Win two tickets to Stephen King’s exclusive in-person appearance to promote his new book, Under the Dome in Toronto on November 19th, 2009 at the Canon Theatre at 8 pm.
King will be joined in conversation by highly-acclaimed Canadian director, writer, and producer David Cronenberg. Hosted by Canadian television and radio personality George Stroumboulopoulos, host of CBC television program The Hour.
Just send an email to talkback@drivenmag.com and tell us the name of your favourite evil clown created by Mr. King.
Under the Dome available November 10th.
For someone who entered college with no intention of becoming a writer, Malcolm Gladwell has found remarkable success as the author of three best-selling, non-fiction books, the only three he’s written, as a matter of fact.
His fourth effort, What the Dog Saw (published by Little Brown & Company, available Oct. 20 for $34.99), is a compilation of some of Gladwell’s work as a staff writer with The New Yorker, a position he’s held since 1996. Readers of his previous works — The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers — will recognize Gladwell’s fluid storytelling, accessible style and keen insights in the 400-plus pages of What the Dog Saw.
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Jack Kerouac, who finally drank himself to death on this day (October 21) in 1966, spent two months a decade earlier doing one of the most symbolism-stuffed job a writer could possibly do: fire-watching alone in a small cabin on Desolation Peak in Northern Cascades National Park in Washingon State, about 250 km from Vancouver.
Kerouac had already written On The Road, but it wasn’t published until the following year, 1957. He was looking for some time alone and a place to dry out a little and maybe get some writing done, and what better spot could there be but a rickety wooden shack perched on the top of a mountain with nothing but a two-way radio for company?
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A couple of weeks ago, we noted that Colin McAdam had been shortlisted for the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize for Fall, his second novel. McAdam’s short story, “Red’s Warning” [illustration above, by Ryan Lake] was published in the Sept. issue of DRIVEN, and includes one of the characters from Fall.
The Giller shortlist has just been announced, and McAdam’s on it, meaning that he beat out no less august a name than Margaret Atwood to make it to the final round.
DRIVEN wants to congratulate McAdam on the nomination. We hope to be congratulating him on taking home the prize when it is announced at the big shindig on Nov. 10th.
The 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize has released its longlist, and it includes Colin McAdam’s second novel, Fall, published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin Canada. McAdam, as you probably know, has a great piece of short fiction entitled “Red’s Warning” in our Sept. issue. “Red’s Warning,” a taut dialogue between a kid and his bike-riding drug dealer, features characters from Fall, so really, it’s like we have been longlisted, too…
Congratulations, Colin.
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Sept. 20 - 27 — Perhaps because literary types like things a bit autumnal, fall is a big season for book/author/reading festivals. Though Toronto’s International Festival of Authors, which takes place at the end of October, is the big kid on the block — especially this year, its 30th (more on that here, BTW) — there are a number of festival’s in smaller cities that bring in both big-name authors and word-hungry crowds.
Winnpeg’s week-long “Thin Air” festival, now in its 12th year, takes place mostly at the CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre, and this year features such authors as Guy Maddin, Robert Charles Wilson, Bonnie Burnard, Laureen Kirshner, Robert J. Sawyer, and Jake MacDonald. There will also be a business breakfast on the 25th featuring “culture commentator” and Peep Diaries author Hal Niedzviecki yakking about “The New Rules of Social Media: Why the Customer Doesn’t Care about Privacy—and What You Should Do About It.”
(Image by Isaac Leedom)
Father’s day is almost here. You’ve given him ties. You’ve given him golf balls. You’ve maybe even given him a set of barbeque accessories (not that he ever wears that “hail to the chef” apron). If you’re looking for an equally stereotypical and undeniably last-minute gift, you may be in luck — how happy he’ll be with it is another story.
If you can’t take your dad out to Pebble Beach this summer, why not give him sometime to do when he’s stuck in his office all day? The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf seems to offer Papa a small escape, and a chance to impress clients, challenge co-workers, and reminisce about the time he got a birdie at St. Andrews.
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It’s beginning to look like one of this spring’s trends is a scary one — no, not wearing Birkenstocks to work — modernizing classic horror novels. As of May 3, dracula-feed.blogspot.com founder Whitney Sorrow (yes, that really is her name) has been posting one entry per day from Bram Stoker’s Dracula so that readers can follow along in “real time.”
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The first thing you should know is that a book like Secrets of a Supersexpert is not good gift idea. It would automatically suggest that the recipient has no idea what they are doing in, as the French say, le sac. You know that, right? A book like this, crammed with sex advice and relatively tasteful pictures of naked people (pretending to) love-tussle, might make an amusing accompaniment for a night of love eros rumpy pumpy whatever you call it in your household, but there are limits to its stated use.
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It looks like we’re finally seeing the backlash to Jane Austen’s rise in popularity over the past decade or so. Maybe backlash isn’t the right word: It’s more of a side-lash, a re-appropriation. Hollywood’s treatment of Austen has typically targetted the female demographic, full of lush escapism and romantic intrigue. Well, no more. Wresting her work from the clutches of sentimentality are a bunch of projects which marry the Victorian stories with the most sordid aspects of Pulp genre fiction.
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