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A Bookish Tour of Ireland

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Ireland regions

During our blog break in July, I took a vacation to Ireland, land of (some of) my ancestors. July was the perfect time to visit, since we had perfect weather: mid-60s (the locals complained of the heat) with only sporadic and light rain showers. We rented a car and I drove on the left side of the road for the first time, which was only sometimes a harrowing experience.

Ireland has quite the bookish history and remains a thriving country(ies) for writers. James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, and Oscar Wilde all called Ireland home. More recent names you might recognize in the adult literary world are Maeve Binchy, Tana French, and Seamus Heaney.

Like my post about my visit to San Francisco last year, I thought it would be fun to do a little YA bookish tour of Ireland, highlighting some of the important Irish writers who write books for teens set in various parts of Ireland, as well as non-Irish writers who have become fascinated by the setting. The tour starts in Northern Ireland (the section outlined in red to the map at our left) and continues clockwise in and around the Republic of Ireland.

All photos included are ones I took myself. One caveat: I didn’t make it to the true south of Ireland, so my photos for that section of the list are from County Tipperary, a region I’d call almost south, but mostly central.

 

 

 

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she’s been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him—his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what—a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls. Bog Child is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.

Kimberly’s review

 

 

 

All the Walls of Belfast by Sarah Carlson

Fiona and Danny were born in the same hospital. Fiona’s mom fled with her to the United States when she was two, but, fourteen years after the Troubles ended, a forty-foot-tall peace wall still separates her dad’s Catholic neighborhood from Danny’s Protestant neighborhood.

After chance brings Fiona and Danny together, their love of the band Fading Stars, big dreams, and desire to run away from their families unites them. Danny and Fiona must help one another overcome the burden of their parents’ pasts. But one ugly truth might shatter what they have…

 

The Unknowns by Shirley-Anne McMillan

Tilly is perched at the top of Belfast’s largest crane. She likes to climb up high at night in order to feel free from a city which, despite the best PR, is still full of trouble and conflict. Eventually, she comes back down to discover her bike is missing and in its place is a boy named Brew. Wearing eyeliner and high-heeled boots, he offers her a drink from his flask of coffee before disappearing into the night. The next morning, Tilly’s bike is returned, but tucked into the spoke of the wheel is a card with Brew’s number on it.

As Tilly learns to trust Brew, he leads her into a world she never knew existed – a world of parties in abandoned houses, completing missions that involve break-ins, and risking everything just to help strangers in need; the world of The Unknowns. What Tilly doesn’t anticipate is that they will also make her question everything she was brought up to believe in, and force her to make a choice that will stay with her for the rest of her life.

The Unknowns is a story about hope in a city where increasing numbers of young people are struggling to get by, a place where there is no trust in the political system, and where some people still dare to dream.

 

Republic of Ireland

 

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle

Mary O’Hara is a sharp and cheeky 12-year-old Dublin schoolgirl who is bravely facing the fact that her beloved Granny is dying. But Granny can’t let go of life, and when a mysterious young woman turns up in Mary’s street with a message for her Granny, Mary gets pulled into an unlikely adventure. The woman is the ghost of Granny’s own mother, who has come to help her daughter say good-bye to her loved ones and guide her safely out of this world. She needs the help of Mary and her mother, Scarlett, who embark on a road trip to the past. Four generations of women travel on a midnight car journey. One of them is dead, one of them is dying, one of them is driving, and one of them is just starting out.

 

Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin

Nell Crane has always been an outsider. In a city devastated by an epidemic, where survivors are all missing parts—an arm, a leg, an eye—her father is the famed scientist who created the biomechanical limbs everyone now uses. But Nell is the only one whose mechanical piece is on the inside: her heart. Since the childhood operation, she has ticked. Like a clock, like a bomb. As her community rebuilds, everyone is expected to contribute to the society’s good . . . but how can Nell live up to her father’s revolutionary idea when she has none of her own?

