It was Illustrators’ Night in Toronto, and it was finally Spring!!! So Marilyn Mets has again done a lovely job putting together an artistic version in PDF format, or if your internet tubes are particularly slow today, grab the all text version.

Members and friends can find these, and all of the Minutes and News issues in the archives in the Members/Friends section.

Compiled by Gillian Chan, the list of the latest works by our members can be found at the link to your left, in the New Creations section.

CANSCAIP is delighted to announce a new initiative for Friends of CANSCAIP ($35, see joining)—the Online Blue Pencil Project. Interested applicants may submit one piece of work up to 10 pages in length, or a group of 10 or fewer illustrations.

• The project can accommodate up to 40 “Mentees” who will be teamed up with suitable “Mentors” to have their work critiqued in one of five categories: picture book, early reader/middle grade, non-fiction, YA and illustration.

• Mentors will be published authors or illustrators who are full members of CANSCAIP with at least two children’s or YA books .

• Mentees will be selected by lottery if applicants exceed expectation. There is a $20 fee for applicants who are selected. (CANSCAIP will supplement Mentor fees.)

• You may submit one piece of writing or one group of illustrations. The writing must be one work, up to a maximum of ten pages, double spaced, 12-point type size with one inch margins. The illustrations must be a group of ten or fewer. They can be photocopies or digital pieces.

• Please submit your name and category to the CANSCAIP office by June 1st 2008. Do not submit any work or payment with your application.

• After their selection and upon CANSCAIP’s receiving the $20 fee, Mentees will be given contact information and a deadline for submitting work to their assigned Mentors, on-line or snail mail, whichever works best for both Mentee and Mentor.

• Mentors will respond with one critique of a maximum of two pages. If you wish, you may submit one brief letter or email of follow-up questions after receiving the critique.

• The program will take place during July and August.

• NOTE: This project was created to help Friends develop and polish their writing or illustration technique, and does not guarantee publication!

The snowbanks have just melted in Southern Ontario, and looked what I found! It’s the March minutes of the Toronto meeting, and the topic was…uh…snow? No, um, newly additions to the dictionary…no, that wasn’t it, what was it? Oh ya, oh ya, Coping with Creative Panic!!!!

Please find them in the Members/Friends section:
Jittery PDF version (295 K)
Jumpy Text version (21 K)

Call for Applications

The Writers’ Trust of Canada is now accepting applications for the position of writer-in-residence at the Berton House Writers’ Retreat in Dawson City, Yukon.

There are four positions available between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010. Each position is for a three-month period.

The residency provides a unique opportunity for Canadian writers to devote a significant time to their writing and to advancing their writing careers. A monthly honorarium is provided and housing and transportation costs are covered. Writers are required to perform a public reading in Dawson City and Whitehorse and are encouraged to interact with the local community.

Applicants must:

• be Canadian citizens or permanent residents;

• have published at least one book and be established in any creative discipline (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, play/screenwriting, children’s literature, journalism, etc.).

Applications must include:

• a resume listing professional writing experience;

• a completed application form.

Remuneration: $6,000 honorarium for a three-month term.

Deadline for applications is September 30, 2008

To download an application form or for further information visit bertonhouse.ca.

The CANSCAIP News for Spring 2008 is out in PDF format, with featured Member Adwoa Badoe.

The CANSCAIP Office is closed for staff vacation until Monday March 31st. We appologize for any inconvenience.

The February minutes of the Toronto meeting are up, just as it turns to March. If only we’d had an extra day of some kind! In any event, they’re in the Members/Friends section.

February 2008 minutes in PDF format (273 K)

February 2008 minutes in text format (30 K)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
12th Annual Writing for Children Competition
$1,500 PRIZE

The Writers’ Union of Canada is pleased to announce that submissions are being accepted until April 24, 2008, for the 2008 WRITING FOR CHILDREN COMPETITION. The winning entry will be the best Canadian children’s story of 1,500 words in the English language, written by an unpublished author.

PRIZE

$1,500 for the winning entry and the entries of the winner and finalists will be submitted to three Canadian children’s publishers.

JURY

We are proud to announce that Damien Fière, Jacqueline Guest, and Tim Wynne-Jones will serve as the jury.

ELIGIBILITY

This competition is open to all Canadian citizens and landed immigrants who have not been published in book format in any genre and who do not have a contract with a book publisher. Original and unpublished (English language) fiction or nonfiction.

