A Wake for Duthie Books

Last month was a difficult month for book lovers in Vancouver. After 53 years in the business of books, Duthie Books Fourth Avenue announced it was going to close. Sadly, this type of occurrence happens way, way, way more often than it should.

To officially pay respects to the local bookseller, The Shebeen Club is hosting a wake to honour Duthie Books on February 15, 2010. Tickets are available online, and the price includes dinner and a drink. With proceeds going to the Strathcona One to One Literacy program, the event is likely to sell out in advance, so act quickly. See this blog for more info. This is not an official Alcuin event, but all book lovers are welcome to attend!

The Alcuin Society has held much respect for Duthies, and 3 years ago, the Society published a limited edition volume featuring fifty years of Duthie's bookmarks created by a who’s who of West Coast artists including Jack Shadbolt, Takao Tanabe, Celia King, Carel Moiseiwitsch and 20 others. This deluxe limited edition book has since sold out. For those who missed out on the book, we're pleased to announce we've just received word that Celia Duthie has agreed to reminisce and provide a potted history of Duthies at our upcoming AGM on June 14, 2010. Stay tuned for more info.

To conclude this post, here's an excerpt from the Duthie Books blog announcing the closure:

We have had 53 (mostly) happy years of bookselling in Vancouver. We have offered friendly recommendations, and stocked good books. For 53 years Duthies has provided a good book service to the city, championed BC and Canadian books, encouraged the public to read local writers, and helped to create a knowledgeable reading public. The book culture of Vancouver and BC has grown up and flourished around Duthies from publisher's reps to publishing houses , authors, illustrators, designers, printers, literary festivals, and university writing and publishing programs have emerged in the Duthies milieu and many Duthies alumni work in all parts of the book trade.

Thank you and Good bye

Everybody knows that Independent bookstores have been under pressure from the 'big box' operations for many years now and it is clear that it is not going to get any better; the likes of Chapters, and Amazon are ruthless in their drive for market share and we cannot compete on price anymore. The book itself is in the throes of a technological transformation and book readers undergoing a major demographic shift.

We are closing now while we can do so in an orderly fashion and not under any pressure from banks or suppliers. Duthies went through a radical restructuring 10 years ago and frankly, we do not want to go through that again.

Our last annual sale starts Thursday January 28 with 40% off everything and further reductions in the following weeks. Please use your gift certificates before the end of February.

Fine Printing and the Imagination: another upcoming lecture by Peter Koch

The University of British Columbia Library and The Alcuin Society are pleased to announce an upcoming lecture entitled, "Fine Printing and the Imagination". The speaker is Peter Rutledge Koch, artist, printer, writer, and publisher of fine editions and artist books. He will describe and discuss his major work.

Currently living in Berkeley, California, Mr. Koch's work – including over 100 books, and hundreds of broadsides and prints -- is internationally known. His lengthy essay about the making of the Editions Koch Parmenides appears in Carving the Elements: A companion to The Fragments of Parmenides edited by the Canadian poet and essayist Robert Bringhurst. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at The New York Public Library, The San Francisco Public Library, The Widener Library at Harvard University, The Yellowstone Art Museum, and The University of Montana Art Museum.

More recently Mr. Koch has been artist-in-residence at the Scuola Grafica di Venezia in Venice, Italy. In 2005 he co-founded The CODEX Foundation to preserve and promote the arts of the book and is the director of the Biennial CODEX International Book Fair, Symposium, and publishing program. In addition to his creative and collaborative ventures he has taught “The Hand Made Book In Its Historical Context” at the University of California Berkeley in the departments of Visual Studies, History, and at Bancroft Library Press for the past 16 years.

Place: University of British Columbia
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
The Dodson Room
Vancouver, BC
Friday, March 26th, 2010
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Cost: Free and open to the public.

