Last year when designer, illustrator, and author Leanne Shapton walked into Stephen Fowler’s The Monkey’s Paw—the idiosyncratic second-hand bookshop on Dundas West full of rare finds and curiosities—she came across a government issued field guide entitled The Native Trees of Canada. Being the creative sort, Shapton was inspired to create a series of paintings in response to it. On Saturday a celebration of the publication of her very own The Native Trees of Canada (Drawn & Quarterly) took place at—where else—The Monkey’s Paw. To double the fun Shapton, co-founder of J & L Books, had author/artist/illustrator Jason Logan (of If We Ever Break Up, This is My Book fame) on hand for the release of his new book, Festus, a graphic take on the iconic Old West prospector (J & L Books). Both authors were in fine form, with outfits chosen to reflect their books’ aesthetics, as many came out to wish them well.

Author Jason Logan signs for the fans.

Author and publisher Leanne Shapton mingles.

The local literati toast two of their own.

This week at the Harborfront Centre’s International Festival of Authors two major writers with new novels were featured under the live reading spotlight before a full house at the Fleck Dance Theatre. William Gibson, icon of thinking-man’s sci-fi, was there with Zero History, the third title in a contemporary series about the often-scary new frontiers of culture, consumerism, and technology. David Mitchell, four of whose five books have been either long or short-listed for the Man-Booker Prize, arrived with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, set in a 18th-century western commercial enclave in Japan near the end of the country’s isolationist era.

Gibson was first to read, selecting a zeitgeist-checking passage which he unfurled at a gentle pace reminiscent of Garrison Keillor (if Lake Wobegon were an anxious metropolis), sketching out a tense meeting between an agent of the surveillance state and one of its bewildered targets like a baseball commentator’s dramatization of an interrogation transcript. Mitchell followed, but not from his book; instead he brought to the podium an unfinished short story which he introduced as “science fiction but with a streak of folk tale and social realism—you have to think of Gordon Lightfoot guesting with Rush singing a song by The Smiths.” Occasionally pausing to make spontaneous corrections to his manuscript, Mitchell reeled off a sardonically bleak portrait of a Mad Maxian Britain in 2033 having been reshaped by some kind of limited Third World War. Read with actorly passion and a trace of performance art, it was like a chanced-upon late night radio play.

The discussion afterwards, facilitated by the Space Channel’s Mark Askwith, was wide-ranging. Among the themes were the selection of settings (Gibson: “There are no taggers in Plato’s Republic”), upcoming works (Mitchell: “I’m researching the Apollo project—here’s a nice little techno fact: it’s now impossible to buy a mobile phone that has less computing power than the entire Apollo project”) and current fascinations (Gibson: “I’ve happened upon extraordinarily odd scenes where someone’s up at three in the morning in Vancouver playing Grand Theft Auto [online] with a bunch of Australians”).

Acknowledging the freedom of writing from the speculative end of the chronological spectrum, Gibson described his technique as “a kind of sleight-of-hand in what you present to the reader, what you don’t present and the parameters you allow the reader to project within.” It’s a matter of establishing boundaries—various things you can work with as you attempt to make a place for the reader to have an experience that won’t be jarred by having something out of place.” Mitchell added that those boundaries are basically preset by history in his case, but therein have their own narrative challenges where he finds himself needing to account for endless details both large and small, from what money was worth to how people fastened their clothes. “When you make it up, it’s hard to be wrong,” he pointed out.

The effect of technology, particularly Google, on their careers stood out. “When I wrote Neuromancer,” Gibson recalled, “I used all sorts of what I thought were delightfully obscure references that nobody would ever get, except possibly some crazed grad student in the basement of a university library in the distant year 2010. But now all texts are Google-able.” Every book has essentially become a collection of hyperlinks, in his view. And he finds himself in the surreal position of encountering a functioning Twitter account for the fictional Gabriel Hounds designer clothing line from Zero History.

Mitchell’s experience with writing historical fiction has only been enhanced by the search engine. “Fifteen years ago it would’ve taken me Lord knows how many weeks and boxes of chocolate presented to librarians to discover if shaving cream had been invented in 1779, and if it was, could a lower-middle class clerk have afforded it,” he said. “Whereas now it takes me literally five minutes or so, and I usually get distracted on the way anyhow.”

For ticket information and a full IFoA schedule go here.

Managing Editor Jenny Sampirisi was kind enough to provide us with a list of the Top 5 reasons to attend tonight’s event. Enjoy.

Top 5 reasons to attend the BookThug Book Launch

5) You need a last minute Halloween costume. Go as a BookThug! T-shirts and bookbags will be on sale all night long and when people ask what you are, you can punch them in the gut and steal books off their shelves. (Legal aside: BookThug is a non-violent press).

4) You like the Constantines, or you like free music, or you like an eclectic night: Bry Webb of the Constantines will open the evening with song. See him play for free, and stay for the line up of poets who you might call “word musicians”—or not.

