a Friday miscellany

Because I make note of things in different areas of my website, some of you might have missed the little saga of photos and words detailing the making of a keepsake to celebrate the publication of my book, Blue Portugal & Other Essays, due out in a week or two from the University of Alberta Press. If you buy a copy of my book, either through your local bookseller, an online source, or from the Press itself (though you will have pay shipping, I think, if you order from the website), then I will mail you a keepsake while they last. Half of the 80 John printed on our Chandler & Price platen press, which I then embellished with hand-dyed indigo cotton and akoya buttons sewn on with red silk thread, anyway, half of them have already been mailed or delivered to Talewind Books in Sechelt and Earthfair Store in Madeira Park (they will tuck keepsakes into the books they sell while quantities last). So if you intend to purchase Blue Portugal, let me know and I will send you a keepsake, providing I still have them here.

The other news is that Fish Gotta Swim Edition’s 4th title is due from the printer any day now. Jennifer Falkner’s Susanna Hall, Her Book is a really wonderful novella, set in 1643 in Stratford-on-Avon, over a period of 3 days. Susanna Hall is the elder daughter of William Shakespeare, the widow of physician John Hall, and a gifted herbalist and healer herself. The novella is part diary, part ghost story, part 17th c. receipt book, beautifully written, and full of surprises. Visit the website for more information on this novella, our earlier titles, and to order.