Track & Trace update, etc.
I also recently completed an extensive interview with Alessandro Porco, who asked me some very thoughtful and insightful questions on the subject of the new book and other sundries. Said interview should be appearing on the Maisonneuve website in a few weeks. Stay tuned.
In other news, I handed in the ms. for The Essential Poems of Kenneth Leslie yesterday. I'm so glad to be part of bringing Leslie back into print after more than 35 years in limbo. And very grateful to Tim Inkster at The Porcupine's Quill for making it possible. The book should be out in the spring.
I've got a fair bit on my plate right now, but was thinking today that an Essential Milton Acorn would be a good project to undertake, provided permission can be obtained. I'm a big fan of this idea of slim selections, which both the PQ and Wilfrid Laurier UP are both doing right now. A good editor is key, which is what makes Robyn Sarah's selections of Johnston and Coles superior to the Essential PK Page, whose editors' names elude me at the moment. The WLUP series, which has published quite a few more books than the PQL, has featured some obvious choices, some interesting unexpected ones (Travis Lane, e.g.), and some quite odd ones. Meanwhile, there's still no Layton, Acorn, Trower, Nowlan, MacEwen, Cohen, Patrick Lane, Bishop (I know, I know, but someone's gotta keep floating this notion), Birney, Klein. Probably in some cases due to copyright issues.
Speaking of which, a lot of writers seem to be up in arms about the impending Google settlement. Which is understandable, I guess, if you can actually make a decent amount of income from sales of your books. But given that I make more from Public Lending Rights than royalties, I'm all for having my copyright violated if it means more people potentially reading my work. I know there are more nuanced arguments against the particular circumstances of Google's grand plan, but I just can't get very worked up about it all.