Then she finds a mannequin hand while salvaging on the beach—the first boy’s hand she’s ever held—and inspiration strikes. Can Nell build her own companion in a world that fears advanced technology? The deeper she sinks into this plan, the more she learns about her city—and her father, who is hiding secret experiments of his own.

 

A Crack in Everything by Ruth Frances Long

Welcome to The Other Side…

Chasing a thief, Izzy Gregory takes a wrong turn down a Dublin alley and finds the ashes of a fallen angel splashed across the dirty bricks like graffiti. She stumbles into Dubh Linn, the shadowy world inhabited by the Sidhe, where angels and demons watch over the affairs of mortals, and Izzy becomes a pawn in their deadly game. Her only chance of survival lies in the hands of Jinx, the Sidhe warrior sent to capture her for his sadistic mistress, Holly. Izzy is something altogether new to him, turning his world upside down.

A thrilling, thought-provoking journey to the magic that lies just beside reality.

 

The Guns of Easter by Gerard Whelan

It is 1916 and Europe is at war. From the poverty of the Dublin slums, twelve-year-old Jimmy Conway sees it all as glorious, and loves the British Army for which his father is fighting. But when war comes to his own streets Jimmy’s loyalties are divided. His uncle is among the rebels who occupy the General Post Office and other parts of the city. Dublin’s streets are destroyed and business comes to a halt. In an attempt to find food for his family, Jimmy crosses the city, avoiding the shooting, weaving through the army patrols, hoping to make it home before curfew. But his quest is not easy and danger threatens at every corner.

 

 

The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

It’s 1993, and Generation X pulses to the beat of Kurt Cobain and the grunge movement. Sixteen-year-old Maggie Lynch is uprooted from big-city Chicago to a windswept town on the Irish Sea. Surviving on care packages of Spin magazine and Twizzlers from her rocker uncle Kevin, she wonders if she’ll ever find her place in this new world. When first love and sudden death simultaneously strike, a naive but determined Maggie embarks on a forbidden pilgrimage that will take her to a seedy part of Dublin and on to a life- altering night in Rome to fulfill a dying wish. Through it all, Maggie discovers an untapped inner strength to do the most difficult but rewarding thing of all, live.

Kelly’s review

 

Airman by Eoin Colfer

In the 1890s Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king’s daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy’s idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a deadly conspiracy against the king. When Conor tries to intervene, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life, as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions.

There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So Conor passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines on the prison walls. The months turn into years; but eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the air.

 

Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon

When Megan Rosenberg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place. After growing up in America, she’s surprised to find herself feeling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam Deris.

But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago—and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction.

 

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd

After Shell’s mother dies, her obsessively religious father descends into alcoholic mourning and Shell is left to care for her younger brother and sister. Her only release from the harshness of everyday life comes from her budding spiritual friendship with a naive young priest, and most importantly, her developing relationship with childhood friend, Declan, who is charming, eloquent, and persuasive. But when Declan suddenly leaves Ireland to seek his fortune in America, Shell finds herself pregnant and the center of a scandal that rocks the small community in which she lives, with repercussions across the whole country. The lives of those immediately around her will never be the same again.

This is a story of love and loss, religious belief and spirituality—it will move the hearts of any who read it.

 

 

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?

 

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moira Fowley-Doyle

One stormy summer night, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hair clips and jewellery, but soon it’s clear that Rose has lost something bigger; something she won’t talk about.

Then Olive meets three wild, mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel and Rowan. Like Rose, they’re mourning losses – and holding tight to secrets.

When they discover the ancient spellbook, full of hand-inked charms to conjure back lost things, they realise it might be their chance to set everything right. Unless it’s leading them towards secrets that were never meant to be found…

Deception’s Princess by Esther Friesner

Maeve, princess of Connacht, was born with her fists clenched. And it’s her spirit and courage that make Maeve her father’s favorite daughter. But once he becomes the High King, powerful men begin to circle–it’s easy to love the girl who brings her husband a kingdom.

