PAST PROJECTS | CURRENT PROJECTS

Dominic Ali
Todd Babiak
Gail Banning
Leon Berger
Arthur Black
Alex Brett
Kathy Buckworth
Tanya Chapman
Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout
Méira Cook
Estate of Sonia Craddock
Dede Crane
Wilfred Cude
Kelli Deeth
Norma Dixon
Leah Douglas
kc dyer
M.A.C. Farrant
Meg Federico
Will Ferguson
Laine Ferndale
Pam Freir
Mark Frutkin
Steven Galloway
Bill Gaston
Katherine Gibson
Leona Gom
Andrew Gray
Paul & Audrey Grescoe
Taras Grescoe
Cameron Gunn
Genni Gunn
Mike Harcourt
Hannah Holborn
Aislinn Hunter
Ann Ireland
Olive Skene Johnson
Pamela Klaffke
Carole Lazar
John Lekich
Andrea MacPherson
Maria Coletta McLean
Teresa McWhirter
James McWilliams & R. James Steel
Marg Meikle
Eric Nicol
Noreen Olson
Lisa Pasold
David Pitt-Brooke
Gabrielle Prendergast
Gayla Reid
Mary Reid
Karen Rivers
Nelsa Roberto
Janey Romain
Stanley Semrau
Barry Shell
Kara Stanley
Tyler Trafford
Miriam Toews
Michael V. Smith
Patricia Van Tighem
JC (Jennifer) Villamere
David Waltner-Toews
Chris F. Westbury

Dominic Ali www.domali.com frequently writes about pop culture for U.S. and Canadian media. He has worked for TIME magazine's Canadian edition, and the CBC Radio programs As it Happens and Definitely Not the Opera. Dom's radio documentaries have been broadcast on Outfront, The Sunday Edition, and Studio 360. He is currently writing a memoir about his first newspaper job in the Caribbean. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

MEDIA MADNESS: An insider's Guide to Media illustrated by Michael Cho

Rights sold: Canada, KidsCan Press, 2005

Todd Babiak is an entertainment writer and columnist for the Edmonton Journal. He graduated from Montreal's Concordia University MFA program in creative writing in 1999.

CHOKE HOLD (237 pp) is a coming-of-age first novel which explores the relationship between masculinity and ritualized violence. It was nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize for Fiction and was the winner of the Alberta Best First Novel Award.

Rights sold: Canada, Turnstone Press, 2000; Optioned for film by Velocity Films and Jump Communications

Gail Banning has been a Crown prosecutor since 1988. This is her first novel.

OUT ON A LIMB is a fresh and engaging novel for middle grade readers. Just as they're about to be evicted from their low-rent apartment, a family discovers that they're heirs to a spacious treehouse on the estate of a mysterious great-great-aunt. They move in for an idyllic summer, but trouble starts in September when 12-year-old Rosie attends a snobby new school and tries to keep her unusual home a secret.

Rights sold: Canada, Key Porter Books, 2008

LEON BERGER is the author of two literary fiction novels in hard cover and 3 commercial fiction, including 2 recent thrillers. He was reviewed in Globe & Mail, La Presse and Time and featured on Book TV.

BOOK 1: THE KENNEDY IMPERATIVE: While the construction of the Berlin Wall challenges JFK with the first major crisis of his presidency, young CIA agent Philip Marsden is sent on his first mission across into East Berlin. Here he becomes a fugitive as he tries to discover the truth about his Russian-born mother who was once a double agent.

BOOK 2: THE KENNEDY MOMENTUM: The Cold War reaches its zenith with the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba threatening the US. While JFK and his brother face deep divisions in trying to diffuse the crisis, Philip Marsden is sent on a mission to Cuba where he becomes trapped, betrayed by a CIA-Mafia joint operation.

BOOK 3: THE KENNEDY REVELATION: In the immediate aftermath of the JFK assassination, Philip Marsden investigates the coincidental murder of his own Cuban-American wife. As evidence builds and the threats begin to mount, he discovers that the two deaths might not be unrelated.

RIGHTS SOLD: World English, Open Road, 2013

Arthur Black www.basicblack.com was the popular host of CBC - Radio's Basic Black for 19 years. His live broadcasts filled auditoriums across Canada. He is three-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Arthur is the author of a dozen volumes of collected humour essays, the most recent of which is LOOKING BLACKWARDS (Harbour Publishing 2012).

Alex Brett alexbrett.ca is a science writer who did field work in fisheries and lab work prior to spending a decade at the National Research Council. Her first two Morgan O'Brien Castle Street Mysteries are published in Canada by the Dundurn Group.

DEAD WATER CREEK (360 pp) Morgan is sent west to look into misappropriation of fisheries, research funds, and uncovers an illicit plan to manipulate the lucrative sockeye salmon run.

Canada, Dundurn Group - A Castle Street Mystery, 2003

COLD DARK MATTER a Canadian astronomer is found hanging from the secondary mirror of one of the world's most prestigious international telescopes, on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This book will accurately reflect the tight relationship between academic astronomy and the military, particularly with respect to France and the US.

Canada, Dundurn Group - A Castle Street Mystery, 2005

Kathy Buckworth www.kathybuckworth.com, is a contributor to CanadianLiving.com and Today's Parent. She is the author of THE SECRET LIFE OF SUPERMOM: The Tricks and Truths About Having It All (Sourcebooks 2005), which launched a new comic voice for busy moms. SuperMom EveryDay, giftbook and calendar, 2006, Sourcebooks.

JOURNEY TO THE DARK SIDE: Supermom Goes Home The woman who had it all (children, a busy corporate and domestic life, a good salary and lots of guilt) makes the transition to being at home in the suburbs.

Rights Sold: Canada, Key Porter, Spring 2007

THE BLACKBERRY DIARIES. We can stay linked to a world which involves mostly us, while living in a reality of playdough, tantrums and judgement (that'd be from the other "challenged" Modern Mummies). Like children, however, all is not sunshine and roses with the BlackBerry.

Rights Sold: Canada, Key Porter, 2008.

SHUT UP & EAT: Tales of Chicken, Children and Chardonnay. Experts claim that sitting down to eat together can prevent children from getting into trouble while simultaneously creating close-knit families. In Buckworth's opinion, that's an awful lot to expect from a meatloaf! Laugh-out-loud funny, Shut Up and Eat is a must-read for any woman who's ever wondered: What the hell am I cooking tonight?

Rights Sold: Canada, Key Porter, Spring 2010.

Tanya Chapman is a graduate of the UBC creative writing program. Her short story, "Spring the Chick," won This Magazine's Great Canadian Literary Hunt. She has had two short films produced.

KING is a coming of age story about recreating your life—one small and honest piece at a time. There's only one thing to do with a picture perfect existence in the suburbs and that's to exchange it for a trailer park, a collection of lawn sprinklers, a liquid eyeliner addiction, and a whole lot of burn baby burn passion.

Rights sold: Coach House Books, Canada, fall 2006. All other rights available.

Yvonne Collins (speech writer) & Sandy Rideout (film industry technician) www.collinsrideout.com have been friends since they were teen-agers.

TOTALLY ME: The Teenage Girls Survival Guide (230 pp) is a lively and witty discussion of friendships, boyfriends, hormones, gossip, dating, lying, parents, stepparents, school, drugs and alcohol.

Rights sold: USA, Adams Media, 2000; Spain, Amat, 2001

Méira Cook's poetry and prose have been widely published in book form, anthologies, magazines and journals. She has received numerous awards, grants and prizes.

THE HOUSE ON SUGARBUSH ROAD, set in post-apartheid Johannesburg shortly after the 1994 democratic election of Nelson Mandela, is the story of the intertwining lives of a once prominent left-leaning liberal Afrikaner family and Beauty Mapule, their domestic servant of more than thirty years.

Rights sold: Great Plains Publishing, 2011 for 2012 publication.

 

 

estate of Sonia Craddock (1941-1997)

Sonia was a vibrant and prolific author of children's literature and a dynamic activist for literacy. She earned a doctorate in education while raising three children. Sonia's published books include: THE SECRET OF THE CARDS, YOU CAN'T TAKE MICKY, THE TREASURE HUNT, and TV WARS AND ME.

HAL, THE THIRD CLASS HERO is a very funny novel about a hero trainee who can't quite make the grade. HarperCollins Canada sold 5,000 copies.

Rights have reverted.

ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE (132 pp) When Rosy's grandmother keeps vanishing she enlists the help of her unusual family members to solve the puzzle in this funny and off-beat mystery. This middle-grade novel is a popular resource guide for Alzheimer's families.

