Almost a month ago, Toronto’s Buskerfest flooded our area, limiting our mobility on the streets outside our building. This weekend, a different kind of festival is taking over the city — Nuit Blanche!

Nuit Blanche is an all-night exhibition of music, art, dance, and beyond. The entire city gets overrun by the arts community from sundown to sunrise. There’s tons of stuff to see, lots of opportunity for viewer interaction, and never a dull moment.

Unfortunately, this is the first year I likely won’t be able to participate in Nuit Blanche as I’m currently battling a terrible cold. Yes, the flu has hit me early and rather than walk around the city all night in the cold, I’m thinking that a nice night in a warm bed with a book might be the better way to go.

And well, that got me thinking of all the arts related books that Dundurn has published, and in particular — one book that got terrific news this week! Arts and Politics by Sarah Jennings tells the story of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and we’re really happy to announce that it has been shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award! The winners are going to be announced at a ceremony towards the end of the month, but we think Sarah’s look at one of the staple buildings of the city is a shoe-in.

Good luck to Sarah, and all the other arts enthusiasts who will be out and about in the city this weekend.

Former NAC chair Jean Therese Riley, Mario Bernardi first conductor and second music director of the NAC, Sarah Jennings, current President and CEO Peter Herrndorft

Last night we celebrated Art and Politics: the History of the National Arts Centre by Sarah Jennings. This book is vitally important because we have a very short history memory in Canada. The NAC celebrates it’s 40th year this Tuesday, June 2nd. Much of that early history would have been lost except for Sarah’s diligence in recording , taping and talking to the founders.  Art and Politics came to life last night when many of the key supporters, the people that Sarah wrote about, came to celebrate. The very people that have devoted their lives to keeping the performing arts alive in Canada.

David Silcox, current president and CEO of Sotheby's Canada; Nona MacDonald Heaslip, Sarah Jennings, Walter Bowen

 

 

 

 

A truly distinguished gathering. However the impact on everyone associated with the book was best exemplified by Gillian Watts from Word Watch who prepared the index for the book who said it was thrilling to watch the index come alive.

We also celebrated Trails and Tribulations: Confessions of a Wilderness Pathfinder by Hap Wilson. Hap is a legendary guide in Temagami who now works out of Lake Rosseau. This was a different audience to the Art and Politics launch but similar in their passion and commitment to what they believe in.  This launch was held at MEC where we were all surrounded by the trappings of Hap’s profession. Hap told us of the joys and troubles of guiding and what he as learned over the years. The book and the event included his art work and those of  his partner Ingrid who also illustrated the book. From fighting off moose, handling crazy paddlers and dealing with GPS reliant customers Hap has done it all.

9:00:A yummy start to my day – eating a bowl of oatmeal while checking my emails and twitter. The majority of the emails I received had to do with an upcoming launch for Susan Papp’s Outcast, which a heart warming true story about a couple that is separated during the Second World War and who are reunited years later in Canada. Update  RSVP list.

9:30:Finishing up the copy for a flyer annoucing the release of Art and Politics by Sarah Jennings which the Ottawa Writer’s Festival has kindly aggreed to put on display for us.  

10:00:Emailing copy for the flyer to my colleague Erin (yes there’s two of us!) and I’m now finalizing the titles that we will be submitting to the Quill & Quire for their Fall Preview edition.

10:35: My boss Beth (VP of Sales & Marketing) arrives back from the London Book Fair. Chatting about London and what’s going on here ensues.

10:45: Receive the Art and Politics flyer from Erin. It looks wonderful! Really eye-catching. Proofread it and send her a few changes that need to be made.

11:00: Working on one of my favourite projects – the Teachers’ Resources Guides that we are developing and have been posting online. Click here to see our webpage which is still in development. Right now I’m working on getting the tables and graphs for Speechless ready for Erin to design.

11:41: All done with the Art and Politics flyer! And I’m back to working on the Speechless guide.

12:30: Now working on an invitation list for the upcoming Toronto book launch for Art and Politics. Hmm … now that I think about it it’s been pretty much of an Art and Politics day.

13:00:Lunch time! Mmmm! Going to run some errands and enjoy the fresh air after a healthy lunch of soup.

14:00: Quick update meeting with Beth

14:05: Back to working on invitation list – trying to track down mailing addresses

15:00: Fielding queries about whether I or my colleague Ali will be doing the publicity for certain upcoming titles.

15:15: Looking into how to get 38 boxes of books that are cluttering up our front office back to our warehouse.  

15:30: Argg!!!! Email isn’t working! Drats!!!!

15:45:Yay! Email is back up and working

15:46: Still working on that invitation list

16:30: Now blogging about my day.

17:00: And that’s a wrap!

Hope you enjoyed this brief snap shot of what a day is like for this publicist.