Printing in the Shadow of Aldus: a lecture by Peter Koch

'Printing in the Shadow of Aldus'
Originally uploaded by Fine Press Book Association

The Alcuin Society is pleased to announce an upcoming lecture entitled, "Printing in the Shadow of Aldus". This illustrated talk will explore Joseph Brodsky’s Watermark: A Memoir of Venice, with photographs by Robert Morgan. The book is a series of essays in memoir form, by the poet and Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky. The speaker is Peter Rutledge Koch, artist, printer, writer, and publisher of fine editions and artist books, including Watermark. Mr. Koch will be introduced by Robert Bringhurst.

Mr. Koch will show slides and talk about the grand adventure of printing Watermark in Venice in collaboration with an international cast of distinguished printers, artists, and artisans, including British Columbia's own Crispin Elsted. Mr. Koch will be in Vancouver as one of the judges of the Alcuin Society 2009 Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada competition, taking place on March 27th, 2010.

Place: Simon Fraser University Downtown Campus, Harbour Centre
Fletcher Challenge Room
Vancouver, BC
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Cost: Free and open to the public.

Wayzgoose 2009 in Vancouver

(photo of paper marbling demonstration from Wayzgoose 2007)

It comes once a year, and for print folk, it's our very own Thanksgiving. So what is this thing called Wayzgoose? As described by wikipedia: "Wayzgoose was at one time the name for an entertainment given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about St Bartholomew's Day (24 August). This marked the traditional end of summer and the point at which the season of working by candlelight began. Later, the word came to refer to the annual outing and dinner of the staff of a printing works or the printers on a newspaper."

For those in the know, the Alcuin Society's Wayzgoose is a must see event held at Library Square, featuring approximately 20 BC private presses, with demonstrations relating to the book, a representation of BC book artists, and some inspired conversation. In addition, the Folio Society will have a large selection of folio books on sale at a bargain $20 each. All proceeds will go to the Alcuin fund - an endowment set up with the Vancouver Foundation to provide, in perpetuity, an annual income for the support of Alcuin society's activities. These books are all in fine condition, some as new, some still in shrink wrap. This is a great opportunity to obtain that folio book you always wanted or to do some early Christmas shopping.

This year's Wayzgoose will take place on 24 October from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. at the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch (350 West Georgia), Lower Level. Festivities will include BC private presses, book artists and demonstrations including bookbinding, silkscreening and the intaglio process. The event is free and open to the public.

For more info, visit: http://www.alcuinsociety.com/activities/WG2009.html

The Annual Yosef Wosk Lecture presents William Rueter

Next week is going to be a very busy week with a series of Alcuin events you won't want to miss. We've already mentioned the VIWF evening "The Look of the Book" happening on Thursday. On Friday we're hosting the Annual Yosef Wosk - Friends of SFU Special Collections - Alcuin Society Lecture featuring William Rueter. The talk is titled Printing for Fleeting Pleasure: The Aliquando Press, and the slideshow above showcases the current exhibit of the Aliquando Press on display at the SFU Library Special Collections and Rare Book room. Then on Saturday, it's the Alcuin Society's annual Wayzgoose Book Fair at the VPL.

Here's the complete description of Friday's Rueter lecture:

"In January 1963 the first book of The Aliquando Press was produced to allow me to learn and personally practice most aspects of bookmaking: selecting texts, editing, designing, occasionally writing and illustrating, setting type by hand, printing and binding...I had no idea that my initial experience in creating a book would turn into an obsessive, decades-long activity.

In operating my private press I have been motivated by the desire to print texts of my own choice and to find the appropriate typeface, ink colour, paper, and binding materials for each project in order to enhance the author’s words for the reader. I love letterforms, and over the years the Press has been very fortunate to introduce some classic and exotic typefaces into its projects."   Will Rueter, The Aliquando Century.

Work of The Aliquando Press won an honorary diploma at the Schönste Bücher aus aller Welt exhibition, Leipzig, 1987, and a bronze medal at the Internationale Buchkunstausstellung, Leipzig, 1989. Work of the press has been show throughout North America and in Japan and is included in public and private North American and European collections, including the Toronto, New York, and San Francisco public libraries; the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg; the British Library; the Museum van het Boek, the Hague; and Simon Fraser University Library Special Collections.