HOW TO SUBMIT ENTRIES:

Entries should be typed or computer-printed, double-spaced, and numbered on 8.5 x 11 paper, not stapled.
Computer disks, CDs, e-mails, or faxes will not be accepted.
Include a separate cover letter with title of story, full name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and number of pages of entry.
Please type the name of entrant and the title of entry on each numbered page. This is not a blind competition.
Make cheque or money order payable to The Writers’ Union of Canada. Multiple entries can be submitted together and fees can be added and paid with one cheque or money order, $15 per submission.
Entries must be postmarked by APRIL 24, 2008 to be eligible.
Mail entries to: WFC Competition, The Writers’ Union of Canada, 90 Richmond Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, ON M5C 1P1.

Results will be posted at www.writersunion.ca. Manuscripts will not be returned.

January minutes of the Toronto meeting  in  January. News when you need it. If the details were any fresher, you’d have to boil them and pluck them yourselves. Just grab them from the Members/Friends section. And watch out for all of the feathers, I haven’t finished cleaning up in there.

January 2008 minutes in PDF format (310 K)

January 2008 minutes in text format (15 K)

The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is offering the Professional Development Workshop “From Desk to Bookstore: Making the Leap to Writing as a Career” in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Victoria and Vancouver, in February and March 2008.

Workshop leaders are Wayne Grady, who has written eleven books of nonfiction, published short stories, criticism and feature articles in most of Canada’s major magazines, and is an award-winning translator; Genni Gunn, author of the critically acclaimed Hungers, a novelist, poet, translator, librettist and musician who has published with various Canadian publishers and conducted writing workshops across Canada; and Deborah Windsor, Executive Director of The Writers’ Union of Canada.

“From Desk to Bookstore: Making the Leap to Writing as a Career” is designed to enhance the careers of book writers, whether unpublished, emerging or established. The workshop answers important questions like who publishes books in Canada and how they do it? Where did all the bookstores go? Can an editor do that? What does the World Wide Web mean to the writer? How does anybody make a living at this?

Most workshops of this calibre charge hundreds of dollars. TWUC is asking a modest $45.00 to cover costs, including lunch. For more information please check out www.writersunion.ca/pdfs/registration.pdf. Please circulate this information to writers you think might be interested in coming to this event. Space is limited so register today.

The CANSCAIP News for Winter 2007 is out in PDF format, with featured Member Marthe Jocelyn.

It’s always the holiday season as long as you keep the holidays in your heart, and the mailman keeps bringing the credit card bills to your door. To commemorate this special time of year, the December minutes of the Toronto meeting can be found in the Members/Friends section.

December 2007 Minutes PDF version (274 K)
December 2007 Minutes Text version (18 K)

The Writers’ Union of Canada has announced that submissions are being accepted until February 14, 2008, for the 2008 POSTCARD STORY COMPETITION for the best Canadian story of 250 words in the English language. Are you up for the challenge? Can you create a dramatic, short, snappy piece in only 250 words? You can use humour, poetry, dialogue… anything goes! Check out the Writers Union website for more information.

The country is blanketed in snow, so it’s time to cocoon. No more venturing outside until spring! Make like a groundhog and cuddle up with your choice of hot beverage and read the minutes of the November Toronto meeting featuring Kenneth Oppel! Find them in the warm and cozy Members/Friends section.

RETRACTION: It turns out biologists have known for some time that groundhogs neither drink hot beverages, nor make cocoons. So much for fact-checking on Wikipedia.

November 2007 Minutes PDF version (246 K)
November 2007 Minutes Text version (26 K)

More minutes! Hot on the heels of the September minutes, here are October’s. If this keeps up, we may get December’s out before the meeting! Kept, as always, in the Members/Friends section.

October 2007 Minutes PDF version (262 K)
October 2007 Minutes Text version (19 K)

Like a few extra candies hanging around after the trick-or-treaters have finished for the night, the September minutes are here to sweeten your day a little.*

PDF version
Text version

* Note: The minutes are not akin to having two whole bowls of candy left over, which has left me with sugar-rush and a bellyache.

CANSCAIP authors Sarah Ellis, Jan Thornhill and Eva Wiseman all won major book prizes Monday night at the Design Exchange in Toronto.

TD CANADIAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AWARD ($20,000)
Odd Man Out

Written by Sarah Ellis of Vancouver, BC
Groundwood Books
“Beautifully written… Ellis is at the top of her game… She skillfully weaves together a story within a story and creates a place for the reader… I re-read this book as soon as I finished… A brilliant ending.”