Yet Maeve is more than a prize to be won, and she’s determined to win the right to decide her own fate. In the court’s deadly game of intrigue, she uses her wits to keep her father’s friends and enemies close–but not too close. When she strikes up an unlikely friendship with the son of a visiting druid, Maeve faces a brutal decision between her loyalty to her family and to her own heart.

Award-winning author Esther Friesner has a remarkable gift for combining exciting myth and richly researched history. This fiery heroine’s fight for independence in first-century Ireland is truly worthy of a bard’s tale. Hand Deception’s Princess to fans of Tamora Pierce, Shannon Hale, and Malinda Lo.

 

The Bull Raid by Carlo Gébler

How much would you sacrifice to get what you most wanted in the world? Your friends? Everything you have? Could a dream be worth that? Read the story of how one boy warrior—part human, part god—took his place in irish legend. In a time of magic, immortals, and terrible war, a prophecy foretells a new king, the death of countless men, and a strange curse that will give rise to a hero. This story has existed for 3,000 years: it is the ancient story of Cuchulainn, the boy warrior, and the war that made him an Irish hero.

 

Pirate Queen: The Legend of Grace O’Malley by Tony Lee

A true daughter of the fearsome O’Malley clan, Grace spent her life wishing to join the fight to keep Henry VIII’s armies from invading her homeland of Ireland — only to be told again and again that the battlefield is no place for a woman. But after English conspirators brutally murder her husband, Grace can no longer stand idly by. Leading men into battle on the high seas, Grace O’Malley quickly gains a formidable reputation as the Pirate Queen of Ireland with her prowess as a sailor and skill with a sword. But her newfound notoriety puts the lives of Grace and her entire family in danger and eventually leads to a confrontation with the most powerful woman in England: Queen Elizabeth I. With a gripping narrative and vivid, action-packed illustrations, the fourth entry in Tony Lee and Sam Hart’s Heroes and Heroines series captures the intensity and passion of one of history’s fiercest female warriors.

 

Hunger by Donna Jo Napoli

It is the autumn of 1846 in Ireland. Lorraine and her brother are waiting for the time to pick the potato crop on their family farm leased from an English landowner. But this year is different—the spuds are mushy and ruined… just like last year. What will Lorraine and her family do?

Then Lorraine meets Miss Susanna, the daughter of the wealthy English landowner who owns Lorraine’s family’s farm, and the girls form an unlikely friendship that they must keep a secret from everyone. Two different cultures come together in a deserted Irish meadow. And Lorraine has one question: how can she help her family survive?

 

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

Who knows where the time goes?

There never seems to be enough time in Kinvara, or anywhere else in Ireland for that matter. When J.J.’s mother says time’s what she really wants for her birthday, J.J. decides to find her some. He’s set himself up for an impossible task . . . until a neighbor reveals a secret. There’s a place where time stands still–at least, it’s supposed to. J.J. can make the journey there, but he’ll have to vanish from his own life to do so. Can J.J. find the leak between the two worlds? Will a shocking rumor about his family’s past come back to haunt him? And what does it all have to do with the village’s new policeman?

 

Cross-Country(ies)

Long Story Short by Siobhan Parkinson

From Ireland’s first laureate for children’s literature comes a story of abuse and neglect told with sincerity, heart, and a healthy dose of humor.

Jono has always been able to cope with his mother’s drinking, but when she hits his little sister Julie, he decides it’s time for them to run away. Told in Jono’s funny, self-conscious voice, the layers of his past and the events of his escape are gradually revealed. Amusing and touching but never sentimental, Siobhan Parkinson is a well reviewed middle-grade author who now turns her considerable skill as a writer to a young adult audience.

 

Love & Luck by Jenna Evans Welch

Addie is visiting Ireland for her aunt’s over-the-top destination wedding, and hoping she can stop thinking about the one horrible thing she did that left her miserable and heartbroken—and threatens her future. But her brother, Ian, isn’t about to let her forget, and his constant needling leads to arguments and even a fistfight between the two once inseparable siblings. Miserable, Addie can’t wait to visit her friend in Italy and leave her brother—and her problems—behind.