Friday, October 23, 2009
7:30pm - 9:30pm
Room 1700 - Labatt Hall
Simon Fraser University Vancouver
515 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Refreshments following lecture.
Free Admission – limited seating - please reserve a seat by calling 778.782.6704 or emailing library@sfu.ca
For further information contact:
Eric Swanick
Head, Special Collections
WAC Bennett Library
Simon Fraser University
Tel: 778.782.4626
Email: eswanick@sfu.ca
website: www.lib.sfu.ca/special/

VIWF - The Look of The Book, October 22, 2009

Coming to the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival, The Look of The Book brings together a dynamic and esteemed panel of speakers, featuring Robert Bringhurst, Audrey Niffenegger, Anik See (winner of an Alcuin award this year), Seth, with host Jerry Wasserman to moderate. The event will be held Thursday, October 22 at 8pm at the Waterfront Theatre, 1412 Cartwright Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC.

Tickets are $18 and are available online at Vancouver Tix.

Here's the official synopsis from the festival program:

For centuries book lovers have known that books are more than words on paper. If you are one of those people then you won’t want to miss these masters exploring the art of the book. For these four, every element that contributes to the book as object—the look, the feel, the paper, the design—is integral to what the book is about. Robert Bringhurst wrote the bible on typographic style; Audrey Niffenegger has taught bookmaking for two decades; Anik See designs, makes and restores books; and Seth is an internationally acclaimed illustrator and book designer. At a time when book production threatens to move to pixels on screens, it is important to hear from people who care deeply about books as physical objects.

The Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival runs from October 18-25. For more information on the festival, visit http://www.writersfest.bc.ca and follow the fest on Twitter at http://twitter.com/VIWF

SFU - Share your Enthusiasm Lecture Series: Jim Rainer

Coming Wednesday, October 7, 2009, as part of the SFU Special Collections series Share the Enthusiasm, Jim Rainer will speak on his career of collecting - book collecting. The subject range of his book collecting has been varied including press books, the book arts, books on gardening, books on baseball and also mechanical pencils…

Jim Rainer was educated in Victoria, at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Washington. For thirty seven years he was an executive with Crown Zellerbach Canada and its various successors. For many years he was CEO of the Alcuin Society and remains a lifelong supporter of fine books, the book arts and continues to follow his heart as a collector.

Photo by Raeff Miles

For more information on Jim Rainer's collecting, note also this 2006 article from AQ, the Magazine of SFU on Jim Rainer's donation to the SFU Special Collections.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 7:30pm
Room 2200 - RBC Dominion Securities Executive Meeting Room
Simon Fraser University Vancouver
515 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Refreshments following lecture.
Free Admission – limited seating - please reserve a seat by calling 778.782.6704 or emailing library@sfu.ca
For further information contact: Eric Swanick
Head, Special Collections
WAC Bennett Library
Simon Fraser University
Tel: 778.782.4626
Email: eswanick@sfu.ca
website: www.lib.sfu.ca/special/

Word on the Street, September 27, 2009

One of the best book events of the year is coming to a city near you! The annual Word on the Street festival, held on Sunday, September 27th, is Canada's National Book and Magazine Festival. WOTS officially happens in 4 cities across Canada; Vancouver, Kitchener, Toronto, and Halifax. Last year, in the four cities combined, more than 275,000 visitors attended 408 programs featuring 471 authors, workshop presenters and arts performers.

The Alcuin Society will have a table display located indoors this year, on the main floor lobby of Library Square. We're having a combined table of book design award winners and general Alcuin material/publications. The WOTS festival is a must see event for book lovers of all ages, and this year there will be some added entertainment from the Vancouver Global ComedyFest. From the WOTS website:

Special News: We're teaming up with the Vancouver Global ComedyFest on our Mainstage to present an exciting and entertaining roster of comedy skits and musical performances.

Click here to see what's on the agenda in Vancouver for September 27.

On a related note, coming up next month, the Vancouver International Writers Festival takes place on Granville Island from October 18-25. And don't forget the Alcuin's very own Wayzgoose festival at Library Square on October 24! It's beginning to look like Fall is the Season of Books in this town!