NORMA FLECK AWARD FOR CANADIAN CHILDREN’S NON-FICTION ($10,000)
I Found a Dead Bird: The Kids’ Guide to the Cycle of Life & Death

Written by Jan Thornhill of Havelock, ON
Maple Tree Press
“Exceptional, original and engaging… The topics covered in this book are so powerful and so unusually fascinating… If you had to pick one way to explain our struggle with life and death this book would be it.”

GEOFFREY BILSON AWARD FOR HISTORICAL FICTION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ($1,000)
Kanada

Written by Eva Wiseman of Winnipeg, MB
Tundra Books
“A poignant story that depicts the horrors of life inside the German concentration camps and the prejudice and persecution which the Jewish people experienced… Wiseman’s writing style is captivating and young people will be easily swept into the story.”

Eligible Writers
Canadian citizens or landed immigrants who have not been
published in book format are welcome to enter.

Eligible Entries
Nonfiction and fiction prose, up to 2,500 words in the English
language, are eligible. Eligible works have not been previously
published in any format.

Deadline
The postmarked deadline is November 3.

Entry Fee
Please submit a $25 fee per entry.

HOW TO SUBMIT ENTRIES
• Entries should be typed and double-spaced on 8.5 x 11 paper, with
pages numbered and paperclipped, not stapled;
• Include a separate cover letter with full name, address, phone
number, title of entry, number of pages of entry, and whether the
submission is fiction or nonfiction. Please include full name and
title of entry on each numbered page;
• Submissions on computer disk, e-mails, or faxes will not be
accepted;
• Make cheque or money order payable to The Writers’ Union of
Canada. Multiple entries can be submitted together and fees can
be added and paid with one cheque or money order; and
• Mail to: SPC Competition, 90 Richmond St. E, Suite 200, Toronto,
ON, M5C 1P1.

www.writersunion.ca
Results will be posted at www.writersunion.ca.
Manuscripts will not be returned.

The 20th Helen E. Stubbs Memorial Lecture

Michael Kusugak

“The Perfect Story”

Acclaimed storyteller and author Michael Kusugak grew up in Repulse Bay, where he was immersed in the storytelling traditions of his people.
After being taken away to boarding school at the age of seven, and kept from his family for an entire year, Michael rebelled and hid the next time the plane came to take him away. Michael now lives in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. In 1994 he won the Ruth Schwartz Children’s Book Award for Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails. Michael’s latest book is The Curse of the Shaman.

Thursday, October 18th at 8 p.m.

Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books

Lillian H. Smith Library, Community Room
239 College St. (at Huron)
Toronto, ON
Admission is free

The Fall 2007 CANSCAIP News is now online in PDF format, with featured Member Susan Tooke!

There are still spaces left in CANSCAIP’s Packaging Your Imagination conference and there are still lunches left. Come see children’s book luminaries Susan Juby, Maggie deVries, Muriel Wood, Helaine Becker, Janet McNaughton, Dorothy Joan Harris, Barbara Reid, Sheila Barry, Sharon Siamon, Frieda Wishinsky, Martin Springett, Edo Van Belcom and keynote speaker OR Melling for a day of workshops, networking and inspiration.

Information and a downloadable brochure are available on the CANSCAIP website at www.canscaip.org/pyi.html Don’t miss out!

Lena Coakley

CANSCAIP Office

Bookmark this! The 2007 CBC Literary Awards competition is now open and the deadline is approaching fast! The Awards celebrate original, unpublished works in 3 categories: short story, poetry, and creative nonfiction.

Cash prizes total $60,000 and the winning entries are published in Air Canada’s enRoute Magazine and get visibility offered by CBC. You have until November 1st, 2007 to try your luck or spread the word around you.

Info/requests for entry forms:
www.cbc.ca/literaryawards
1-877-888-6788 (toll-free)

Author of more than 60 books including A Wrinkle in Time. Here is the NY Times obituary.

www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/books/07cnd-lengle.html?hp

[Deep, gravelly voice]: In a world before time, archeologists made the most astonishing of all discoveries…and a hidden cabal is trying to prevent the exposure of the most dangerous document known to MAN…

…or maybe what with all the vacations nobody noticed that our hard-working team had finished and submitted the minutes of the June Toronto meeting and they were never posted. Personally, I think my version is more dramatic.