3) You like titles with innuendo: The Coming Envelope Issue #2 will be quietly introduced from across the border as a now foreign species to the Canadian environ since it’s creator moved to Chicago. This also means you’ll be exposed to…yes…Americans.

2) You’re a object fetishist: Maybe not the kind that would wed the Eiffel Tower, but one that might pet a very beautiful book object. This season of BookThug books are particularly gorgeous, each one designed by Jay MillAr in collaboration with the authors and artists.

1) Because you’re a Thug: or you can be! Meet all the authors, get your books signed, have a pint ,and ask them “what the hell were you thinking when you became a poet?” A BookThug is a unique creature with a head full of  new ideas about art and culture. Enter the conversation!

For ticket information and a full IFoA schedule go here.

Despite their crucial role in the creative process for generations of authors from Wodehouse to Kerouac, typewriters have not received a lot of press. Perhaps it’s understandable, as they were among the most unglamorous of tools, half of a marriage of convenience with writing and representing fussy obligation where The Beatles’ Rickenbacker guitars projected artistic cool.

However, the Harborfront Centre’s Early Typewriters: Gateway to the Information Age exhibit, curated by collector Martin Howard and presented as part of the International Festival of Authors, approaches the typewriter from a different angle. These aren’t the dull pastel boxes of 1970s newsrooms, nor the quaintly-clacketing generic hallmarks of 20th century literary greats and bedroom obsessives. Instead, visitors can see artifacts from the pioneering days of consumer typewriters (roughly 1880 to 1900)—baroque word forges with the character and faded luster of classic automobiles.

Take for example the Bar-Lock 4, a two-tone Victorian gothic machine with a dominating copper typeshield. If the MacBook adopted its aesthetic, Starbucks would have an entirely different atmosphere. The Oliver 2 is a cross between a cathedral and a Triumph motorcycle engine, and must have made anyone using it think twice about what they were writing. For sheer physical presence though, nothing tops the Hammond 1—an oak and ebony bulwark of wordsmithery designed like a prose altar, which oddly echoes the totally unrelated Hammond Organ.

Less-intimidating are the National, a compact machine from Philadelphia with bristling letter-keys that appear as though they’re competing with one another to be pressed, and the aluminum Blickensderfer 6, a portable model with a skeletal appearance which looks ideal for any turn-of-the-century correspondent. The nickel-plated Odell 2 seems as incomprehensible as it is attractive.

Visitors to the exhibit can try out a circa-1900 Underwood 5 model (and read the often-poetic streams of consciousness typed out by others), admire the limousine smoothness of The Chicago with its proto-art deco styling, and wonder how they would cope with the Sun 1, which only types in capitals (perfect for those angry letters to the editor about the adoption of the gold standard), or the Mignon 2, which resembles a sewing machine. It’s a statement on the mechanics of expression which writers have come to rely on, and a reminder of the process behind carrying our ideas out into the world by pounding them onto paper.

For ticket information and a full IFoA schedule go here.

As Halloween approaches, that moaning, rustling sound you hear in the bookstores could well be copies of Best New Zombie Tales, Volume One and Volume Two—a pair of top-notch anthologies of zombie yarns—shuffling off the dark and unholy presses of Toronto’s Books of the Dead Press. The zombie anthologies are sure to cause mayhem on your bookshelf and, more importantly, in your mind.

Books of the Dead is the brrrraaaain-child of writer James Roy Daley, author of The Dead Parade (released in limited edition hardcover this week). “After achieving a modest level of success I began thinking about starting up a little publishing company,” he says. “Nothing major , just something to fool around with. I didn’t follow through with the idea because the temptation to publish myself was too strong. But then I wrote a couple more books and I signed a few more book deals and my thinking began to change. I knew that I didn’t need to publish myself, and that other companies would be willing to do it for me. But I still wanted a little company; you know, for something to fool around with.”

Daley felt a connection with horror from a young age; he describes the genre as “that thing I grew up on, that friend mom says is a bad influence.” He recalls that some of his earliest memories include enjoying Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in the living room while his parents discussed whether he was old enough to be watching it. He also remembers the movie adaptation of ‘Salem’s Lot as a formative genre experience. “I remember being absolutely captivated by ‘Salem’s Lot late one evening, alone in my brother’s bedroom, the feeling of terror consuming me as Ben Mears and Mark Petrie made their into the basement of the Marsten house, weapons in hand, danger all around them. I could hear my family in the room below me—safe, secure, acting as if everything was normal in the world. For me, it wasn’t,” he says. “I had a pillow covering half my face, my knees were curled up to my chest, and my heart pounding clean out of my body as the goosebumps on my arms tried to crawl from my skin and hide in the corner; I couldn’t believe the images on television could be so intolerably wrong. And I loved it. Oh boy, did I ever.”

It seems fitting, then, that, when he came to develop his press, Daley decided to focus on horror—and the project grew as quickly as any army of the living dead. “After I came up with the idea for the Best New Zombie Tales anthology, I put together another proposal and sent it off to one of the publishers that I had been working with,” he says. “Before they had a chance to respond, I realized that I wanted to release the book myself. Within a few weeks I had hundreds of submissions rolling in. And with that, Books of the Dead Press was born.”