Alcuin Awards Ceremony 2009

The Alcuin Society and Emily Carr University would like to invite you to an Awards Ceremony, honouring the designers and publishers of the winners of The 27th Competition for Excellence in Book Design in Canada – 2008.

This year's keynote speaker will be Gabriele Wilson, a New York-based graphic designer and member of the faculty at Parsons School of Design. After seven years as Senior Designer at Knopf Books, Gabriele now runs a small design studio and continues to work for numerous publishers worldwide designing jackets and illustrated books, as well as creating restaurant branding and music packaging. Her work has been featured in Communication Arts, The New York Times, Metropolis, Print, USA TODAY, By Its Cover: Modern American Book Design, New Vintage Type, Chip Kidd: Book One, and the AIGA 365 and 50 Books/50 Covers competitions. She is originally from Concord, Massachusetts.

Gabriele's talk -- Gabriele Wilson: Greatest Hits – will be introduced by the evening's moderator, Peter Cocking, Creative Director of Vancouver-based Douglas & McIntyre, himself a winner of numerous Alcuin awards.

The event will be held at Emily Carr University, Room 301, on Thursday, October 1st at 7:00 pm. It is a free event, open to the public; everyone is encouraged to attend. The award-winning books will be on display.

During the day, there will be two related workshops. The first (from 10:30-12:30), an interactive seminar/discussion on book design, will be given by Gabriele Wilson and Peter Cocking. The second (from 1:30 to 3:30), by Celia King, will be a hands-on workshop in which participants will create a simply-bound book in hard covers, complete with dust jacket to pressed finish – discussion will explore type design, visual formats and concept presentation for publishing. Registration will be required for both workshops.

For further information, contact Leah Gordon at (604) 732-5403.

Alcuin Society/Vancouver Museum Presentation

Speaker: Crispin Elsted, co-proprietor of barbarian press in mission, BC

Topic: the case for the canon: printing the classics in the cyber-age.

Date and time: Wednesday, may 27th, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Place: Joyce Whalley learning centre, Vancouver museum, 1100 chestnut street, Vancouver

Alcuin society/Vancouver public library, special collections presentation

Speaker: Michael Kluckner, winner of the 2007 Vancouver book award

Topic: "Len Norris and the Vancouver imagination"

Date and time: Wednesday, may 27th, 7:30 – 9:00

Place: Alma van Dusen and Peter Kaye rooms, Vancouver public library, central branch

Description: award winning author, Michael Kluckner, has been influenced in many different ways by the city of Vancouver. One of these influences was Vancouver sun cartoonist Len Norris Michael will explore that relationship in a lecture illustrated by a generous sampling of Mr. Norris’ cartoons.

217 Miles from MoTown: Tim Inkster @ The Porcupine's Quill, 1974-2008

Tim Inkster, one of the faces behind The Porcupine's Quill, will give an amusing and enlightening illustrated "memoir" of his life at the noted and notable Erin, Ontario, press. Inkster is making a rare appearance in Vancouver as one of three judges at the 26th annual Alcuin Society Book Design Competition.Sometimes described as a "hot house" for the development of Canadian literary talent, The Porcupine's Quill has also been compared (inaccurately, by one misinformed Heritage Canada consultant) to MoTown Records (whose Head Office on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan is 217 miles from Erin in distance, and considerably further in just about every other conceivable way).

Tim Inkster is a member of the Graphic Designers of Canada, and has been active within the Literary Press Group and the Association of Canadian Publishers. He was also heavily involved in a variety of roles with the Eden Mills Writers' Festival for more than ten years, including one term as president. He managed the Upper Canada Brewing Company Writers' Craft Award the year the prize was awarded to Alice Munro.

As well as winning numerous national and international awards himself (including many, over several years, from The Alcuin Society), in September of 2003 he received the Sixth Annual Janice Handford award which honours "an individual who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of small press publishing in this country." In October, 2005 he was a featured guest speaker at the Sixth Annual Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose in Kentville, NS.