Rights sold: Canada, James Lorimer & Company, 1996, Republished Streetlights, 2008

SLEEPING BOY, a picture book, illustrated by Leonid Gore (32 pp) A remarkable modern, allegorical re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty tale, set against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall.

Rights sold: USA, Atheneum, a division of Simon & Schuster, 1999

Dede Crane is a former ballerina who has recently turned to writing. Several of her short stories have been accepted for publication in literary magazines.

SYMPATHY a literary novel framed within Dr. Michael Myatt's sympathy-based therapy. The book makes us reconsider the relationship between mind and body and just how permeable the boundaries between self and other are as we follow a cast of broken characters on their poignant, often humorous journeys inside and outside the the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wing of Rosewood Clinic. As Michael works to uncover the startling cause of patient and former ballet dancer, Kerry Taylor's catatonia, he will discover his own vulnerability and a family secret long repressed.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast, 2006

THE 25 PAINS OF KENNEDY BAINES is a teen novel, in which a Jane Austen-loving high school girl and her friends experience a summer of firsts in which everything seems to be changing, including a Mom who smokes dope to cope while Dad is away. A modern day Pride and Prejudice.

Rights sold: Canada, Polestar Books, 2006
Rights to both books will revert in 2008 due to discontinuation of Raincoast's publishing program.

Wilfred Cude www.phdtrap.com wrote a monograph in 1987, recounting the problems which he and many others endured in their quest to complete graduate studies. The paper expanded and became something of an underground success. Now he has written a fully revised and updated book

THE PH.D. TRAP REVISITED (333 pp) is a fascinating expose of university graduate schools' savage exploitation and obstacles to intellectual inquiry and careers.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn Group, 2001

Kelli Deeth is a 1998 graduate of UBC's MFA program in creative writing where she received a fellowship and an award for her one-act play. Her short fiction has been published in Dalhousie Review and The Antigonish Review.

THE GIRL WITHOUT ANYONE (166 pp) is a dazzling debut collection of linked stories about Leah, the girl without anyone, full of funny and poignant insecurities, struggling to grow up in the suburbs.

Right sold: Canada, HarperCollins, 2001; Denmark, Gylndenal, 2002

THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUTH a collection of stories, is a meditation on the nature of love within couples and families. The characters, searching for connection, permanence, and certainty, discover that life is full complex choices, upsets and unexpected disappointments.

Right sold: Canada, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013

Norma Dixon has been writing for children for many years, with articles in such publications as Ranger Rick and books, including WALTER THE PIGEON and JUST RIGHT FOR CATS.

THE LOWDOWN ON EARTHWORMS (2004), FLIES (2005), SEASHELL SECRETS (2004)

Rights sold: Canada, Fitzhenry & Whiteside

Leah Douglas is a new mother and an avid gourmet. She holds a Ph.D. in social work from McGill University, and she teaches at University of the Fraser Valley. She has worked in health care for many years and is happy to combine her passions for delicious food, healthy living and family life.

The Gourmet Pregnancy is a lighthearted cookbook filled with chic recipes, beautiful photos and inspirational narratives about cooking and entertaining throughout pregnancy. It is a celebration of pregnancy and women's bodies, with a positive focus on food, eating and socializing. It encourages women to take pleasure in their pregnancy and promotes diverse and healthy food options.

Rights sold: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

kc dyer (www.kcdyer.com) has published four novels for young adults (Dundurn) and a new series with Doubleday.

A WALK THROUGH THE WINDOW. Darby Christopher is stuck in a one-lobster town for the summer with a pair of weird grandparents and not much to do. Then Darby meets mysterious Gabe and walks with through the stone window of an old ruin she finds herself in another world. Darby observes the stories of different families as they made their way to Canada - via the Underground Railroad; the coffin ships of the Irish Potato famine; and the Bering land bridge into North America.

Book 2: FACING FIRE. Vignettes in this book tell the stories of West Coast First Nations, Chinese railroad experience and the gold rush in Barkerville.

Rights sold: Canada, Doubleday Canada, 2008

M. A. C. (Marion) Farrant is the acclaimed author of over a dozen books of fiction, non-fiction, and memoir. Her writing has been widely anthologized in North America, has been dramatized for television and serialized for CBC radio. Her stage play, My Turquoise Years, premiers with the Arts Club Theatre of Vancouver, B.C., April 4 - May 4, 2013.

DARWIN ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE, is "an antidote to the stranglehold the corporate media has on the public's imagination, and is a place where uncontaminated thought can still be found." (Talon Books, 2003)

MY TURQUOISE YEARS Marion's memoir of growing up as a motherless child nurtured by an opinionated aunt, and a small involved family who all try to fathom her selfish spendthrift mother (Canada and US, Greystone Books, 2004).

THE SECRET LIVES OF LITTERBUGS. "These twenty essays in the tradition of David Sedaris are funny, sharp, and completely original while describing an utterly familiar world. They include stories about Farrant's childhood, her parenthood, and her writing life; parallels emerge bringing a strong cohesiveness to the collection." Ebook available here

Rights sold: Canada, Key Porter, 2008

DOWN THE ROAD TO ETERNITY--NEW AND SELECTED FICTION. (Talon Books, 2009)

The Strange Truth about Us (Talon Books, 2011).

The World Afloat: One Hundred Miniature Stories (Talonbooks, for 2014 publication).

MEG FEDERICO regularly writes humor for the National Post. Her work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Shambhala Sun, and Agni Journal (Boston University Press). She also writes commentary for CBC Radio (which she often performs). For several years, she wrote a highly successful column, "Transitions: Issues in Caregiving," for The Halifax Daily News.

WELCOME TO THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE is a laugh out loud travelogue of the author's two-year tour of duty as manager of her wealthy parents' homecare in suburban New York-from her home in Nova Scotia, a thousand miles away. When the author's eighty year old mother and newly minted step-father were finally forced to accept full-time home care, Federico imagined them settling into a Norman-Rockwellian life of docile dependency but contrary to expectations, her parents turned into terrible teens in a world where gravity didn't apply.

Rights sold: World rights to Random House USA. Canadian publication by Doubleday Canada. Italian rights to Sperling Kupfer and stage rights sold to producers Jean Cheever and Tom Polum. For all territories contact: dcronin@randomhouse.com

Will Ferguson www.willferguson.ca has been a regular columnist for Maclean's Magazine and a frequent contributor to Flare, Globe and Mail and other publications. He is a popular humourist, chronicler of Canadian history, politics, and pop culture and winner of the 2005 Pierre Berton Award for Popularizing Canadian History.

His published books include Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw (Knopf Canada), I Was a Teenage Katima-Victim (Douglas & McIntyre, 1998), Canadian History For Dummies (Wiley), Bastards and Boneheads (Douglas & McIntyre, 1999), Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan (Tuttle 1998), and
Hokkaido Highway Blues (published in Canada and China as HITCHING RIDES WITH BUDDHA) an insightful and witty travel memoir. He is a co-author of Girlfriend's Guide to Hockey with Teena Dickerson and Bruce Spencer (Key Porter, 1999, new edition 2008) and the editor of THE Penguin Book of Canadian Humour (Penguin Canada, 2006).

SPANISH FLY is the story of young Jack McGreary who has been raised in the dying town of Paradise Flats during the the dust storms of the Great Depression. Jack has been forced to live by his wits and when a pair a fast-talking con artists blows through town, Jack falls in with them. Together, they go on a crime spree across the American Southwest, staging a number of inventive and often hilarious cons.

Rights sold to Penguin Canada (Canadian English), Publication Fall 2007 & paperback September 2008, Keter Books (Israel), Planeta (Spain), ASA (Portugal), Companhia das Letras (Brazil), Harvill Secker (UK), Vintage paperback as Hustle (UK), Muza (Poland).

WHY I HATE CANADIANS (220 pp), Canada, Douglas & McIntyre, 1997, Re-issued 2007

HOW TO BE A CANADIAN (even if you already are one) with Ian Ferguson (225 pp), Won the CBA Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year. Nominated for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and the Bill Duthie, BC Booksellers' Choice Prize. 175,000 cc sold. Canada, Douglas & McIntyre, 2001, 2007.

HAPPINESS™ is a satirical novel about a self-help book that works. Winner of the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, and the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Prize. Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Region Prize (Canada/Caribbean)

Rights sold: Canada, Penguin, 2001 (first published under the title, GENERICA); Audio, Canada, Goose Lane and sold in over twenty other territories.

