"Lust" Engenders...

Three stories from Lust for Life: Tales of Sex & Love, edited by Claude Lalumière and Elise Moser (Véhicule Press, 2006), have been selected to be reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 7, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Robinson, 2008): "Serpent's Tale" by Ashok Banker; "Virgin of the Sands" by Holly Phillips; "The Penis of My Beloved" by Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia.

In addition, Lust for Life coeditor Claude Lalumière's "The Four Elements" (originally from Reflection's Edge #16, April 2006) will also be reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 7. This will mark the author's fourth consecutive appearance in this annual series reprinting the best erotic fiction of the year.

This month, Lalumière's story "This Is the Ice Age"—from Mythspring (Red Deer Press, 2006)—appears in another year's best anthology, Year's Best SF 12, edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (HarperCollins/Eos), while Elise Moser's "Citrine: A Fable" (from A Room of One's Own) will be reprinted in Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books) this summer.

Lalumière's first collection, Lost Pages, will be released as a signed, illustrated limited edition from specialty fantasy press GrendelSong in summer 2008, with an introduction by award-winning author Paul Di Filippo.

Mary Soderstrom interview

Mary Soderstrom discusses her latest book, Green City, on a CKUT interview she gave during Blue Met. You can listen to it at the following site:

http://secure.ckut.ca/cgi-bin/ckut-grid.pl?action=showaudio&show=monday,11:30

Click on Monday, May 21. Mary's interview begins at the 15 minute and 45 second mark.

A reminder that Mary will be presenting from Green City tomorrow (Wednesday, May 30) at 7:30 pm in the Alice MacKay room at the Vancouver Public Library's central library branch.

Eric Ormsby interview

Carmine Starnino's interview with Eric Ormsby can be found on the Biblioasis blog. You can find it here. Eric published Araby with Véhicule Press in 2001. His latest, Time’s Covenant, will be launched by Biblioasis tonight, along with Robyn Sarah’s Little Eurekas, at the Word (469 Milton St., Montreal) at 7:30 pm.

"Jaham and his Cat" (from Araby)

The pink melodious ratchet of her tongue
psalmonized as she hunched on Jaham’s chest.
Jaham admired her reverence of repose,
the prayerful alertness of her ears,
the pierced opacity of her green eyes
whose irises held aloof the more they shone,
her silken dignity, the way she made
a pedestal of paw to rest upon
behind a twitching balustrade of tail.

To drink he gave her pungent camel’s milk
he bought at the Desert’s Edge Convenience Store.
Jaham listened, he heard her chant Qur’an
in purr-cadenzas of complicit calm.
The cat sang Allah Allah Allah
and made her chant sound natural as breath.

Was she some subtle prophetess of sleep,
a disciple of our Prophet (may God
pray for him!), who once had said:
People are sleeping;
when they die, they wake?

He remembered how Muhammad cut his cloak
rather than dislodge a dozing cat.
All night he let her murmur on his breast,
all night her coiled contentment lulled his rest.

Artie Gold obit in today’s Globe & Mail

The Globe remembers the brief and intense writing life of poet Artie Gold, and writes of the Montreal poetry scene in the 70s. Quite accurate, actually, except for the impression it gives that the artist-run gallery, Véhicule Art Inc., was running the printing press. The piece states: “...poets and painters converged with a common commitment to revolutionize the Montreal cultural scene. They survived as a group until 1981.” Véhicule Press began at the back of the art gallery in 1973 and was absolutely a separate organization. Those halcyon days saw many innovative collaborations with members of the gallery which resulted in books printed and published by the press. Véhicule Press and all of its printing equipment relocated to Montreal’s Chinatown in late spring 1977. After a subsequent move, the printing operation ended in 1981, but the press continued.

For more on Artie: Véhicule’s Virtual Chapbook

The Globe’s obit: www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070528.OBGOLD28/TPStory/Obituaries

Schadenfreude is idle vice

Inspired by his recent E.J. Pratt win for There, there, Patrick Warner has pulled out his wit to write seven rollicking aphorisms for the blog.

Submit your own aphorism to us at marketing@vehiculepress.com. Our favourite wins a copy of Patrick's book There, there.

1. Objectivity is all well and true until its subject is you.
2. Schadenfreude is idle vice.
3. Freedom of choice is the mind's election promise.
4. Flatulence is the ghost of nourishment.
5. Frugality is never butter.
6. Possibility is that percentage of now unencumbered.
7. Affinity is the lowest rung on the ladder of prophetic vision.

Language Acts Interview & Launch Photos

Todd Swift has posted an interview that he and Jason Camlot gave with CKUT’s Jeffrey Mackie during the Blue Metropolis Festival, where their book Language Acts was launched. You can find it here.

And here are some photos from the Language Acts launch, courtesy of Carmine Starnino:

From top to bottom:
1. Panelists Jason Camlot, Todd Swift, David McGimpsey, and Victoria Stanton
2. enRoute magazine editor Arjun Basu, and poet David McGimpsey
3. Poets Mary Di Michele and Robyn Sarah
4. Language Acts co-editor Todd Swift, Signal Editions founder Michael Harris, and Signal Editions editor Carmine Starnino

Kudos - a bumper crop

May has been a good month.

Anita Lahey’s poetry collection, Out to Dry in Cape Breton, was announced as a finalist for Ontario’s Trillium Prize.

Patrick Warner won the E.J. Pratt Poetry Award for his poetry book, There, there. The prize is awarded annually by the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Red Ledger by Mary Dalton was also a finalist for this year’s E.J. Pratt Poetry Award. Her previous book, Merrybegot, won in 2005. All three books are Signal Editions edited by Carmine Starnino.

Hybrid Name

"What’s with the French word in your name?"—we’ve been asked on occasion over the years. "You’re a literary press in Montreal publishing in English." That’s exactly the point. Not only does our name reflect the cosmopolitan city we live in—part French, part English—it points to the artist-run gallery—Véhicule Art Inc.—we grew out of in 1973. "Véhicule" was chosen as the name of the gallery because it stood for the transference of ideas, a vehicle of thought. Since we were publishers and printers back then, we employed all sorts of visual puns as logos for the press.

Our publishing logo was designed back in the seventies by Guy Lavoie—it’s hard to put our finger on the exact year. A rider on horseback—a vehicle of sorts.


We were also printers (1973-1981). As far as we know, we were Québec’s first co-operatively-owned printing company. Our logo—again another vehicle—was a 1948 (or 1949 Ford).

Welcome!

Welcome to the Véhicule Press blog!

Breaking news. Literary exhortation. Entertainments. And occasionally the arcane.

We’re hoping that this will be an informal venue for keeping you informed (and even entertained) about things happening at Véhicule and with our authors. We will continue to update news items on our website, www.vehiculepress.com, and to send out monthly newsletters, but we intend to have a little more fun with the blog -- a place to let our random thoughts and eccentricities mill about. Who knows what features we’ll come up with. Watch for archival photos and excerpts from the books we’ve published. Feel free to send us stuff to put on here as well.

Our guru is Dan Wells at Biblioasis, whose blog (Thirsty: A Biblioasis Miscellany), inspired our latest foray into cyberspace.

Enjoy!