COST: FREE to the public
DATE: Thursday, April 3, 2008
TIME: 7:00 - 9:00PM
PLACE: The Vancouver Museum -- Joyce Walley Learning Centre
1100 Chestnut St., Vancouver. BC
604-734-7368

Reservations: contact Leah Gordon (604)732-5403 or awards@alcuinsociety.com.

Co-sponsored by The Vancouver Museum and The Alcuin Society.

Robert McCamant: A Strategy Whether Collecting or Publishing

As part of the SFU Library Special Collections series, Share the Enthusiasm, long-time printer/publisher, collector and author, Robert McCamant, will discuss his strategies for collecting and publishing.

Robert McCamant was one of the founders of the Chicago Reader, one of the oldest and most successful American alternative weeklies. For 23 years, McCamant was the paper’s art designer and later its vice-president.

In 1984, he became proprietor, designer, and editor of Sherwin Beach Press (www.sherwinbeach.com); the Press publications have been in many exhibitions, recently the NYPL’s “Ninety for the Nineties”.

McCamant is a member of the Association typographique internationale, the American
Institute of Graphic Arts and Chicago’s prestigious Caxton Society for which he edits
their journal, The Caxtonian. He is an advisor to the Codex Foundation and North American chair of the Fine Press Books Association.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Alcuin Society (www.alcuinsociety.com).

---

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
7:30pm

Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
Hamber Foundation Boardroom 470
Simon Fraser University Vancouver
580 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

Refreshments following lecture.

Free Admission – limited seating
- please reserve a seat by calling
778.782.6704 or emailing library@sfu.ca

For further information contact:
Eric Swanick
Head, Special Collections
WAC Bennett Library
Simon Fraser University
Tel: 778.782.4626
Email: eswanick@sfu.ca

website: www.lib.sfu.ca/special/

Announcing "Helvetica: The Film" -- August 7th

The Society of Graphic Designers, BC Mainland Chapter, and Metropolitan Fine Printers welcome you to the evening gala screening of the critically acclaimed documentary film Helvetica".

This special evening includes the film screening, after-party and post film discussion with Director Gary Hustwit, Douglas Coupland, and Jim Rimmer (hosted by VFS Digital Design).

HELVETICA THE FILM
Tuesday August 7th, 2007
Empire Granville 7 Cinema, 855 Granville Street

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6:30 to 7:00 pm
Check-in & Admission

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7:00 to 9:00 p.m
Film Screening and Q&A with Director and Special Guests.

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9:00 to 9:30 p.m
Gala After-Party Hosted by GDC and Metropolitan Fine Printers (beer/wine/snacks)

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$15 GDC members/students
$20 non-GDC members

For ticket information visit http://bc.gdc.net/helveticafilm on
Wednesday, July 11 at 9am.

Barbara Hodgson talk

This just came across my desk from Rollin Millroy, proprietor of the Heavenly Monkey Press and editor of Amphora:

The very cool Barbara Hodgson will be giving a talk this Thursday 12 July at Emily Carr (north building, room 245, 7:30 pm) as part of the summer book arts program. She will be talking, with lots of slides, about her upcoming limited edition book, The Temperamental Rose. This is a book about color wheels. With her collaborator, the binder Claudia Cohen, the book reproduces versions of color studies from the past five centuries, and offers new and fanciful ways of seeing color. An introductory essay briefly explains the history of color, and each of the color charts is accompanied by explanatory text.

The text and color wheel outlines were printed letterpress from polymer plates by David Clifford. He completed work at the end of June, and Barbara is now immersed in all the hand coloring, embroidering and pop-up construction for the wheels.

The edition of 30 copies will be uniformly bound in a profusion of color and issued in a matching box, created by Claudia for this project, along with a set of six dry artists' pigments in small glass vials. It will be published this fall by Heavenly Monkey Editions, and has been fully subscribed for some time already. Barbara's talk will be a unique opportunity to get a personal tour through the book, and gain insights to her process for designing what will be her most ambitious book construction yet. She's an excellent speaker, and I urge you to attend. Afterwards we'll all retire to Ann Vicente's studio on the Island for drinx.

