Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Big Dream: The Launch


On Tuesday September 20th we'll be launching our first title of the Fall publishing season: Rebecca Rosenblum's new collection of stories, The Big Dream. We're very excited. Rebecca's first book, Once (2008), remains in the top handful of books we've published here, and The Big Dream is, in every way, a worthy successor. If Once was, as Steven Beattie said, " the most exciting first book of short stories by a Canadian writer since Munro's Dance of the Happy Shades," then this may well prove to be 2010's Lives of Girls and Women. The Big Dream offers a suite of linked stories about a group of disparate workers -- from the cafeteria and telemarketing staff to the researchers and CEOs -- employed by a foundering publishing company, and chronicles its character's lives mainly between the hours of nine-to-five. These stories are, as one would expect, beautifully told, with a sharp, pitch-perfect ear for dialogue: funny, moving, frightening, surreal, fearless, generous and wise. If this is indeed the Year of the Short Story (YOSS), than The Big Dream should help firm up Biblioasis's reputation as the Press for the Short Story, and it should be a collection on every short fiction fan's reading list.

The Toronto launch will take place next Tuesday, September 20th, at the Dora Keogh (141 Danforth Ave.) at 7 PM. There will be an onstage interview conducted by Kerry Clare, and a short reading by Rebecca Rosenblum. Books will be for sale by Ben McNally. For you Facebookers there's a Facebook launch page (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=240321889344529).

If you can't catch Rebecca in Toronto this Tuesday, fear not: she'll be all over the country in 2011-12, including stops in Windsor, London, Hamilton, Toronto (again), Ottawa, Montreal, Peterborough, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Halifax, Wolfville, Fredericton (and likely many more places before she's through. For further information you can always check the press website calendar here.

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