So when Addie discovers an unusual guidebook, Ireland for the Heartbroken, hidden in the dusty shelves of the hotel library, she’s able to finally escape her anxious mind and Ian’s criticism.

And then their travel plans change. Suddenly Addie finds herself on a whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle, trapped in the world’s smallest vehicle with Ian and his admittedly cute, Irish-accented friend Rowan. As the trio journeys over breathtaking green hills, past countless castles, and through a number of fairy-tale forests, Addie hopes her guidebook will heal not only her broken heart, but also her shattered relationship with her brother.

That is if they don’t get completely lost along the way.

 

Harry Potter Around the World

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Whenever I visit a new country, I try to pick up a copy of the first Harry Potter book in that country’s native language. I chose this particular title because not only do I love it to the ends of the Earth, it’s one of the most widely translated books in history and thus usually pretty easy to find. (I also look for The Golden Compass/Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, but have only been able to find French and English copies so far.) It’s fun to compare the artwork, the translations of some of the proper nouns, and the different ways each language formats the text (dialogue varies pretty widely from language to language, for example).

 

French

   

I purchased this copy in Paris in 2002 or 2003, when only four of the books had been published. The back cover only lists the first three, but the fourth is also on the flyleaf, so I assume all four had already been translated into French by this time. The cover art and spot artwork on the back by Jean-Claude Götting are more cutesy than the American versions, and there is no artwork in the main text. You can barely see the lightning-bolt shaped scar on Harry’s forehead if you squint hard enough. The title on the spine reads from bottom to top, the opposite of how most titles are oriented in the United States. To indicate dialogue, this French-language version uses a hyphen at the beginning of the line and no quotation marks at all, leaving the reader to determine from context when the dialogue actually ends. Note that the translation of the title is Harry Potter and the School of Sorcerers and doesn’t mention the stone at all!

 

British English

   

It was several years before I traveled outside the United States again. I purchased this copy when I visited London in 2013. I liked that the cover illustrations by Thomas Taylor were different from any of the versions I had seen in America. Dumbledore’s outfit on the back is particularly grand. British English only uses a single quotation mark to indicate dialogue.

 

Icelandic

      

You would be forgiven for thinking this was the English language version if you only glanced at it, since the cover art by Mary GrandPré is also the original cover art for the American edition. GrandPre’s chapter artwork is not reproduced. Interestingly, translator Helga Haraldsdottir appears to have changed “Privet” to “Runnaflöt.” Icelandic is a fun language to try to sound out – it uses most of the same alphabet as English, but also includes a few extra letters, including the thorn (Þþ), which was also found in Old English. Reading Icelandic can make an English speaker feel a bit like they’re trying to decipher Beowulf. The Icelandic version uses the double quotation marks to indicate dialogue, but the first set is actually located on the bottom of the line, not the top as it would be in English. (The second set is on the top of the line.) The direction of both the first and second sets are also reversed compared to English, so they are facing out, not in. I purchased this version just last year, in 2018.

 

Irish

   

I returned from a 10-day trip to Ireland yesterday, and I was lucky to have found this Irish-language version on my first try. It was the only Harry Potter book in Irish, and in fact the only Irish-language book I could see in the entire store, though I expect they do carry more titles in less prominent locations (or perhaps for special order). While you will find Irish as the primary language on all street signs and other official places in the Republic of Ireland, which I assume is an attempt to help restore the language to more common usage, only 1 in 4 Irish people actually understand any of it or speak it. With this information in mind, I feel fortunate I was able to find a copy of Harry Potter in Irish. The artwork by Jonny Duddle is the same as you’d find on any other Bloomsbury edition of the book, but all my other copies of Harry Potter had other illustrations, so I’m glad to have a copy of this lovely version.

INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 2 – The Event

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Onto the second part of this multi-part series of posts about the INSPIRE: Toronto International book Festival, I’m going to talk about the event itself. Later this week I’ll wrap up with writing about the outside activities and sites I visited, then end with a post on what worked and what could be improved to make this a really knock out event.

The INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival (TIBF) ran for three days, from Friday, November 14 through Sunday, November 16. It kicked off on Thursday night, though, with a launch party. Prior to the launch, bloggers who were invited to meet with a handful of the event creators and facilitators, which gave us insight into how TIBF came to be what it is and what the vision for the event is. Unlike BEA, TIBF is meant to be a consumer-facing festival, meaning that the goal isn’t to bring in the industry but instead, to draw in the general public. In other words, it wants to be more like what Book Con would hope to be, and the purpose isn’t to talk up or get buzz going for upcoming titles. It’s on selling readers what’s already out there and encouraging reading in whatever form it takes.

Other countries throughout the world hold large consumer book festivals, but something similar in scope doesn’t exist in North America, aside from the Gudalajara Festival. TIBF wants to fill in that gap, and the hope is that by being located in Toronto — which is quickly accessible to a large population — it can do just that.

I’d say for the inaugural year, it didn’t do a bad job.

The Metro Centre, where the event was held, was so much more pleasant than the Javitz, and I think a large reason for that was it was much smaller and because this event wasn’t as huge as BEA, there was more room for spreading out and making it an experience for attendees. When you went upstairs, where the exhibition and event floor was, attendees were greeted with a really neat display of old printing presses:

All of the programming stages, save for one of the multicultural ones, were on the same floor, meaning it was easy to go from program to program and dip into the different discussions without feeling like you were being a distraction. More, it never got too loud: the sound from the main stage didn’t bleed into the smaller stages. There was enough space between the vendor booths and the stages, too, that it wasn’t hard to hear in booth nor on stage. 
Some of the exhibitors took the time to create really great booths, too. At BEA and at ALA, the booths are pretty standard: you get so much space, and you use it to pack in as much stuff as you can. But again, because this was a consumer event, the idea is less about the stuff and more about the experience. The best booth was, hands down, the Simon & Schuster Canada booth, which was set up like a cozy house, and each of the rooms had books that fit the theme. Cookbooks were in the kitchen, children’s books were in the play room, and so forth:
There were eight stages/feature areas, including an entire stage area dedicated for a First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Literary Circle. I didn’t get a chance to attend any of the sessions there, but I dropped by to grab a picture of it, and I also stopped by the accompanying bookstore, where I spent the bulk of my book money. I’ll talk a little bit more about this in a final post, including a link to the store for anyone interested in browsing or buying books that could be extremely difficult to find otherwise. 
What the event coordinators told us about this specific element of the TIBF was that rather than go out and curate their own program for the First Nations stage and run the risk of appropriating culture or making huge missteps, they contacted the connections they had with members of the groups and asked them to create their own lineup of programming. They were given money to bring in their speakers and given money for those same people to get an honorarium for taking part. Though this is something a general attendee wouldn’t know, this spoke volumes to me. From the beginning, the event was meant to include a diverse array of voices, and they put their money where their mouth is. 
If I have any regrets about what I didn’t get to do at TIBF, it would be that I didn’t get to spend time here. If I go back in the future, I’d want to spend a few sessions, if not an entire day, listening in to the programming here. 
On Friday, after the bookstore tour, most of my energy was zapped, but I did manage to make it to a session that I’d been really looking forward to: “I Don’t Give A Damsel: Writing Strong Young Women,” featuring Meg Wolitzer, Gayle Forman, Sarah Mlynowski, and E. Lockhart. The session, as the title suggests, was meant to explore what a “strong female character” was and why and how these particular YA writers develop strong females in their work. It was hosted by Lainey Gossip, who kicked it off by asking each of the panelists what was meant by “strong female character.” I snagged a short video of their responses (and yes, I was sitting near someone who was taking their sweet time opening a can of pop):

At times, especially during the Q&A, I felt like the panel went a little off the rails and became too self-conscious and directed at adult readers of YA, rather than YA readers (I even heard one of the panelists comment that a “real YA” was asking a question — which was odd, since I thought most of the audience looked pretty young). It wasn’t bad, but I ended up sneaking out before the end, since I thought the meat of the discussion happened early on, with questions like the one above.