On Tues 17 July Paul Mazzucca, a typography instructor at EC, will be giving a talk. I don't know much about his work, but I believe he recently issued a letterpress book, and I saw a very cool digital color collage 'zine of his at Magpie Books on Commercial.

As a mark of how desperate they are this year, I will be sweeping up after Barbara & Paul at the same place, same time the following week (July 19). I will be talking about Iskandariya, the HM collaboration with EC alumna Briony Morrow-Cribbs and poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly. This "little" project has threatened to overtake all our lives, but we seem to have gained control in recent weeks, and through poor planning the the book probably will appear at about the same time as Barbara's. (Look for both at this fall's Alcuin Wayzgoose, Nov 17.) The talk will be about the very convoluted design process, over 18 months, that we all endured. With lots of slides, it will cover issues of design, construction, combining printing techniques and papers, and binding. It will also offer some insight to how a publisher/printer, artist, author, and binder - each in a different city - collaborate on a publication like this. (This talk will be based on the pamphlet being issued exclusively with the 15 deluxe Artist's Issue copies of the book.) You can see some details Iskandariya and Barbara's project here. I realize it's summer, and hopefully you're all busy with your own book projects, but FYI Briony did ask me to note down the names of those she knows who do not show up, so fair warning.

Lemon Hound’s Sina Queyras Visits West Coast for Two Great Readings

March 15 – 17 — Vancouver Goes to the Dogs:
Lemon Hound’s Sina Queyras Visits West Coast for Two Great Readings

In mid-March, the Vancouver literary scene is going to the dogs. Sina Queyras, author of the acclaimed book, Lemon Hound, visits Van City for two readings as part of her West Coast tour. On March 15, Queyras teams with satirist and MAC Farrant, author of Darwin Alone in the Universe and the new The Breakdown So Far (Talonbooks) for a night author of stellar literary entertainment at the UBC Robson Square Bookstore (800 Robson Street). Then, on March 17– St. Patrick’s Day – celebrate the luck of the Irish with the decidedly non-gaelic Sina Queyras, as she reads as the featured author in the Kootenay School of Writing’s reading series at Spartacus Books (319 West Hastings).

Sina Queyras and MAC Farrant at UBCRobson Reading Series
Thursday, March 15, 7:00 p.m.
UBC Robson Square Bookstore, 800 Robson Street

The Kootenay School of Writing presents Sina Queyras
Saturday, March 17, 8:00 p.m.
Spartacus Books, 319 West Hastings

***

About Lemon Hound:

This is a poetry not of snapshots or collages but of long-exposed captures of the not-so-still lives of women. One The Wavesby attempting to untangle its six sequence imagines Virginia Woolf’s childhood; another unmakes her novel The Waves by attempting to untangle its six overlapping narratives. Yet another, 'On the Scent,' makes us flâneurs through the lives of a series of contemporary women, while 'The River Is All Thumbs' uses a palette of vibrant repetition to 'paint' a landscape.

Queyras’s language – astute, insistent, languorous – repeats and echoes until it becomes hypnotic, chimerical, almost halluncinatory in its reflexivity. How lyrical can prose poetry be? How closely can it mimic painting? Sculpture? Film? How do we make a moment firm? These ‘postmodern,’ ‘postfeminist’ poems pulse between prose and poetry: the line, the line, they seem to ask, must it ever end?

A lovely balance between lyricism and experimentalism, all the whlie unfolding a fierce intellectual and imaginative 'engagement with the work of Virginia Woolf ... She takes a hypnotic, almost hallucinatory approach, and succeeds.' –The Globe and Mail

Sina Queyras is the author of the poetry collections Slip and Teethmarks. Recently she edited Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets, for Persea Books. Queyras is also the co-curator of Manhattan’s belladonna* reading series, series featuring experimental women’s writing. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches creative writing at Haverford College.

LEMON HOUND | SINA QUEYRAS | APRIL 2006 | 112 PP | $16.95 | ISBN 1 55245 167 4

For review copies or media requests, contact Evan Munday at 416 979 2217 or evan@chbooks.com.

(From a Coach House Books press release)

Alcuin Society And Other Book-Related Events In The Pacific Northewest For Fall 2006

For full details (printable pdf format) click here.