LAINE FERNDALE teaches literature and writing to pay for a fairly serious chai latte habit. She lives with her husband and her adorably needy cat. Find her at LaineFerndale.com, on Facebook and on Twitter @laineferndale.

THE SCANDALOUS MRS. WILSON is a sparkling western romance from a promising debut talent whisks readers away to the bustling Candian frontier town of Fraser Springs in the early 1900s.

Jo Wilson has seen her share of tragedy, but she’s determined to keep her late husband’s bathhouse afloat, even if her all-female staff raises eyebrows. She’s holding her own against the Fraser Springs society ladies’ public scorn, but a handsome new customer poses a different threat.

Bored with writing adventure novels, author Owen Sterling arrives in the tiny Canadian town hoping to launch a serious journalism career with an exposé on the titillating rumors swirling around Wilson’s Bathhouse. But the beguiling Jo is honest and upright and her respectable business is not at all what he expected.

Book One in the Fraser Springs series.

Rights sold: World, Crimson Romance (S&S), 2017.

THE INFAMOUS MISS ILSA, in which a woman escapes a difficult life in Vancouver for a fresh start in Fraser Springs and now, as the right-hand woman at Wilson's Bathhouse, has left all traces of her old life behind her. But then a new doctor, whose family once employed her as a housemaid, comes to town and complications arise. Books two in the Fraser Springs Series.

Rights sold: World, Crimson Romance (S&S), 2017.

Books three and four in the series, THE WAYWARD MISS WHEELER and THE SHOCKING MISS MCSHEEN, are forthcoming.

Mark Frutkin www.markfrutkin.com is the author of six books of fiction and three of poetry. His work has been published in Canada, UK, US, Holland, and India.

In A MESSAGE FOR THE EMPEROR, Li Wen is on a journey to paint four landscapes, during the year it will take him to travel across southern China to the Song Dynasty Emperor's Court. Seven hundred years later, David McAdams, Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, rediscovers the lost paintings and begins to retrace the artist's journey. Unaware that one of the paintings depicts a map to an ancient tomb filled with gold and jade artefacts, the curator draws the attention of a Chinese triad gang.

Rights sold: Canada, Vehicule Press, for 2012 publication.

FABRIZIO'S RETURN is a literary novel set in the 17th and 18th-century Italy, in which the Devil's Advocate, a hard-eyed Jesuit, investigates a candidate for sainthood. FABRIZIO'S RETURN is described by Alan Cumyn as "a grand novel full of ossuaries and telescopes, gargoyles and magic potions, apocalyptic paintings, angels, comets, violins, of murmurations of starlings and characters -- such characters! -- to make you fall in love."

Winner of the 2007 Trillium Book Award.
Nominated for the 2007 Sunburst Award.
Nominated for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Caribbean/Canada).
Produced as an opera by St. Olaf College in Minnesota

Rights sold: Knopf Canada (h/c) 2006, Vintage Canada (p/b) 2007; Proszynski, Poland; Inostranka, Russia; Narae, Korea; Editorial ViaMagna, Spain; French language Rights to Alto.

Pam Freir has been writing a weekly food column, Pleasures of the Table, for seven years.

LAUGHING WITH MY MOUTH FULL: Tales from a Gulf Islands Kitchen, a gently comic narrative of the author's adventures eating and preparing food at her gulf island home and while travelling.

Rights sold: HarperCollins Canada, 2005

Winner: Best Special Interest Food and Beverage Book, Canadian Culinary Book Awards

Steven Galloway www.stevengalloway.com is a young rising star. A 1999 graduate of UBC's MFA program, he has studied radio drama and screenwriting. He is a sessional instructor in creative writing.

ASCENSION (279 pp) a dazzling international novel about the world of a Romany high wire walker.

Rights sold: Canada, Alfred A. Knopf, 2003; Radio, serialization, CBC; Greece, Livanis; US, Carroll & Graf (reverted); Poland, Bertelsman Swiat; Denmark, Cicero (reverted); Italy, Edizionieo; Australia, Text Media; Turkey, Kariyer Yayinlari, world Spanish rights to El Aleneo (Argentina); UK, Atlantic; Munhakdongne Publishing, South Korea; Editora Rocco, Brazil.

 

Bill Gaston is a former hockey player and graduate of UBC's MFA program. He teaches writing at the University of Victoria. Bill is a past winner of numerous awards, including the 2003 inaugural Timothy Findley Lifetime Achievement Award. His short stories have been widely published in literary journals, including Granta. Bill's published works of fiction include: TALL LIVES, a novel; DEEP COVE STORIES, a collection, as well as BELLA COMBE JOURNAL and NORTH OF JESUS BEANS. His backlist has recently been acquired by Raincoast Books.

MIDNIGHT HOCKEY, a satiric look at beer-league hockey

Rights sold: Canada, Doubleday Canada, fall 2006

THE GOOD BODY an aging hockey player who failed to make the major leagues goes home in a futile and funny attempt to reconnect with the son he left behind.

Rights sold: Canada, Stoddart/Cormorant 2000, Raincoast Books 2004; US, Regan Books 2001

SEX IS RED an award winning collection, one of which won the $10,000 CBC Prize for Fiction.

Rights Sold: Canada, Cormorant 1998

MT. APPETITE a collection OF 12 stories (221 pp) linked by the common theme of yearning and seeking in "unpredictable and addictive fiction by a writer of wit, skill and power." MT. APPETITE was short-listed for the 2002 Giller Prize.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books, 2002; French language, Les Editions de la Pleine Lune, 2003

THE CAMERAMAN (356 pp), is a new edition of a novel first published in 1994, as one of the last books of fiction from Macmillan. The plot revolves around the on-camera death of an actress. This has implications for her friends -- a director and a cameraman.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books, 2003; French language, Les Editions de la Pleine Lune, 2003; Poland, Wydawniczy

SOINTULA is a quest novel in which a middle-aged woman leaves her husband, who is a former Mormon missionary and the mayor of their Ontario town. She paddles up the west coast in a stolen kayak, looking for her son.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books, 2004. Optioned for film by Gumboot Productions.

Rights for all Raincoast titles will revert 2008.

Katherine Gibson's www.katherinegibson.com articles have appeared in Reader's Digest (U.S., Canada, and Australia), Homemaker's Magazine, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Northwest Palate, Seattle Times, Airlines, Via, and Victoria Times Colonist. Formerly the owner of a public relations business, Katherine is an experienced publicist, public speaker, and seminar presenter.

UNCLUTTER YOUR LIFE: Transforming Your Physical, Mental and Emotional Space. UNCLUTTER YOUR LIFE exposes the clutter we see -- a messy desk, junk under the bed, stuff in closets or jammed in the attic -- while expanding the notion of clutter to include unseen obstacles that pack the mental and emotional in-basket of life. The author reveals how a calm, beautiful, or spiritually-enhancing environment fosters a productive and joyful life.

Rights sold: Beyond Words, Inc. US, 2004. Rights have also been sold for Korea, Japan, Germany, India, French Canada, Turkey and Indonesia.

PAUSE: Putting the Brakes on a Runaway Life
puts the hurried life on notice. Rather than analyze the chaos that churns within our complex society, Pause will convince you that life dramatically improves when we replace meaningless activities, back-to-back commitments, and unfulfilling obligations with all that gives life zest.

Through sparkling anecdotes and solid research, Katherine Gibson calms our physical, emotional and spiritual angst with practical and inspirational down-home wisdom.

Rights sold: Insomniac Press, Canada, fall 2006

Leona Gom is the award-winning author of eleven published books of poetry and fiction, including ZERO AVENUE, HOUSEBROKEN, THE Y CHROMOSONE and three Vikki Bauer mysteries. Leona won the CAA Award and was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award. Her novel HOUSEBROKEN was awarded the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction. She has also had two full-length radio plays, produced by CBC.

THE Y CHROMOSOME Prize-winning novelist and poet Leona Gom challenges the reader to meet an all-women society of the future. Taut and gripping, The Y Chromosome examines the relations and value system of a culture of women where the few men still alive are in hiding, socialized early in life to regard themselves as inferior. This futurist society abhors its ancestry, a male-dominated world where violence was commonplace. Avoiding caricatures and easy answers, this novel is an ironic and provocative novel that probes women’s and men’s lives in a society that, despite striking differences, bears many similarities to our world today.

Rights Sold: Cormorant Books, Canada, 2018. Optioned for film by Mind Creatures Entertainment. Originally published by Second Story Press.

