http://booksontheradio.ca New Voices in Books and Book Publishing Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:13:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 New Voices in Books and Book Publishing Books on the Radio yes Books on the Radio seancranbury@gmail.com seancranbury@gmail.com (Books on the Radio) New Voices in Books and Book Publishing books, publishing, radio, writing, creativity, social media, podcast, novel, poetry, interview, literature, technology http://booksontheradio.ca/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/rss_default.jpg http://booksontheradio.ca http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/11/06/talking-to-dave-bidini-about-writing-gordon-lightfoot/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/11/06/talking-to-dave-bidini-about-writing-gordon-lightfoot/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:23:49 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3767 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/11/06/talking-to-dave-bidini-about-writing-gordon-lightfoot/feed/ 0 Bidniniband,Dave Bidini,David Bidini,Gordon Lightfoot,Rheostatics,Sundown,Writing Gordon Lightfoot My first memories of Gordon Lightfoot are hearing his music coming from the old transistor radio in the corner of the kitchen in the house where I grew up in Ancaster, Ontario. Late seventies, early eighties. The radio was always on. My first memories of Gordon Lightfoot are hearing his music coming from the old transistor radio in the corner of the kitchen in the house where I grew up in Ancaster, Ontario. Late seventies, early eighties. The radio was always on. I remember hearing Buddy Holly for the first time. I remember Barry Manilow and Abba. And I remember Gordon Lightfoot. I remember hearing Lightfoot's song 'the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. I remember learning to sing it with my grade school class. The teacher handed out those intoxicating copies produced by Ditto Machines with the lyrics hand written and printed on the page in a pale purple. I remember the song was playing on a big buttoned cassette player that had been placed on a desk at the front of the room. If our schools were teaching us the songs of Gordon Lightfoot in the early eighties then he must have already been a legend at that time. His place in the pantheon of music must have already been assured. I didn't know the difference. I was singing the words with my school mates and seeing the images that his words painted in my mind. All of this came back to me when I received a copy of Writing Gordon Lightfoot by Dave Bidini. It somehow seems amazing and impossible that Gordon Lightfoot is still alive. How could that musical legend of my young grade school years still be strumming guitars unless he was an immortal? Maybe he is. I have a feeling that his music will be with us forever. Listen to Sean Cranbury vs Dave Bidini vs Gordon Lightfoot. The following excerpt originally appeared in the National Post Afterword on October 26, 2011. Two days before Dave and I would meet at the W2 Media Cafe for this interview. Hey, Gord. This is the beginning of the letter. I’m not going to begin where normal biographies begin, because, I dunno, all of those books that go on to describe the legend playing with his toys and burning his hand on the stovetop and how his Grade Three teacher threw a ruler at him and the time he wet his pants coming home from school and what his dog’s name was and how he saw his uncle die in a horrible chipper accident and what he did when he got his first report card; I dunno. Me, I always want the writer to get to the reasons why anyone would write a book about that person in the first place. Which, in your case, is the music and the songs. Guitar playing. Words. Concerts. Radio. Canada. Mariposa. Drugs and love and booze. And other stuff. So I think we should start with me imagining you being a kid like any other pre-teen kid, sitting on the quilt at the edge of your bed dressed in ill-fitting brown cords that your mom bought for you at the Buy Right, playing a guitar that came out of a long cardboard box, trying to find great sweeping chords to match the fullness of the infinite sky, even though the sound that you made was more like sprrrngggtt! because your hands hurt and the tips of your fingers were sore but screw it: your grandparents and their grandparents and their grandparents before them had dug their mitts deep into the hard rich soil to build a life for their sons and daughters, and because they did, you sat there and you kept on playing: an A chord struck with the E string accidentally opened that released a long wide note at the bottom of the neck which made you think of a tern swallowed by the water’s horizon as your mom tapped on the door and told you, “Phone call, son. It’s Whelan,” (I know your friend’s name was Whelan because it was written in that other book about you, the one by Maynard Collins called If You Could Read His Mind, which he published 30 years ago). You spoke to Whelan, then returned to your room where you leaned your guitar on the cowboy-wallpapered wall and slipped on your boots and walked over to your friend’s house (“Bye, Mom”), where you played board games with him at the kitchen table. Whelan said that he liked that new song by that skinny guy with the goatee, Buddy Knox, but you weren’t sure. Books on the Radio yes 31:40 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/11/06/talking-to-nathaniel-g-moore-about-savage-the-art-of-macho-madness/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/11/06/talking-to-nathaniel-g-moore-about-savage-the-art-of-macho-madness/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:35:39 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3747 