PRE-2006 PROJECTS

Dominic Ali · Todd Babiak · Alex Brett · Tanya Chapman · Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout · Estate of Sonia Craddock · Dede Crane · Wilfred Cude · Kelli Deeth · Norma Dixon · Pam Freir · Katherine Gibson · Leona Gom · Andrew Gray · Paul & Audrey Grescoe · Taras Grescoe · Mike Harcourt · Ann Ireland · Barbara Lambert · Helen McLean · Maria Coletta McLean · James McWilliams & R. James Steel · Marg Meikle · Eric Nicol · Noreen Olson · Gayla Reid · Stanley Semrau · Barry Shell · Patricia Van Tighem

Click here for 2008 and future projects

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

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

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 and her new manuscript, The Welcoming Place, has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council. Tanya has a history of being a bit of a rock chick but continues to fail miserably at karaoke.

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

 

 

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. This sympathy he shares with Kerry ultimately serves to put more than just his job at risk.

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

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

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

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. She has also ghostwritten two privately commissioned books. 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 provides gentle suggestions to inject moments of fun, adventure, self-care and serenity into each day. 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.

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 (330 pp), 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)

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

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

Barbara Lambert is a textile artist and orchardist. She is at work on a new novel set in Tuscany.

THE ALLEGRA SERIES (200 pp) is a charming contemporary first novel which brilliantly recasts the traditional love triangle, in which three artists find their way in the heart of genius and darkness. Like her mythological predecessors, Philomela, Ariadne, and Athena, Allegra encircles lovers and entraps enemies.

Rights sold: Canada, Beach Holme, 1999

A MESSAGE FOR MR. LAZARUS (214 pp) short stories and a novella, which won The Malahat Review Novella Prize. The book won the Danuta Gleed Prize for Best First Fiction Collection and was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Prize.

Rights sold: Canada, Cormorant Books, 2000

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.

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

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 www.dearanswerlady.com 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

Eric Nicol the grand old man of Canadian humour, is 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.

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

Gayla Reid www.gaylareid.com 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.

*ALL THE SEAS OF THE WORLD (303 pp) 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 (248) 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, just before Stoddart (Canada) declared bankruptcy. All rights in them have reverted to the author. Both were shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Prize for fiction.

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.

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

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