HATING GLADYS (272 pp) is a darkly funny literary novel set in a remote Yukon Lodge in the early 1960s, where two teenage girls work all summer to earn their university tuition. The ill-treatment the girls receive at the hands of evil Gladys and her husband are recalled when they're re-united in the city 35 years later.

Rights sold: Canada, Sumach Press, 2002

Andrew Gray is a 1996 UBC MFA grad, with an impressive list of awards and poetry and fiction publication credits. A web site designer and arts program coordinator, he is at work on a novel involving art and WW II.

SMALL ACCIDENTS a collection of 12 stories (198 pp) brought favourable reviews from The Globe and Mail, Publishers' Weekly, and the New York Times Book Review. SMALL ACCIDENTS was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the IPPY Award for short fiction.

Rights sold: Canada Raincoast Books, 2001. Rights have reverted.

Taras Grescoe is a young travel writer of extraordinary talent who has contributed to National Geographic Travelle, enRoute, New York Times and many others.

SACRE BLUES: an Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec (304 pp) won fans and favourable reviews, as well as the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction and the Quebec Writers' Federation awards of the Mavis Gallant Prize for non-fiction, and Best First Book Prize.

Rights sold: Canada (English) Macfarlane, Walter & Ross, 2000; French VLB editeur, 2002

THE END OF ELSEWHERE: Travels Among the Tourists (309 pp) is an on-the-road odyssey and a brilliant history of tourism. It has been short-listed for the Mavis Gallant Prize for non-fiction.

Rights sold: Canada, Macfarlane Walter & Ross (now McClelland & Stewart) 2003, UK & US rights to Serpent's Tail, French Language rights to VLB.

Paul Grescoe & Audrey Grescoe are veteran editors, journalists and authors of books on business, trees, and cruise ship travel.

THE BOOK OF LETTERS: 150 Years of Private Canadian Correspondence, has won rave reviews and is a popular gift book.

Macfarlane, Walter & Ross (now McClelland & Stewart) 2002

THE BOOK OF WAR LETTERS: a Century of Private Canadian Correspondence (McClelland & Stewart, 2003);

THE BOOK OF LOVE LETTERS: Canadian Kinship, Friendship and Romance (McClelland & Stewart, February 2005)

FLIGHT PATH: How Westjet is Flying High by Paul Grescoe (Canada, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2004)

NORTHERN TIGERS: Building Ethical Canadian Corporate Champions, A Memoir and a Manifesto by Dick Haskyne With Paul Grescoe (Canada, Key Porter, 2007)

Cameron Gunn (www.camerongunn.ca) is a lawyer, prosecutor and writer living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He is decidedly unqualified to write a book on virtue. That, however, is precisely what qualifies him to follow Franklin. As a prosecutor, the Author is faced with daily ethical dilemmas and as a husband and father he is required to constantly grapple with the quandary of trying to lead a virtuous life as an example to his children. Who could have a greater need for a course dedicated to moral perfection?

Attorney, dad, and wife-described sloth Cameron Gunn's BEN & ME, relates his humbling and often hilarious attempt to live by each of Benjamin Franklin's thirteen virtues one week at a time, from Temperance and Chastity to Sincerity, Silence, and Moderation, with Humility and a few others thrown in for good measure. BEN & ME: From Temperance to Humility--Stumbling Through Ben Franklin's Thirteen Virtues, One Unvirtuous Day at a Time is the chronicle of one man's attempt to take up Franklin's challenge, overcome the crushing burden of mediocrity, and stumble in the path of greatness. As he chronicles his successes and failures, the author examines the motivation behind his own journey and western society's seemingly insatiable appetite for self-improvement schemes.

Rights sold: World to Perigee (Penguin USA), publication 2010. Complex Chinese rights sold to Rye Field, Korean rights to Book 21.

Genni Gunn www.gennigunn.com was born in Trieste, Italy. Before turning to writing full-time, she toured in rock bands (bass guitar, piano, vocals). Her opera libretto, "Alternate Visions," was staged in 2004. A creative writing instructor, she is also a translator of the works of Italian poet Dacia Maraini. Genni's THRICE UPON A TIME won the 1990 Commonwealth Prize for the best First Novel (Canada/Caribbean division). MATING IN CAPTIVITY won the Gerald Lampert Prize for Poetry. She is also the author of TRAVELLING IN THE GAIT OF A FOX and ON THE ROAD.

TRACING IRIS is a complex and exciting literary novel in which a social anthropologist searches for her mother.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books, 2001 (rights reverted); optioned for film, 2007 (film in post-production); Felici, Italy, audio to audible.

HUNGERS is a mesmerizing collection about yearning, vice and the dark side of love.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books, 2002 (rights reverted).

ALTERNATE VISIONS: an opera libretto half in French and half in English. Spring 2007

FACELESS a new poetry collection explores landscapes that are fascinating and treacherous, haunted by faces that are obsessively worn and shed, torn off and replaced.

Rights sold: Canada, Signature Editions, 2007

In SOLITARIA, a family discovers that Vito, the brother they thought living in South America, is actually dead, and has been for years. And, even stranger, their sister has been pretending to receive letters from him for decades. Set in southern Italy in 2002, and spanning two decades, Solitaria is a journey through loss, deception, memory and desire. Buy the e-book.

Rights sold: Canada, Signature Editions, 2010; Felici, Italy; Artemis, Netherlands; audio to audible.com.
Longlisted for the Giller Prize.

TRACKS: Journeys in Time and Place. Tracks is a compilation of personal travel essays that range across three continents, from Italy, where Genni Gunn was born and spent her early years, to Canada and Mexico, and through Asia, where she has travelled many times, both reconnecting with her sister and witnessing the emergence of new political realities in Myanmar.

Rights sold: Canada, Signature Editions, 2013

Mike Harcourt served as British Columbia's Premier from 1991 to 1996, and as Mayor of Vancouver, three terms from 1980 to 1986. Mr. Harcourt is Chair of the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, Senior Associate of the Liu Centre (UBC) for the Studies of Global Issues. He works at the Rick Hansen Man in Motion Foundation on International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (I-CORD) and chairs the Spinal Cord Injury Quality of Life Advisory Group. He speaks and advises internationally on sustainability solutions. In November 1996 he was appointed by the Prime Minister to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy where he serves on the Executive Committee and Chairs the Urban Sustainability Program. In May of 2003, he was appointed Federal Commissioner on The B.C. Treaty Commission. December 2003, he was appointed by Prime Minister Paul Martin to Chair an advisory committee on cities.

He is the author, with John Lekich, of MIKE HARCOURT'S PLAN B: ONE MAN'S JOURNEY FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH

Rights sold: North American, John Wiley & Son, Ltd. Fall 2004

The influence of Hannah Holborn's various parents—foster and otherwise—has lent her fiction a unique blend of British humour, Slavic melancholy, naturalism, and First Nations sensibility. Her prize winning stories have appeared in numerous journals including "Room of One's Own" and "Front and Centre". She is writing a novel in Gibsons, British Columbia.

FIERCE: With an irresistible combination of playfulness and empathy, these effervescent, sometimes heartbreaking tales of underachieving adults, unfairly burdened children, and the unaccountably hopeful of all ages explore the moments of grace in lives that are too often defined by loss.

"The Indian Act" is a compact coming-of-age story, charting the journey of a boy who, though bounced through many foster homes, holds on to the dream of love and unconditional acceptance; and in the novella "River Rising," three generations in a small town struggle toward joy despite the accidents of fate and the foolish mistakes that almost, but not quite, derail their lives.

RIGHTS SOLD:
Canada, McClelland & Stewart, 2007 (publication 2009); Italy, Elliot Edizioni.

Aislinn Hunter www.aislinnhunter.com is a personable Vancouver-based teacher of creative writing, with a wealth of experience in arts broadcasting. Her poetry and fiction reflect her fascination with Ireland.

WHAT'S LEFT US a collection of six stories and a novella was nominated for the Danuta Gleed Award and received the 2003 Foreword Magazine Silver Medal for Fiction. The book was also shortlisted for the Re-Lit prizes.

Rights sold: Canada, Polestar Books, 2001 (reverted); French language for the novella Les Allusifs, 2004; Finland, Karisto Oy 2001

STAY , a dazzling first literary novel in which a young Canadian woman has a love affair with an older disgraced Irish academic, was shortlisted for the Books in Canada/Amazon.ca Best First Novel Prize.

Rights sold: Canada, Polestar Books, 2002 (rights reverted); UK/Irish rights, New Island Press, 2003; Film produced by Amerique Films in Ireland, starring Aiden Quinn and Taylor Schilling for release in 2013.

