So Misguided

Hey, I was going to quickly come back and update this post on Thomas Wharton’s novel Icefields (NeWest Press). I can’t believe that it’s Thursday. I must have been caught in a ripple in time.

Let me tell you more about how I came upon Icefields by Thomas Wharton, which, if you don’t know, is a CBC Canada Reads pick for 2008.

Last Friday I was in Toronto presenting a session on online marketing to the Literary Press Group book publishers. I illustrated a point about how fast it is to create a blog post and to use Amazon Associates program. That was the post you saw, which, of course, needed a lot more work.

Now how did Icefields come up?

I asked the audience if anyone had a hot book this season. Lou from NeWest Press piped up with “Icefields!”

About Icefields

NeWest Press book description:

At a quarter past three in the afternoon, on August 17, 1898, Doctor Edward Byrne slipped on the ice of Arcturus glacier in the Canadian Rockies and slid into a crevasse…

Nearly sixty feet below the surface, Byrne is wedged upside down between the narrowing walls of a chasm, fighting his desire to sleep. A stray beam of sunlight illuminates the ice in front of him with a pale blue-green radiance. There, embedded in the pure, antediluvian glacier, Byrne sees something that will inextricably link him to the vast yet disappearing bed of ice, and the people who inhabit this strange corner of the world.
Read the full description ...

Thomas Wharton also has a blog, logogryph.blogspot.com.

And I learned that a logogryph is a mythical creature that lives in books. Cool.

Thomas Wharton says some interesting things abuot writing Icefields…

During the writing of this book my wife and I moved to Peace River, six hours north of Edmonton. I had just finished my Master’s degree and was an unemployed at-home father in an isolated northern town. I suddenly had lots of time for writing, in between looking after a child all day. That’s one reason why the chapters of the novel are so short.
He goes on to talk about his writing room and rugged, mountain climbers who would show up at his readings ... check it out.

I’m excited about this book and really looking forward to reading it. Thank you Lou for the copy.

Original Post
—————————-
I’m coming back to talk about this title.

Go Canada Reads.

Icefields

Posted by Monique at 05:10 PM. Filed under: Book Reviews • Books • News •

Permalink

As I sat listening to your presentation to the Literary Press Group last Friday, I marvelled at the adventures I’d had since the last time I heard you speak, and the role you’d played in them. In September you gave an engaging presentation on on-line marketing for the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. My colleague, Tiffany Regaudie, and I left your session that day with ideas swimming in our heads about how we would implement all of these wonderful on-line tools and techniques.

Little did we know that, barely a week later, the CBC would tell us that Steve Maclean, the Chief Astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency, had chosen to defend Icefields for Canada Reads! Sooner than we had anticipated, we were scrambling to develop our new website, rounding up author podcasts, richer book metadata, improved navigation, etc. The very morning of the CBC’s November 28th announcement of the five competing titles, the new site was up and running and ready for business.

And so, we’ve all been swept up into a journey that involves a glacier, an author, an astronaut, a marketing consultant, a large media corporation, and a small-ish literary press or, as we fondly describe it, the little press that could.

Thanks for the inspiration, Monique! Lou