The shortlists for the 2010 ReLit Awards have been announced and we're happy to see so many of our recent favourites have made the cut!

Congratulations go to:

NOVEL

Away From Everywhere, Chad Pelley (Breakwater)
Wrong Bar, Nathaniel G. Moore (Tightrope)
Overqualified, Joey Comeau (ECW)
The Beautiful Children, Michael Kenyon (Thistledown)
The Plight House, Jason Hrivnak (Pedlar)
 

Another set of lists are making the rounds of the book blogs this week -- the most overrated authors of a given nation. The Afterword made sure that Canada was not left out of the fray and published their list on August 24th. However, of more interest to us here at the LPG was the list they posted on August 25th -- the most underrated Canadian authors. Many of the talented writers on their list have published with at least one of our member publishers at some point in time.

Check out these authors:

Clark Blaise - He's published several titles, including Southern Stories and If I Were Me with The Porcupine's Quill as well as Selected Essays with Biblioasis.

Quill & Quire is helping us spread the word that, as they put it, we want you to reach out and touch us!

This fall participating independent booksellers across the country will be featuring a selection of titles from a handful of LPG publishers in our 'Handmade Campaign.' The campaign is meant to remind us, through all the hype and doom of the arrival of ebooks for the masses, of the amazing experience of sitting down with a book -- wherever you happen to be and for as long as you want -- feeling the paper between your fingers as you flip the page, smelling that amazing 'book smell,' and admiring the beautiful work of art that a physical book is.

If that makes you want to go out and pick up a book, we have a few suggestions! Visit our Handmade Campaign book list to browse the participating titles.

The buzz is continuing to build for the forthcoming fall season, this time in the Canadian Bookseller magazine's latest issue. After the CBA's National Conference at the end of May, Joy Ferguson rounds up the fall releases that have booksellers excited. We're happy to report that some of our favourites from LPG member publishers have made the list!

Fiction

Hope Burned by Bruce LaPorte, published by ECW Press.

The Matter of Sylvie by Lee Kvern, published by Brindle & Glass.

The Forest Horses by Bryna Barclay, published by Coteau Books.

Memoir & Biography

Two Wheels Through Terror: Diary of a South American Motorcycle Odyssey by Glen Heggstad, published by ECW Press.

Society

Eugenics and the Firewall by Jane Harris-Zsovan, published by J Gordon Shillingford Publishing.

Canadian History

We're very excited to see the longlist for the ReLit Awards this year -- many of our LPG publishers' books have made the cut!

The ReLit Awards have celebrated the best in Canadian literary publishing in three categories -- short fiction, novels, and poetry -- since 2000 when they were created as an alternative to the big money prizes. The winners will be feted at the Ottawa International Writers Festival this October.

We offer our congratulations to and are keeping our fingers crossed for:

The highly anticipated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will be released Friday August 13th, starring our very own loveable geek Michael Cera playing the title character in the film, which is based on popular graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The other popular star of the film that actually gets credit this go round is the city of Toronto -- while often featured in films, the city is usually mascarading as some other bustling metropolis. Not this time! We're anticipating the fun we'll have pointing out the places we recognize and nodding our heads as favourite local spots are mentioned.

It seems like you can't go anywhere this summer without seeing at least one person reading one of Stieg Larsson's books. However, there is at least one city where another book is weakening the hold of the world wide sensation -- Ottawa. Recently LPG member Invisible Publishing has had some bestseller success of its own with Jeff Miller's Ghost Pine: All Stories True. The collection of zines has taken the number two spot on the bestseller list at the independent bookstore Collected Works, surrounded by The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and The Girl Who Played With Fire. 

With fall just around the corner, Quill & Quire has released a Fall Preview in their latest issue. The staff at the LPG is thrilled to see that some of the anticipation we're feeling for our member publishers' fall titles is spreading!

Fiction:

Letters to Omar by Rachel Wyatt, published by Coteau Books, Sept.

You Comma Idiot by Doug Harris, published by Goose Lane Editions, Sept.

Writing Personals by Lolette Kuby, published by Vehicule Press, Oct.

Krakow Melt by Daniel Allen Cox, published by Arsenal Pulp Press, Oct.

The Bourgeois Empire by Evie Christie, published by ECW Press, Sept.

The Butterfly Connection by Tanna Patterson-Z, published by NeWest Press, Oct. [The title has since been changed to Butterflies in Bucaramanga.]

Still Waters by Doris Riedweg, published by Libros Libertad, Sept.

Check out Open Book Toronto's July Writer-in-Residence, Thom Vernon! His new novel, The Drifts, was published by our very own Coach House Books this past spring.

The Drifts follows four people -- Julie, Charlie, Wilson, and Dol -- over the course of one night. Told from their differing viewpoints, the stories converge through shared memories and histories that are as cold and harrowing as the blizzard that is discending on their small town in northeastern Arkansas.

Go to Open Book Toronto to learn more about Thom Vernon and enter for a chance to win a signed copy of The Drifts.

This year's CAA Awards were recently announced in Victoria, BC. Congratulations to Tom Dawe for winning the CAA Poetry Award for his work on Where Genesis Begins, published by Breakwater Books, and to Michael Nathanson for winning the CAA Carol Bolt Drama Award for Talk, published by Playwrights Canada Press.

For a complete list of winners, visit the CAA website.