INTO THE EARLY HOURS a poetry collection, won the Gerald Lampert Award and was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Award. (Polestar Books, 2001, reverted) THE POSSIBLE PAST a poetry collection of great poise and insight, looks at actual historical events and people through a post-modern lens. Shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay and Pat Lowther Prizes for Poetry. (Polestar Books, 2004, reverted)

Ann Ireland is a widely traveled writing instructor and past president of Pen Canada.

EXILE (298 pp) is a smart and sly novel in which Carlos, a Latin American dissident poet is "rescued" by a group of Canadian idealists. For Carlos, a spoiled Latino, his refugee status is a new kind of imprisonment. Shortlisted for the Governor-General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Prize for Fiction.

Rights sold: Canada, The Dundurn Group, 2002

THE INSTRUCTOR (208 pp) probes the nature of power shifts between man and woman, teacher and student, when a young woman goes to Mexico with her art instructor. Short-listed for for the Trillium Book Award. Published: Canada, Doubleday, 1996; US, Ecco Press, 1997.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn Group, 2004

A CERTAIN MR. TAKAHASHI (206 pp) When pianist Yoshi Takahshi moves next door to adolescent sisters, Jean and Colette, infatuation and sexual tensions threaten the balance of their lives. Winner of the 1985 Seal/Bantam First Novel Award. The 1991 feature film The Pianist, directed by Claude Gagnon, was based on this novel. Published: Canada, McClelland & Stewart; US, Vanguard; UK, Bantam.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn Group, 2005

Olive Skene Johnson, PhD. is a neuro-psychologist. She has contributed articles on sexuality to Canadian and American periodicals.

THE SEXUAL SPECTRUM: Exploring Human Diversity (253 pp) is a fascinating and highly accessible look at the myriad factors that shape human sexuality. The author draws on scientific findings, psychological quizzes, anecdotes, clinical and personal experiences.

Rights sold: UK, Aus/NZ (Fusion, Vision paperbacks 2003) Canada, Raincoast Books, 2004, Revised edition 2007

Pamela Klaffke www.pamelaklaffke.comis a former newspaper and magazine journalist who now works as a novelist and photographer. She is the author of two novels and the non-fiction book, Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping (2003). She also writes My Analogue Life, a weekly column that appears in the Analogue Lifestyle section of Lomography Magazine.

Her dreamy, vintage-inspired photographs are shot exclusively with analogue cameras using expired and/or damaged film. Her work has appeared in art publications and advertisements around the globe and prints of her work reside in private collections worldwide. Pamela is also the founder and chief curator of the Secret Society of Analogue Art, an organization that encourages the creative fusion of analogue and digital communication and media by offering an ongoing series of participatory art projects.

SNAPPED! Sara B. is having a meltdown. She's teetering on the edge of forty and struggling to maintain her persona as Montreal's premier trend-spotter. Snapped! careens through Sara's world as she drinks, smokes, stirs up social melodrama, and becomes increasingly unhinged.

Rights sold: World, Mira Books, publish date 2010.

EVERY LITTLE THING
If it's not one thing, it's her mother Britt, San Francisco's brassy scandal queen, filled her newspaper column with juicy details of her many marriages, cosmetic surgeries and everything about her only daughter, Mason. Then Britt dies. So Mason-now thirty-five and vehemently un-Britt-like in every way returns home to settle her affairs...though some affairs are not so easy to settle. Mason finds herself thrust back into the spotlight, and this time it's her own doing.

Rights sold: World, Mira Books, publish date 2011.

HELLO CUTIE! Adventures in Cute Culture, which looks at the history of cute culture from a pop-culture perspective covering everything from scented Strawberry Shortcake dolls and Hello Kitty, to the history of the teddy bear and the current boom in kitsch crafting.

Rights sold: World, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012.

Carole Lazar (www.carolelazar.com) practised law for ten years and then was a provincial court judge from 1989 until 2008. This is her first novel.

LUCY UNSTRUNG: What do you do when your mom suddenly decides to abandon her responsibilities and make up for all the fun she missed when she was a teenager? That is the dilemma 13 year old Lucy faces. Convinced that her grandma, God and the Catholic Church are on her side, Lucy tries to make her mother see the error of her ways. When her efforts are unsuccessful, Lucy is faced the loss of her family, her home, her school and perhaps even her best friend. As she struggles to preserve what she can of her past life she finds that while Grandma, God and her church are still there for her, these are problems she has to solve for herself.

Rights sold: Canada, Tundra, 2009.

John Lekich is a freelance journalist, screenwriter, and film critic. He has a B.Ed. from UBC, and taught high school English and drama until writing took over his life. He is the co-author of MIKE HARCOURT'S PLAN B: ONE MAN'S JOURNEY FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH.

THE LOSERS' CLUB (247 pp), a young adult novel for anyone who has ever been bullied, was a finalist for: Governor General's Award, Book of the Year (Foreward Magazine), White Pine, BC Book Prize's Sheila A. Egoff Award, Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, Canadian Library Association - Young Adult Canadian Book Award, Best Books for Young Adults Award.

Rights sold: Canada, Annick Press, 2002; UK, Macmillan Young Picador, 2004; France, Bayard Jeuness, 2004, Italy, Mondadori

REEL ADVENTURES: The Savvy Teen's Guide to Great Movies (170 pp), is a highly-recommended resource.

Rights sold: Canada, Annick Press, 2002

KING OF THE LOST & FOUND is a young adult novel with heart and humour in which 15-year-old Raymond endures the teasing which comes from his mysterious fainting spells. The only bright spot in Raymond's life is in running the Lost & Found in the school basement. When the principal decides to close the operation, Raymond turns to devious and entrereneurial activities.

Rights sold: North America, Raincoast Books, 2007

PRISONER OF SNOWFLAKE FALLS centers around the misadventures of a resourceful fifteen-year-old thief named Henry Thelonius Holloway. Henry tends to commit random acts of kindness during break-ins but when when he gets caught in the act he is sent to the titular small town, where he discovers the true meaning of family and friendship.

Rights sold: World right to Orca Books for spring 2012.

Andrea MacPherson www.andreamacpherson.com is a UBC MFA graduate. Her fiction and poetry have been widely published in literary magazines. She is a past editor of Prism International. She teaches Creative Writing and English with University College of the Fraser Valley, and has taught at Malaspina University College, Douglas College and SFU's Writing & Publishing Program.

BEYOND THE BLUE spans the years 1879-1918 in Dundee, Scotland, as the lives of Morag, her two daughers and a fey young niece, echo seminal events of their times -- the Tay Bridge disaster, WW I, the suffragette movement, the Easter Uprising, and the influenza scourge. Morag, a worker in the Bowbridge Jute Mill tries to keep her family intact.

"Beyond the Blue holds a compelling and important story of First Word War Scotland, a time when women redefined the word hope as the world was losing its innocence. Andrea MacPherson writes beautifully, balancing the lives of her characters between history and the poetry of gesture, secrets and love."
-- Ami McKay, author of The Birth House

Rights sold: Random House Canada, spring 2007

WHAT WE ONCE BELIEVED captures those changing times when hippies and peace activists, especially women were breaking free of old expectations and limitations. Adolescent Maybe, living with her grandmother on sleepy Lear Street in Oak Bay comes of age during a sultry summer when her birth mother, Camille, reappears. She's written The Other Mother, a best-selling memoir about motherhood and Women's Liberation, which gives only passing reference to Maybe's existence.

Nomiated for the BC Book Prize.

Rights sold: Canada, Caitlin Press, 2016.

WHEN SHE WAS ELECTRIC (251 pp) is an intensely passionate first novel which takes place on a small BC farm during the heat wave of 1939. Three generations of women and the neighbouring Indians mix echoes of the past, secrets, and the impending threat of war.

Rights sold: Canada, Polestar Books, 2003
Voted Number 6 on CBC Canada Reads: People's Choice. Rights reverted.

Helen McLean is an acclaimed artist and memoirist.

SIGNIFICANT THINGS (260 pp) is a richly-textured literary novel in which Edward lives an intimate and impoverished childhood with his feckless mother in Toronto, until her marriage to a rich manufacturer takes them to London, where his life of loneliness begins. Unable to distinguish between loving and owning, he fills the void with art and antiquities. Short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada/Caribbean region).

Rights sold: Canada, Simon & Pierre, 2003

Maria Coletta McLean www.mariacoletta.com is a Canadian-born writer of Italian ancestory. She collected and contributed to MAMA MIA! Good Italian Girls Talk Back (ECW, 2004).