What does he think makes a good zombie tale—or any story, for that matter? “As an editor I look for well-written stories that have a clean narrative,” says Daley. “I don’t enjoy stories that are bogged down in pointless description, nor do I take pleasure in an overly ‘literary’ story that fails to engage me as a reader. I sure don’t mind a clever phrase or an interesting string of words, but when I read a page or two and it’s an absolute chore to read, I know the story is not for me. Literary gymnastics in place of a solid story is like having an ear-splitting guitar solo plunked on top of what would otherwise be an okay song.”

The lineup of talent showcased in Best New Zombie Tales is impressive, including a number of Bram Stoker Award winners such as Kim Paffenroth, David Niall Wilson, and Kealan Patrick Burke, along with British Fantasy Award nominee Rio Youers. How did Daley get so many diverse and solid writers on board? “This might seem strange,” he admits, “but after my submission period ended I simply sent out an invitation to some of my friends and writing peers, asking if they’d like to be involved in my company. The fact that I’d been paying my dues as a writer for the last few years helped a great deal.”

The zombie genre has shifted a fair amount over the past decade or so, with the rise in popularity of both the Zombie Walk and the zombie comedy, but Daley sees the greatest shift in terms of zombie literature. “Ten years ago there wasn’t any,” he says. “Sure, you can argue that Frankenstein is a zombie novel, Pet Semetery, too. And yes, there was the odd book that came along like Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis, and John Russo’s Night of the Living Dead, but zombie literature, for the most part, just started taking off recently.”

Another big shift of the last ten years, of course, is the increasingly rapid movement of traditional print media into the digital world. Given the way things are going, why did Daley choose to start up a small press at this time? “Right now we are at a crossroads,” he concludes. “Ninety-nine percent of the tech-savvy people that have joined the digital revolution will never go back to spending money on a paperback book. However, there’s a large percentage of the book-reading community that is yet to embrace the new technology. I suspect that most of them will embrace it when they feel the time is right, but until then, they’re sticking with old faithful. For this reason I’ve been releasing my books both digitally, and in the paperback format.”

And Daley has a lot on his plate in both media: “I’m currently editing Best New Zombie Tales Volume Three, Best New Vampire Tales Volume One, and a collection of my own stories,” he says. “The working title is 13 Drops of Blood. I’ve also been talking with a few different people, trying to work out contracts. Pretty soon I’ll be opening my doors to novel submissions, but I haven’t done so yet.”

Finally, with two zombie anthologies under his belt, where does he stand on the issue of slow zombies versus running zombies? “I like them fast,” he says. “And slow. No…I guess I don’t have a preference.”

The Excerpt: Give us your one-sentence pitch for the new book.

LD: Whatever You Love is about a woman whose child is killed in a hit-and-run accident and decides to get revenge on the driver, not by killing him, but by finding out what he loves and taking it away from him.

The Excerpt: How long have you been working on this book?

LD: It took two and a half years to write, although I might have done it a bit more quickly if it wasn’t for a newspaper column, broadcasting, and two children…

The Excerpt: Tell us a little about the writing and editorial process. Did anything surprise you about the process? Was it different from your other books?

LD: This book was quite different for me as it was the first time I had written a whole novel from the point of view of one person, in the first person. I think there is probably quite a lot of me in the character of Laura, which is maybe slightly worrying. I did have a bit of a structural crisis with this one which made me ground to a halt three quarters of the way through but I solved it with some drastic surgery. Every book is different, every one throws up new challenges.

The Excerpt: What do you hope to achieve with this book?

LD: It’s really a book about love and how far a so-called ordinary person will go to hang on to what they love. I hope the reader will find it a gripping plot but also be challenged by the character of Laura. You can’t help but sympathise with her in the beginning but then her behaviour gradually departs from what most people would find acceptable even for someone in deep grief. The driver of the car is quite demonised to start off with, but then you get a sense of his story too. I suppose I am trying to say that things are almost always a bit more complicated than they first appear.  There are flashback scenes to when Laura meets and falls for her husband David, and I was also trying to write about romantic love and how hard it is to keep that going once children come along.

The Excerpt: Are you working on anything new yet?

LD: I’m working on a non-fiction idea, a sort of cultural history with some memoir-ish elements. I’m not going to say any more than that at the moment. I have the new novel in my head as well, though, brewing away.

The Excerpt: Do you have any special plans for your stay in Toronto? Any sites you want to take in while you’re here?

LD: I went to the AGO yesterday and thought it was fantastic—I listened to one of their lunchtime concerts and saw the Julian Schnabel expedition.  I would love to take a ferry to the islands and go to the Shoe Museum if I have time.  And this sounds really obvious, but I can’t believe how big Lake Ontario is. I keep staring at it from my hotel window…

For ticket information and a full IFoA schedule go here.