I skipped out on the event Saturday — the only regret I have about that is missing Margaret Atwood — but on Sunday, I hit up a number of really interesting panels.

The first was called “Books By Their Covers: Redesigning Classics,” featuring Elly MacKay (who redid the Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon covers for Tundra), Debbie Ridpath Ohi (who redid the middle grade covers of the Judy Blume books), and Cybele Young (who redid the covers for the Kit Pearson books). This session was fantastic — all three of the artists talked about “getting the call” and being asked to redesign covers for these hugely iconic books and what their design process was. How did they choose the images they did? What sort of mediums did they work with?

The most interesting take away from this was how Elly MacKay does her art. If you look at the top picture, you can see her hand placing the tree in the image. She illustrates and paints, then she cuts out her work and puts them inside a box, where she can rearrange them. When she’s arranged them the way that she likes, she’ll photograph it. You can get a closer look at all of the covers on her website. I’m regretting that I didn’t pick up the Emily set now (though I did, thanks to the exceptionally attentive and helpful folks at the Penguin Random House Canada booth, pick up the first book in the Kit Pearson series, which features the design above).
The second panel I went to was “Comedy…? What’s Funny in Funny Books?” and it featured Ryan North, Kate Beaton, and Chip Zdarsky. This panel was, as you’d expect, a complete riot. I know very little about humor or funny books, so I really enjoyed hearing about the process behind how funny writers come up with their jokes. 

Aside from a stomach that hurt from laughing so much, the biggest takeaway from this panel was that even funny people know it can be weird and uncomfortable to try something new — and sometimes something series — and that the only way to grow is to go for it if you believe in it. The audience who doesn’t like it will skip it and those who do will only encourage you to grow your art and style. There was great chemistry on the panel, and the way they were all able to play off one another made it even funnier.

The final panel I went to was at the end of the day on Sunday, and it was “Diversity, DJs, and DIY,” featuring Greg Frankson A. K. A. Ritallin, Kayla Perrin, Stacey Marie Robinson, and Leonicka Valcius. Right before taking the stage, I got the chance to meet Leonicka, who I’ve been following on Twitter for a while and who has some incredibly insightful thoughts on diversity in publishing and the book world more broadly, and it was a treat to hear her talk about it on a big stage.

Something I found interesting — and troubling — was that there were so few white people sitting in the audience for this session. Maybe it was because the session was at a really bad time (it was one of the last of the entire event, on Sunday evening and came on the heels of Maggie Stiefvater talking on the main stage) but I suspect there’s still some belief that a diversity panel isn’t “for” white people. If anything, after this session, I feel completely opposite that. This was a session I needed to go to, even though I’ve heard some of this discussion before. Aside from insight into what publishing is or isn’t doing to bolster the voices of marginalized writers, the biggest take away I got came from Robinson, who talked about why she chooses to self-publish her work and how she thinks that self-publishing is one of the most interesting avenues for marginalized voices and stories right now.

This is something I hadn’t thought about before, and Robinson opened my mind to thinking about self-publishing in a bit of a different light. Like New Adult got its biggest audience via self-publishing, I suspect this is and will continue to be the case for diverse writers. More, it’s not about going this route because it’s the only option; rather, it’s going this route because it’s a way to subvert the gates that are hard to break down and even harder when you’re not white.

Leonicka talked about how publishing itself remains so white because it’s difficult to break in when you don’t have privilege to do so. In other words, going to college, getting an internship in the industry, then taking on a job that doesn’t pay enough to cover the bills — those are things people from marginalized backgrounds can’t often do in the same way that white people can. It was impossible not to look at those two discussions in tandem.

Another really interesting takeaway for me was how the Canadian landscape is different than the American one when it comes to reading and publishing. Perrin, who writes for Harlequin, talked about how in her first books, she was asked to change the setting of her stories, since American readers would be more reluctant to pick up a story set in Toronto than they would be a story set in Chicago. There was a good conversation about how black voices are represented and understood when they’re from Canada, as well — Perrin noted that her readers are sometimes surprised she’s Canadian.