MY FATHER CAME FROM ITALY (176 pp) is a daughter's loving account of reclaiming her aged father's dignity by returning to his home village of Supino. Read the e-book.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books, 2000. Rights have reverted.

Summers in Supino: Becoming Italian is a sequel, with more village life in Supino.

Rights sold: Canada, ECW Press, 2012.

Teresa McWhirter www.teresamcwhirter.com has a BA in creative writing from the University of Victoria. Her gritty, articles and short fictions have been published in Geist, Smoking Lung, Bust, The Nerve, sub-Terrain, Sassy, Filling Station and Vice.

SOME GIRLS DO is a rare kind of novel: a "genuinely revelatory portrait of a generation and an alternative community rarely described in fiction. In sharp and ragged prose, Teresa, unlocks the sub-culture of the young and poor, almost-adults in a chaotic urban setting.

Rights sold: Canada, Polestar Books, 2002. Rights will revert in 2008 due to discontinuation of Raincoast's publishing program.

DIRTBAGS is a coming-of-age novel about Spider, a girl with a messy life on the fringe, who likes to shoplift expensive cheese. McWhirter creates a cast of eccentric and compelling characters and produces a fresh, vibrant voice with a unique take on the world.

Rights sold: Canada, Anvil Press, 2007

James McWilliams & R. James Steel (pictured at right, top) have both written military histories as well as co-authoring THE SUICIDE BATTALION (WW I).

AMIENS: THE DAWN OF VICTORY (250 pp, 30 illustrations) is the first study of this historic and decisive battle of WW I, in France. Long ago, the authors interviewed survivors and their families and acquired first-hand accounts of the event.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn, 2001; UK, Tempus, 2003

GAS! THE BATTLES FOR YPRES, 1915 ( 243 pp). Published by in Canada by Vanwell in 1985, rights have now reverted.

Marg Meikle is the Queen of Trivia and a West Coast author of six books for adults. She has written several Question & Answer books for kids.

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK (Scholastic Books, 1998)

YOU ASKED FOR IT! (Scholastic Books, 2000)

ASK ME ANYTHING! (Scholastic Books, 2004)

Rights for various titles have been sold to the U.S., Croatia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania and Korea. They are out in a collected work, How Much Does Your Head Weigh? (Scholastic 2010)

The late Eric Nicol the grand old man of Canadian humour, was the author of 36 books, radio plays, stage plays and television musicals. He is a three time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. He has received the Order of Canada, the UBC Alumni Merit Award, and the BC Gas Lifetime Achievement Award.

SCRIPT TEASE: A Wordsmith's Waxings on Life & Writing.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn Group, 2010

CANADIAN POLITICS UNPLUGGED illustrated by Peter Whalley, with Introduction by Stuart MacLean, is classic Nicol nonsense.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn Group, 2003; Doubleday Book-of-the-Month Club

OLD IS IN: Baby Boomers' Guide to Aging

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn Group, 2004

Noreen Olson is a popular Alberta farmer, marriage commissioner and public speaker. Her six books of essays have been best-sellers for many years.

THE SCHOOL BUS DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE: Essays of Family, Community and Transitions with introduction by Will Ferguson

Rights sold: Canada, Douglas & McIntyre, 2004

LISA PASOLD (www.lisapasold.com) is a freelance journalist and Paris-based tour guide who writes about travel, architecture and culture. She has two books of poetry published by Frontenac House. She also explores North America in her 1967 Buick Skylark.

RATS OF LAS VEGAS is a confident novel about Millard Lacouvy, an unusual young woman whose quick hands and flair for poker take her from Depression-Era Vancouver to the post-war mob town of Las Vegas. Millard is a kid playing for dimes at the local saloon and washing laundry at the Hotel Vancouver when an offer from an accomplished gambler sets her star rising. From rags to riches, her life is haunted by childhood friend and sometimes lover Teddy Ahern, a bad boy who always turns up at the worst time and usually needs Millard to bail him out of trouble.

Rights sold: Canada, Enfield & Wizenty, 2009. Hungary, IPC/Nouvion, 2010.

David Pitt-Brooke originally trained as a biologist and veterinarian. In addition to practicing veterinary medicine, his research and fieldwork involved falcons, caribou, rattlesnakes and grizzly bears. In 2002, he received the Science in Society Journalism award for his outstanding contribution. For the past 12 years Dr. Pitt-Brooke has lived on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

CHASING CLAYOQUOT: A WILDERNESS ALMANAC, seasonal essays.

Rights sold: Canada, Raincoast Books Canada 2004, US 2005. Re-publication, Greystone Books, 2009.

CROSSING HOME GROUND: A Grassland Odyssey Through Southern Interior British Columbia

Rights sold: North America, Harbour Books 2016.

Gabrielle Prendergast is the author of the middle grade novel Hildegarde (Harper Collins Australia), which was also made into a feature film, starring Richard E Grant. Her middle grade sports novel Wicket Season will be published by Lorimer Publishers in spring 2012. All about Gabrielle and a great blog here: angelhorn.com.

AUDACIOUS, a young adult novel in verse.

Sixteen year old Raphaelle is that girl who says the wrong thing, who crosses the wrong person, who has the wrong hair, the wrong body, the wrong attitude, the totally wrong clothes. She can't do anything right, except draw, but she draws the wrong pictures. When her father moves the family to a small prairie city, Raphaelle wants to leave behind the misfit rebel, the outcast, the vengeful trouble-maker she was. Reborn as "Ella," she plans fit in at her new school, while her perfect younger sister goes to the Catholic girls' school and her emotionally fragile mother looks for a job.

But Ella might just be a different kind of misfit. She's drawn to a brooding boy in her art class, Samir, and expresses her confused feelings in an explicit artwork. When a classmate texts a photo of Ella's art to a younger friend, the horrendous fallout spreads though Ella's life like an uncontrollable disease. Ella is expelled from school and faces pornography charges, her mother is hospitalized, her sister fails all her classes, and her distant father finally notices something is wrong.

Rights sold: World, Orca Books 2011, 2013 publication. Two book deal includes a sequel.

CAPRICIOUS: Ella’s grade-eleven year was a disaster (Audacious), but as summer approaches, things are looking up. She’s back together with her brooding boyfriend, Samir, although they both want to keep that a secret. She’s also best buddies with David and still not entirely sure about making him boyfriend number two. Though part of her wants to conform to high school norms, the temptation to be radical is just too great.

Managing two secret boyfriends proves harder than Ella expected, especially when Samir and David face separate family crises, and Ella finds herself at the center of an emotional maelstrom. Someone will get hurt. Someone risks losing true love. Someone might finally learn that self-serving actions can have public consequences. And that someone is Ella.

Rights sold: World, Orca Books 2014.

THE FRAIL DAYS: Stella Wing wants to rock, but everyone else wants to rap. Sixteen-year-old drummer Stella, guitarist Jacob and bassist Miles need a wild singer for their old-school rock band. When they discover nerdy Tamara Donnelly, who nails the national anthem at a baseball game, Stella is not convinced Tamara’s sound is right for the band. Stella wants to turn Tamara into a rock goddess, but Tamara proves to be a confident performer who has her own ideas about music and what it means to be epic cool. When their band, the Frail Days, starts to build a local following, Stella and Tamara clash over the direction the band should take, forcing them to consider what true musical collaboration means.

Rights sold: World, Orca Books 2014.

PANDAS ON THE EASTSIDE
Journey Song knows that something beautiful is just what her rundown neighborhood needs, but she doesn’t expect it to be two misplaced pandas. In the spring of 1972, the Eastside has NOT seen better days; it’s never had any good days at all. But ten-year-old Journey loves her school and the people she sees in the street every day. To her, it is home. Then on the day the war takes her teacher’s brother, her estranged father returns. When Journey hears that two pandas are being held in a warehouse in the neglected waterfront, she can’t help but get involved. Her infectious enthusiasm for all things panda is hard to resist, and soon she’s getting assistance from all corners of her tight-knit neighborhood. Now all she needs to do is ensure somehow that the pandas aren’t shipped back to China, but instead carry on to their new home.

Rights sold: World, Orca Books 2015, 2016 publication.

Mary Reid is a mother with two autistic children, one of whom has Asperger Syndrome. Her three romances (“The Camera-Shy Cupid”; “The Gourmet Cupid” and The Electric Cupid”) were originally published by Avalon Books and have been recently bought by Amazon Books for e-book republication. She writes non-fiction articles on parenting and the environment.