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/11/06/talking-to-nathaniel-g-moore-about-savage-the-art-of-macho-madness/feed/ 0 ALEXANDRA LEGGAT,Emily Holton,GREG OLIVER,MACHO MAN,Michael Holmes,Nathaniel G Moore,Randy Savage,Sherwin Sullivan Tjia,Sonja Ahlers,White House Gallery,WWF Check out this interview with Nathaniel G Moore about his interesting new exhibition at The White House in Toronto's Kensington Market. - CRANBURY / MOORE / SAVAGE INTERVIEW - The mercurial and evanescent Nathaniel G Moore - check out his eponymous w... Check out this interview with Nathaniel G Moore about his interesting new exhibition at The White House in Toronto's Kensington Market. CRANBURY / MOORE / SAVAGE INTERVIEW The mercurial and evanescent Nathaniel G Moore - check out his eponymous w... Books on the Radio yes 24:47 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/10/21/robert-dugoni-this-day-we-write-live-audio-from-surrey-international-writers-conference/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/10/21/robert-dugoni-this-day-we-write-live-audio-from-surrey-international-writers-conference/#comments Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:34:35 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3730 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/10/21/robert-dugoni-this-day-we-write-live-audio-from-surrey-international-writers-conference/feed/ 11 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/09/24/beyond-piracy-presented-at-bookcamp-halifax-2011-via-skype/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/09/24/beyond-piracy-presented-at-bookcamp-halifax-2011-via-skype/#comments Sat, 24 Sep 2011 21:38:22 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3719 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/09/24/beyond-piracy-presented-at-bookcamp-halifax-2011-via-skype/feed/ 0 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/09/19/announcing-the-first-ever-giller-light-bash-vancouver-at-the-w2-media-cafe/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/09/19/announcing-the-first-ever-giller-light-bash-vancouver-at-the-w2-media-cafe/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:13:35 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3700 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/09/19/announcing-the-first-ever-giller-light-bash-vancouver-at-the-w2-media-cafe/feed/ 2 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/27/black-bolen-borkowski-reading-at-type-books-queen-west-toronto/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/27/black-bolen-borkowski-reading-at-type-books-queen-west-toronto/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:50:52 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3682 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/27/black-bolen-borkowski-reading-at-type-books-queen-west-toronto/feed/ 1 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/26/bookcamp-vancouver-spring-2012-at-the-w2-media-cafe/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/26/bookcamp-vancouver-spring-2012-at-the-w2-media-cafe/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:50:48 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3674 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/26/bookcamp-vancouver-spring-2012-at-the-w2-media-cafe/feed/ 0 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/18/3-books-worth-voting-for-2011-giller-prize-longlist/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/18/3-books-worth-voting-for-2011-giller-prize-longlist/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:21:08 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3642 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/18/3-books-worth-voting-for-2011-giller-prize-longlist/feed/ 0 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/17/talking-to-elana-rabinovitch-about-the-giller-prize/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/17/talking-to-elana-rabinovitch-about-the-giller-prize/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:59:34 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3602 The answer, every time, was: because they "can't"; they're afraid of pissing off their publishers, of blacklisting themselves from longlists, shortlists, laundrylists, every kind of list that you can imagine.]]> http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/08/17/talking-to-elana-rabinovitch-about-the-giller-prize/feed/ 0 CBC Books,Elana Rabinovitch,Giller Prize,Reader's Choice,Steven Beattie,That Shakespearean Rag When I asked questions like, "Well, if this is such an issue of deep concern among writers then why don't I see comments, blog posts, full page colour ads in the Globe howling in protest? Why isn't Beattie's comment thread stretching into the hundreds ... When I asked questions like, "Well, if this is such an issue of deep concern among writers then why don't I see comments, blog posts, full page colour ads in the Globe howling in protest? Why isn't Beattie's comment thread stretching into the hundreds - as I had expected that it would?" The answer, every time, was: because they "can't"; they're afraid of pissing off their publishers, of blacklisting themselves from longlists, shortlists, laundrylists, every kind of list that you can imagine. Books on the Radio yes 29:27 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/05/18/charlottetowns-jeff-bursey-added-to-real-vancouver-writers-take-6-at-w2-woodwards-monday-may-30th/ http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/05/18/charlottetowns-jeff-bursey-added-to-real-vancouver-writers-take-6-at-w2-woodwards-monday-may-30th/#comments Wed, 18 May 2011 16:05:32 +0000 Sean Cranbury http://booksontheradio.ca/?p=3584 http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/05/18/charlottetowns-jeff-bursey-added-to-real-vancouver-writers-take-6-at-w2-woodwards-monday-may-30th/feed/ 0