I wish more people were in the audience to hear this panel. Perhaps in the future, a similar panel could be put on at a better time or, even more radically, maybe it could be a main stage event or not be competing with a large main stage event.

TIBF had so many other sessions I wanted to go to and didn’t get the chance to, either because they were scheduled against panels I wanted to see or because I was so drained from other events, I couldn’t get myself there. This is the kind of event, though, I would be interested in attending again — when the schedule goes up for next year, I’ll definitely be looking to see if it’s worth the trip. Toronto is closer, cleaner, safer, and so much more appealing to me as a visitor than New York City. While mid-November is kind of a crummy time to travel north, it didn’t bother me much: there aren’t huge tourist crowds, hotels and airfare tend to be cheaper (I stayed in the nice hotel for an extra night on my own, and it was under $100 with taxes which I consider more than a fair price), and this was a nice time to get away before the holidays consume everything. While I didn’t have to pay for my pass to attend the event as a member of the press, the cost of $25 for the opening night party and three days of events is extremely reasonable.

While the event’s attendance seemed like it waxed and waned — on Friday, for the Kid’s Day, there seemed to be far bigger crowds than on Sunday, though the event competed with the city’s Santa Claus parade that day — it never felt packed and unbearable. I could wander the booths and could always find a chair for the sessions. One of the things I mentioned to a couple others was that the set up lent itself to browsing, mingling, and sitting. The last one seems like it’s not important, but it is: there were seats and chairs and lounging areas throughout the convention center, which made it nice to collect yourself, your stuff, and to just browse through the books you bought.

One of the very last things I noticed at the fair, and something I thought was just a nice touch, was that there was an entire gallery of children’s books illustrations to browse. The event celebrated the entire landscape of the book world in a really accessible and fun way. Also, thumbs up to the publishers who took the little extra steps to make finding books about certain topics easy to find, both through labels (like below) and through being eager to talk about them.

 

Toronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE!

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By the time this post goes live, I’ll be wandering through the streets of downtown Toronto. It’ll be my third time in the city and the second time this year alone. Thanks to the folks at Knot PR, I’ve been selected to attend the Inspire! Toronto International Book Fair as an international blogger, which kicks off tonight and runs through Sunday evening.  
I’m really excited to check out this book festival, and the panels I’m going to be attending look pretty excellent. There’s a really nice array of different topics and a huge range of speakers attending, which you can check out here. Here’s a peek at what I am looking at going to and who will be talking:
Human Rights Books for Young Readers with Karen Levine, Rosemary McCarney, and Margie Wolfe
I Don’t Give A Damsel: Writing Strong Young Women with Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Meg Wolitzer (If ever a panel sounded like one that was up my alley, here it is)
Love to Read: How Reading Programs Lead to Success with the Ontario Library Association and Toronto Public Library
The Haunting: The Legacy of Shirley Jackson and the Authors Who Came After with Chizine Publications
Books By Their Covers: Redesigning Classics with Elly MacKay, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Cybele Young
I’ve got a few other interesting panels and programs on my need-to-attend list, including seeing Leonicka Valcius talking about diversity. I’ve been reading her writing for a while now and so appreciate her perspectives on diversity. 
I’m also looking forward to some time to explore the city a little more than I have in the past. Both times I’ve been to Toronto in the past have been pretty quick. This time, I have almost a week, which includes a 3-hour city-wide bookstore tour that I’m really looking forward to. 
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing a bit about the book festival, as well as about the city, both here on Stacked and over on Book Riot. I’m also hoping to talk a little more about it on Tumblr (you can follow me over there, if you want) and I’ll be posting pictures on Instagram. 
If you’ve ever wondered what Toronto looks like from the top of the CN tower, here you go. At least that’s what it looked like in summer 2011.  

I’m looking forward to this writing vacation, though I’m thoroughly prepared for some snow and cold. It is mid-November in Canada. That’s…pretty much the exact same expectation I have for Wisconsin this time of year.