THE TURING MACHINISTS is a YA novel with a fantastic voice which is both hilarious and heart-breaking (autism! rock bands!). Delmore William Capp is seventeen and he has Asperger Syndrome. He’s fantastic at math and is discovering a gift for composing music but he can’t interpret a facial expression and he cries at the drop of a hat. When his younger sister tells him that their parents are splitting up Del decides that forming a rock band with his autistic classmates will allow him to live out his father’s dream of becoming a rock star, and somehow save his parents’ marriage. But how can six autistic teens who can’t work as a group, perform in front of strangers or even take a bus (or, for drummer Wesley, make it through a meal without vomiting) hope to succeed as rock group? The coming together of the band, The Turing Machinists, helps Del conquer his stutter, make friends for the first time and find a way to connect with Petula, the cute, angry autistic girl he pines for.

Rights sold: World, Dancing Cat Books, 2016 publication.

Gayla Reid was born in Australia, coming to Canada to do graduate work. Her short stories and articles received many awards. Her first collection, TO BE THERE WITH YOU, (Douglas & McIntyre, Allan & Unwin), won the Ethel Wilson Prize for fiction.

COME FROM AFAR is a beautiful and complex novel of the Spanish Civil War. After an unusual childhood in a remote ghost town and an unsuccessful marriage to an English archaeologist, Australian nurse Clancy arrives to help the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. Clancy’s chance for happiness amid the chaos comes when she meets a young Canadian volunteer, Douglas Ross.

Rights sold: Canada, Cormorant Books, 2010. Cormorant will republish ALL THE SEAS OF THE WORLD and CLOSER APART.

ALL THE SEAS OF THE WORLD is a sweeping, finely calibrated saga of two women whose intense connection is forged during their childhood in rural Australia. Through their lives they experience Saigon at Tet and the Dirty War in Argentina.

CLOSER APART: The Ardara Variations depicts the lives of women in the McGinty family in Australia during the years 1901 &emdash; 2001, as the century's wars drum ceaselessly in the background.

These two books were published to high critical acclaim. Both were shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Prize for fiction.

Karen Rivers www.karenrivers.com is the author of books that have been nominated for national and regional prizes. Her essays for teens have been included in two anthologies for teens published by Annick Press (2001, 2002). She published DREAM WATER a juvenile novel in 1999 (Orca) and SURVIVING SAM (Polestar, Canada and US) in 2001

THE TREE TATTOO is an adult literary novel which leads to sudden moments of insight where language opens unexpected doors. "This is a book full of passion and restraint in which people try to make bargains with God but are draw by passion and need toward dangerous, defiant acts."

Rights sold: Canada, published by Cormorant Books, 1999, rights have reverted

The CARLY SERIES (middle-grade fiction): WAITING TO DIVE (2000), THE GOLD DIGGERS CLUB (2002), published by Orca Books, Canada and re-issued by Scholastic Canada in 2007 (as BARELY) HANGING ON) and Short-listed for the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, and THE ACTUAL TOTAL TRUTH (Scholastic 2007)

The HALEY HARMONY series (teen fiction): THE HEALING TIME OF HICKEYS (2003)
Polestar, Canada and US; Bertelsmann, Germany; Amphora, Russia. THE CURE FOR CRUSHES (AND OTHER DEADLY PLAGUES) Polestar, 2005). THE QUIRKY GIRLS' GUIDE to REST STOPS and ROAD TRIPS (Polestar, 2006).

XYZ TRILOGY (teen fiction, Raincoast Books, Canada and US):

X IN FLIGHT (Raincoast, 2007)
X is seventeen-year-old Xenos, a boy with a Greek name, although he isn’t Greek. In many ways, his life is completely ordinary, but in one important way, it isn’t. X can fly.

Y IN THE SHADOWS (Raincoast, 2008)
Yale knows she’s a freak - one of those weird loser kids that everyone ignores. People tend to look right through her, like she were invisible. But then Yale discovers something: if she tries hard enough, she can actually make herself disappear.

WHAT Z SEES (Raincoast, 2008)
Zara has always been tuned in to the thoughts of her twin brother Axel. But after a horrible accident she can see what everyone is thinking.

Nelsa Roberto (out-of-the-wordwork.blogspot.com) is a mild-mannered civil servant by day and ferocious teen fiction writer/hockey mom/van driver by night.

Illegally Blonde. When Lucinda de Amaral comes home with newly bleached blonde hair all she expects is a major lecture from her strict Portuguese parents. What she doesn't expect is the revelation of a shocking secret that her family are illegal aliens who are being deported from Toronto in less than a week. Lucy's desperation to return to her 'real' home results in a reckless plan to buy a fake passport which ensnares her in a web of illegal activity that threatens more than her journey home. But it's when she unexpectedly falls for a guy whose connection to his home is centuries old that she finally realizes you can never really hide from your roots – not even if you bleach them.

Rights Sold: Great Plains Teen, Canada, 2009.

The Break. When Abby Lambert's parents leave for an emergency Doctors Without Borders mission she knows she'll have to give up her long-anticipated March Break ski trip with her friends to watch over her grandmother (Nona) Lucia. She doesn't like it but if she doesn't stay home she fears her mother will finally commit Nona to the Sunny Haven Community Retirement Home. So begins the craziest week of Abby's life. She somehow agrees to help out at the very place she's been trying to avoid - Sunny Haven. And to make her life even more stressful, she has to deal with Kyle DiLuca - the stuck up nephew of Sunny Haven's owner. But when Nona disappears on a bitter winter night Abby discovers that assumptions aren't always facts and intentions are only as good as what you can deliver on.

Rights Sold: Great Plains Teen, Canada, for spring 2012.

Janet Romain is an organic farmer and writer. More at janetromain.com.

GRANDPERE is Simon Walker, a native elder living his final years with his Metis granddaughter, Anzel. His health is failing and Anzel writes down his stories. The family grows when a thirteen year-old, previously unknown granddaughter named Angel needs sanctuary. Simon provides unique, sometimes shamanistic help through death, divorce, revenge and healing.

Rights Sold: Caitlin Press, Canada, 2010.

Dr. Stanley Semrau is a forensic psychiatrist who has treated and testified about his assessments of the mad and the bad on trial.

MURDEROUS MINDS ON TRIAL: Terrible Tales From A Forensic Psychiatrist's Casebook (323 pp), with co-author Judy Gale.

Rights sold: Canada, Dundurn, 2003

BARRY SHELL www.science.ca has made a career of making science comprehensible to the layperson. His first book, GREAT CANADIAN SCIENTISTS, was published by Polestar Books in 1997.

SENSATIONAL SCIENTISTS profiles dozens of scientists and their work. What does it mean to be a scientist? Where and how do scientists work? What outstanding contributions have they made. Barry has interviewed all of the scientists profiled. Raincoast Books (fall 2005, Canada and the US). Rights have reverted.

Michael V. Smith www.michaelvsmith.com is a UBC MFA grad, who is a screenwriter, poet and cabaret performer known as Miss Cookie LaWhore.

WHAT YOU CAN'T HAVE, a collection of poetry exploring desire and longing in its many forms. Signature Editions, spring 2006.

CUMBERLAND (295 pp) is a literary novel in which set in a dying mill town where lonely people look for love and some form of family. With highly favorable reviews (see author's web site), this sophisticated work was shortlisted for the books in Canada/amazon.ca Best First Novel Award.

Rights sold: Canada, Cormorant books, 2002

PROGRESS
When his small home town is being moved in its entirety to make way for a power dam, Robert returns after a fifteen-year absence to find his parents dead and buried. His sister, Helen, is resisting the government Power Authority which is pressuring her to sign off on the relocation of the family home. Naively, she uses a fatal accident that she witnessed on the dam site as leverage in her negotiations. Robbie struggles to repair the damage when he reveals the compromising circumstances of his sudden disappearance when he and his sister were teenagers.

Rights sold: Canada, Cormorant books, 2009. Publication date Spring 2011.

A graduate of UBC’s MFA program in creative writing, Kara Stanley lives, works and plays on the Sunshine Coast with her musician husband, Simon, and dog Chico. A writer of fiction, non-fiction and song lyrics, Kara is also a teacher of creative writing and a classically-trained Pilates instructor.

FALLEN. In 2008 Kara's husband, Simon, fell off a section of unsecured scaffold and suffered a serious brain and spinal cord injury. FALLEN is a memoir covering the story of his fall and subsequent recovery, incorporating a brief overview of the history of neuroscience and current ideas regarding brain plasticity. There is a focus on music throughout, both in Simon's life prior to his accident and the impact it has had in his healing.