Yes, We Can Print That!: 25 Years of the Day Moon Press
Now until October 28th, 2006
Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers, Seattle
www.wlbooks.com.

Vancouver Book & Magazine Fair, aka Word on the Street
Sunday, September 24TH, 2006, 11am-6pm.
The Vancouver Public Library

Speaker: Derek Hayes
Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 7:30pm.
The Vancouver Public Library

Korean Printing Exhibition
October 5th – October 7th, 2006
The Vancouver Public Library

Speaker: David Carlin
Wednesday, October 11th, 2006, 7:30pm to 9:30pm
Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue

Speaker: Nicholas Basbane
Friday, October 13th, 2006, 6pm for a 7pm dinner and 8pm presentation.
McCormick & Schmick’s Harborside Restaurant, 1200 Westlake Avenue North, Seattle, Washington.
Seattle Center Pavilion

The Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival
Tuesday, October 17th to Sunday, October 22, 2006 (six full days of events)
Granville Island, Vancouver, B.C. (several venues)

Speaker: Jeff Derksen
Thursday, October 19th, 2006, 12:30p.m. to 1:30p.m.
Special Collections & Rare Books, Simon Fraser University Library

Surrey International Writer’s Conference 2006
Friday, October 21st to Sunday, October 23rd, 2006
The Sheraton Guildford Hotel, 15269 104th Avenue, Surrey, B.C.

Speaker: Michael Kluckner
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006, 7:30 p.m.
The Vancouver Public Library

Speaker: Annabel Lyon
Thursday, November 16th, 2006, 12:30p.m. to 1:30p.m.
Special Collections & Rare Books, Simon Fraser University Library

The Alcuin Society’s Annual Book Auction
Saturday, November 18th, 11am for lunch at 12pm followed by a book auction.
The University Golf Club, University Boulevard, Vancouver, B.C.

The Jewish Book Festival for 2006
November 18th to November 23rd, 2006
The Jewish Community Center at the corner of Oak and 41st.

Speaker: Robert Bringhurst
Friday, November 24th, 7:30 p.m.
The Vancouver Public Library

Rimmerfest: An Evening Devoted to Celebrate Jim Rimmer and his many contributions to the book arts.
Saturday, November 25th, 2006, 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

Sidney, B.C. Christmas Writers’ Festival 2006.
November 24th-November 26th, 2006
Sidney, B.C.
www.christmaswritersfestival.ca

West Vancouver Memorial Library Books and Printing Exhibition
December 1 – 31, 2006
West Vancouver Memorial Public Library

Again, for full details (printable pdf format) click here.

Rimmerfest: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Jim Rimmer

Call for Broadsides

Each year, The Special Collections & Rare Books Department at Simon Fraser
University (SFU) convenes a special book-related event. This year we are pleased to celebrate our good friend and one of Canada’s living national treasures, the printer, typographer and publisher, Jim Rimmer.

Jim’s career stretches back over fifty years and he has made many friends along the way, both at home and abroad: printers, type designers, publishers, students, teachers, design firms, binders, type founders, librarians, book collectors. . . . Since many of these people are printers, we are inviting their participation in this public event by producing a broadside celebrating . . . Jim. The broadside may be any size and could include an anecdote or tribute, for example, and should include a signed colophon. We would like to have three copies of each broadside: two will be given to Jim; the third will reside in SFU’s Special Collections Department, which holds Rimmer’s archives. We will need all broadsides in hand by October 31, 2006.

You may also send personal greetings, and best wishes in any form you choose. In which case please send three copies by October 31, 2006.

The broadsides and greetings will be gathered then presented to Jim during the evening of the Rimmerfest, which will take place on 25 November at Simon Fraser University Vancouver Fletcher Challenge Theatre (515 West Hastings St.)at 7:30 p.m. Robert Bringhurst, among others, will speak at this celebratory event. All are welcome.

The broadsides and the greetings should be sent to

Eric L. Swanick, Special Collections Department
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
Canada
email: eswanick@sfu.ca
tel: 604 291 4626
fax: 604 291 3023