PDF version:http://www.canscaip.org/membersfriendsonly/minutes/0607minutes.pdf
Text version: http://www.canscaip.org/membersfriendsonly/minutes/0607minutes.rtf

Philip Pullman is coming! Philip Pullman is coming!

Oct 26 and 27

Apparently a registration page will be up next week. Until then, here’s some info:

www.trinity.utoronto.ca/News_Events/Events/particles.htm/

Pullman will be speaking on the Friday night and will be joined on Saturday morning by Tim Wynne-Jones, Sarah Ellis, Kenneth Oppel and Megan Whalen Turner for a panel discussion.

Lena

Could it possibly be that this weekend is the last one to see a fellow CANSCAIPer strut their stuff at the Franklin Children’s Garden in Toronto? If that isn’t a sign that summer is coming to an end, I don’t know what is. Here’s a list of the fabulous performers you’ll be missing if you don’t hop on the ferry to Centre Island and follow those green turtles!

Saturday, September 1—1:00
Gwen Molnar, author/illustrator/performer
Lots of rhythm, lots of rhyme, for a great, toe-tapping time!

Saturday, September 1—2:30
Sylvia McNicoll, author
Win books! Join the simile team! Hear Sylvia’s wild tales.

Sunday, September 2—1:00
Gwen Molnar, author/illustrator/performer
Lots of rhythm, lots of rhyme, for a great, toe-tapping time!

Sunday, September 2—2:30
Nancy Hallas, author
Make a frog puppet and jump into a story!

Monday, September 3—1:00
Martha Newbigging
Dragonflies, turtles, frogs and flowers. Let’s draw a garden book.

Monday, September 3—2:30
Dorothy Jane Needles, author/performer
Stories for anyone, about anything.

Gwen Molnar’s performances are sponsored by:

I’m still working on a permanent fix, but this may do the trick for now. Updates will be processed in about a month.

Due to spam issues, I’ve had to take the Members’ update form off-line for the time being. I’m working on it!

Two wonderful CANSCAIP artists will be performing this weekend in Toronto. Just take the ferry to Centre Island and follow the green turtles to an afternoon of fun!

Saturday, August 18—2:30
Harriet Xanthakos, storyteller
Pick a story from the Story Bag!

Sunday, August 19—2:30
Sydell Waxman, author
Storytelling fun for young and old. Come listen and partake.

Two wonderful CANSCAIP artists will be performing this weekend in Toronto. Just take the ferry to Centre Island and follow the green turtles to an afternoon of fun!

Saturday, August 11—2:30
Sonja Dunn, author/performer
Storytelling through song, chant and rhyme.

Sunday, August 12—2:30
Heather Whaley, author/performer
Sayable stories and singable songs with a singer-songwriter and storyteller.

We’ve got a fabulous lineup this weekend at the Franklin Children’s Garden in Toronto where many CANSCAIP authors, storytellers and illustrators will be strutting their stuff for a young audience. Just take the ferry to Centre Island and follow the green turtles to some storytelling fun!

Saturday, August 4—1:00
Cheryl Uhrig, author/illustrator
Creative fun time—for kids to read and colour!

Saturday, August 4—2:30
Rukhsana Khan, author
Scared, Silly Greedy—Three funny, multicultural stories.

Sunday, August 5—1:00
Joanne Findon, author
Shape-shifting and transformation in mythic tales for kids.

Sunday, August 5—2:30
Kaarina Brooks, author/illustrator
Hear how songs and stories travel around the world!

Monday, August 6—1:00
Ellen Jaffe, author
Hear stories old and new, and rhymes from the poet-tree.

Monday, August 6—2:30
Pat Lewis, puppeteer
Mr. Fox Steps Out: lively animal puppets tell their tails.

All summer, world-renowned CANSCAIP children’s authors, illustrators and performers will be performing at the Franklin Children’s Garden in Toronto. Just take the Toronto Island ferry to Centre Island and follow the green turtles to some storytelling fun!

Saturday, July 14—2:30
Kereth Collard, performer
Believe in make-believe: puppets spark the imagination.

Sunday, July 15—2:30
Jeremy Tankard, author/illustrator
Stories in Ink: See an illustrator draw a story.

Saturday, July 21—2:30
Susan Allen, performer
Stories from the Garden: Me and My Shadows puppetry tales.

Sunday, July 22—2:30
Judy Shier Weisberg, performer
Join ventriloquist storyteller Judy and her surprise guest!