Rights Sold: Greystone Books, Canada, 2014.

GHOST WARNING is a new novel in which a heroine's predictable small town life is suddenly ruptured when her father dies and she moves to Toronto to live with her brother, where she investigates the disappearance of Stella, an elderly woman who is a regular at the bakery where she works, and attempts to reconcile unanswerable questions about her father's death.

Rights Sold: Caitlin Press, Canada, 2016.

Miriam Toews has contributed to NPR, Saturday Night Magazine, Geist, the New York Times Magazine, and many other periodicals.

THE FLYING TROUTMANS is a road trip novel with a lot of heart. A young woman who has been dumped by her boyfriend in Paris returns to Canada to care for her sister's two kids while their mom is back in the psych ward.

Rights sold: Knopf/Vintage Canada, publication fall 2008; Faber & Faber (UK/Aus/NZ ); Counterpoint (USA); Berlin Verlag (Germany); Schibsted Forlag (Norway); Tiderne Skifter (Denmark); Nieuw Amsterdam (Netherlands), Recorded Books (NA audio), Kelefthos (Greece), Marcos y Marcos (Italy), Éditions du Boréal (French Canada). Winner of the Writers' Trust Prize, longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for Manitoba Book Prize.

In SUMMER OF MY AMAZING LUCK, single mothers living in public housing take a road trip in a quest for one of the absent fathers. The book was nominated for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year, and the Stephen Leacock Medal for Canadian Humour.

Rights sold: Canada, Turnstone, 1996; stage performance rights; Counterpoint US; Vintage Canada (2006); Recorded Books audio.

A BOY OF GOOD BREEDING is a warm-hearted novel about Algren, Canada's smallest town.

Rights sold: Canada, first published by Stoddart, 1998, Vintage Canada 2005; serialization of the novel was broadcast on CBC-Radio; Counterpoint US, spring 2006; Faber & Faber UK; Recorded Books, audio; Nieuw Amsterdam, 2006; Berlin Verlag, 2006; Isis (UK large print), 2006.

SWING LOW: A Life (191 pp), is a loving non-fiction tribute to the author's father who struggled with manic depression, while shining as a teacher and father. It won the McNally-Robinson Book of the Year award and the Alexander Isbister award for non-fiction.

Rights sold: Canada, first published by Stoddart, 2000, Vintage Canada 2005; Arcade, US (2001)

A COMPLICATED KINDNESS "Canada's hottest new novel ... explodes with humour and sorrow." (Globe & Mail) Nomi, a small town Mennonite high school girl with attitude, who dreams of big city life remains with her devout and weirdly obsessive father after her mother and sister flee the stifling edicts of the church. Winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Young Minds Fiction Prize (UK), the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and shortlisted for the Giller Prize for Fiction. Winner of 2005 CBA Libris Prize for Best Novel of the Year, and the CBC 2006 Canada Reads competition.

Rights sold: Knopf/Vintage Canada, 2004; Faber & Faber (UK/Aus/NZ); Counterpoint (US); DNijgh & Van Ditmar & (Netherlands); Adelphi (Italy); Editions Boreal (French Canada); btc and CBC Radio (audio), Berlin Verlag (Germany); Schibsted Publishers (Norway); Editions du Seuil (France); Relume Dumara (Brazil); ISIS (UK audio and large print); Anagrama (Spain); Peoples Publishing (China); Tiderne Skifter, (Denmark); Owl Publishing Company (Chinese complex); Palavra (Portugal); Kelefthos (Greece); Eye & Heart (Korea).

Tyler Trafford is a the author of the Sun on the Mountains series (Thisteldown).

ALMOST A GREAT ESCAPE is a memoir about the author's mother, Alice, and the mysterious gift she left him whens he died. In a long-hidden album he finds pages filled with photographs and Luftwaffe-censored letters from Jens MĂĽller - the Norwegian WWII Spitfire pilot famous for his escape from Stalag Luft III. It took two years and a trip to Norway to make sense of this final gift. More information on Tyler's website.

Rights Sold, Canada, Goose Lane Editions for 2013 publication. Italian rights to Sperling Kupfer.

Patricia Van Tighem was a newly married young nurse when she and her husband were attacked by a grizzly bear. Patricia died December 14, 2005.

THE BEAR'S EMBRACE (256 pp) is the true story of not only surviving the attack, but of how she and her husband survived the transformation from being beautiful and strong, to being disfigured, wracked with pain, enduring years of multiple surgeries. In a culture which values beauty and good looks, this memoir offers insight, courage and hope. It was nominated for several major awards, and earned the editor, Barbara Pulling, the Tom Fairley award.

Rights sold: Canada, Greystone Books, 2000, 2001; USA, Anchor/Pantheon, 2001, 2002; Germany, btb Verlag, 2003

JC (Jennifer) Villamere knew how to drive a Ski-Doo by age 8, her body is 90 per cent maple syrup and among her prized possessions is a signed 8x10 glossy of Shelagh Rogers. She is the most Canadian woman in the world.

JC (Jennifer) Villamere is an alumna of the Banff Centre for the Arts who studied journalism at Carleton University. She has worked as a senior editor at Canadian Living and Hamilton Magazine. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Canadian Living, Style at Home, Elle Canada, Flare, The Stone Slide Corrective, Tin Roof Press, Hamilton Magazine, Interiors and more. She’s won two National Magazine Awards and her work has been shortlisted for CBC’s Canada Writes competition.

Since 2011, she’s been blogging about Canadian culture at villamere.com as Villamere: Chief She-Hoser. In 2015, she launched an acclaimed print magazine, Villamere: The Lowbrow Magazine of High-End CanLit. She currently writes about pop music for Entertainment Tonight Canada.

IS CANADA EVEN REAL? is a humorous nostalgia trip for Canadians couched in a hipster quiz book and presented in a context that’s inviting and accessible to those beyond our borders. It’s a fun history lesson, a blast from-the-past, and a quirky ode to a quirky land. Our repeated faithfulness to the national fable has the rest of the world — and at times, Canadians themselves — asking: Is Canada even real? It’s a question that’s being asked with increasing frequency as those outside our borders become aware of our waterproof, see-through, mythically maple-scented currency and our improbably hot new prime minister’s assertions that Santa lives here.

Rights sold: World, Dundurn, 2016

Dr. David Waltner-Toews is a veterinarian and epidemiologist. A professor in the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph, he has been teaching and doing research in this area for more than 20 years. He is also founding president of Veterinarians without Borders/ Vétérinaires sans Frontières - Canada, and of the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health (NESH).

Besides authoring half a dozen books of published poetry and one of fiction, he is author of a book of veterinary advice for novice animal owners (One Animal Among Many: Gaia, Goats and Garlic), an entertaining manual about animal-assisted therapy programs (Good for Your Animals, Good for You), and an introductory text on the practical community-based ecosystem approach to health (Ecosystem Sustainability and Health: a Practical Approach).

THE CHICKENS FIGHT BACK: A book about diseases people share with animals and what we can learn from them. There are hundreds of infections we can - and do - get from animal sources. Not all infections cause disease, and not all diseases become catastrophic. By examining the true zoonoses - infections of animals that live in animals and only sometimes cause disease in people - we can begin to learn how to encourage the bacteria, viruses and parasites who live in other animals to stay there.

Rights Sold, Canada, Greystone, 2006.

Food, Sex, and Salmonella
NC Press, 1992, and Greystone, 2007, Complex Chinese to Ten Points Publishing (2012) .

Chris F Westbury is a research psychologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where he focuses on understanding the neurological underpinnings and psychological structure of language processes. This is his first novel.

THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS, EVEN (the title of a complex sculpture by the French Dadaist artist, Marcel Duchamp) is the story of two charming and germ-phobic obsessive compulsives, Isaac and Greg, who take a road trip from Boston to Philadelphia (which has the world’s largest collection of Duchamp’s work). The two men are driven in a (disinfected) Winnebago by Kelly, a beautiful art scholar who smells like a mixture of lemons and fresh sawdust. In Philadelphia, Isaac plans to pick up an artwork he has commissioned, a working sculptural copy of an ancient chocolate grinder based on one of Duchamp's paintings. Isaac meticulously grinds his own pure chocolate, which prevents the build-up of arterial plaque, because his mother died of a stroke. Along the way Isaac hopes to overcomes his many obsessions and re-enter the real world, with all its germs, imperfections and wonder. (Take that, Duchamp!)

Rights sold: World, Counterpoint, for 2014 publication

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