sentences to help us tune into the smaller details of daily existence."

Made up of Arias by Michelle Alfano

Julie Booker, Book review in Partners, Spring 2009 issue of Italian Chamber of Commerce Toronto magazine

"Made Up of Arias is all the voices of childhood, all the stories that allow a child's imagination to safely try on adult themes. Alfano is a keen observer, with an eye for detail and a gift for humour. ... This charming story is well worth reading."

Wave Mechanics: A Love Story by Ricardo L. Nirenberg

JoSelle Vanderhooft a reviewer at PedestalMagazine.com has just reviewed this book.

She says:

"...Ricardo L. Nirenberg’s exquisite 2007 novel Wave Mechanics ... addresses the circumstances surrounding the creation/discovery of physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s wave equation in 1926, a discovery that substantially altered the landscape of Western physics and chemistry in the last century, along with Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle—which some readers may note are more or less mathematically identical. "

and:

"...Wave Mechanics is just one hell of a complicated, smart, sexy, and all-around good story."

and:

"It is a feast for the senses, a challenge for the mind, and a book I cannot praise enough. In fact, my only regret about this book is that it will not likely get the readership it deserves as a small press release. Those readers or audiences who enjoyed such speculative explorations of 20th Century science as Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (a play about Heisenberg, his uncertainty principle, and Nazi Germany) will definitely want to order a copy of Nirenberg’s book, as will those who found Copenhagen lacking in passion and heart."

Headlong into the New Year

Hello Friends,

Blaurock greeted the new year with verve and vigour with three manuscripts lined up for our Spring catalogue. We are excited about what is to come for Blaurock in 2009.

At the same time, we are reflecting back upon our first full year in existence and want to take the time to thank everyone who has helped make our little press a going concern. So, thank you to our authors, artists, designers, editors, and production staff. But most of all, thank you to you, our readers. May we enjoy each other further in the future.

Wishing everyone well,
Blaurock Press