Launch of the BookTube Livre-toi contest
Actress Zeneb Blanchet and rapper and actor Samian invite teenagers aged 12 to 17 to make a video on their favorite Quebec or French-Canadian book as part of the BookTube Livre-toi contest. The two spokespersons uploaded a video this week in which they talk about a book they loved. The competition, now in its fifth edition, is an initiative of the National Association of Book Publishers (ANEL). The deadline to participate is March 31, 2022.
Visit the competition website
Expozine back in person
PHOTO PROVIDED BY EXPOZINE
The bilingual Expozine fair brings together nearly 300 publishers, authors and self-published artists from here and elsewhere.
The 20e edition of Expozine, a bilingual book fair that brings together nearly 300 publishers, authors and self-published artists from here and elsewhere. The virtual event in 2020 is the opportunity to unearth unpublished novels, rare books, subversive literary objects, poetic or political zines and comics. You can also meet new literary voices, French and English, and discover the novelties of publishing houses such as Les Éditions de l’Écrou, L’Oie de Cravan, Poètes de Brousse, Lux, La Mèche and Pow-Pow.
Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Free entry (18 years old and over only).
Visit the Expozine website
Editions Perce-Neige celebrate their 40th anniversary
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE EDITOR
The French translation ofOcean, by Georgette LeBlanc, won the Governor General’s Award in 2020.
In four decades, the Perce-Neige publishing house, founded in Moncton, has published the works of emerging Acadian voices such as Caroline Belisle, Sébastien Bérubé, Mo Bolduc, Jonathan Roy, Joannie Thomas and Gabriel Robichaud, as well as those of authors returned to the fold, from Suzan Payne to France Daigle, via Georgette LeBlanc (winner in 2020 of the Governor General’s Award for her translation ofOcean). In particular, Éditions Perce-Neige will be at the Montreal Book Fair to showcase their catalog and underline this 40e birthday.
Visit the Éditions Perce-Neige website
A first LGBTQ + Book Fair in December
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, ARCHIVES THE PRESS
Actress and author Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay will be one of the guests of honor at the first 2LGBTQIA + Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity Book Fair.
One week after the Montreal Book Fair, the very first 2LGBTQIA + Sexual Orientation Diversity and Gender Affirmations Book Fair will be held on December 4 and 5 at the La Comédie theater in Montreal. Yannick Villedieu, Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay and Kama La Mackerel are the guests of honor, while drag queens Barbada from Barbados and Uma Ghad will each present a story hour. Lectures and discussions are also planned with Nicholas Dawson, Samuel Larochelle, Magali Guilbault-Fitzbay, Pascale Cormier and Chris DiRaddo. The event organized by Fierté littéraire will be in a hybrid format, and the literary meetings will therefore also be broadcast on YouTube and Facebook.
Visit the Literary Pride Facebook page
Diane Obomsawin receives the Children’s Book Award from the Montreal Libraries
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, PRESS ARCHIVES
Diane Obomsawin received the 2021 Montreal Library Children’s Book Award for The little book for giants.
Animation filmmaker and cartoonist Diane Obomsawin, known as Obom, received the 2021 Montreal Libraries Children’s Book Prize for The little book for giants, published by Comme des Géants. This large picture book of 600 words, some of which are in Abenaki, is the largest all-cardboard album published in Quebec to date – the size of a 2-year-old! – and was a unanimous crush for the jury. The other finalists were Like a hurricane, by Jonathan Bécotte (Heritage), My dog-banana, by Roxane Brouillard and Giulia Sagramola (Les 400 coups), The big bad wolf in my house, by Valérie Fontaine and Nathalie Dion (Les 400 coups), and Stick me, by Véronique Grenier (The Short Ladder).
Visit the Montreal Libraries Children’s Book Prize website
A prize for the novel Not say
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE EDITOR
Not say, by Baptiste Thery-Guilbert
Not say, by Baptiste Thery-Guilbert, was awarded the 2021 Gay Novel Prize, in the Short Novel category, at a ceremony held on November 12, in Paris. Published last spring in the Sauvage collection of Annika Parance Éditeur, Not say tells the story of an abusive relationship in the late 1980s, against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic. He was chosen from more than 80 titles in the running. The Gay Novel Prize was created in 2013 by Éditions du Frigo to reward French-language works that are part of a literary movement “of male homosexual inspiration”.
Consult the Éditions du Frigo website for the list of winners