IanLeTourneau.ca

Wyatt turns 2 today!
Here he is this morning on his new tricycle from his grammy and grampie from New Brunswick.

A few weeks ago I clicked on an ad on Bookninja and asked for a free copy of a new book from Simon & Schuster. I mean, a free book is music to my ears. (Yes, I’m mixing my metaphors, but it’s my blog, ain’t it?) It arrived today. I had forgotten completely about it. The Night of the Gun by David Carr. When I get around to reading it, I will probably write about it here, which is exactly what S&S wants me to do, so all you 3 or 4 people who read this blog will go out and buy it.

Anyway, this past weekend I attended the Athabasca University’s Learning Services Conference. This is the department I belong to, and I actually get paid to attend! A $200 stipend courtesy of my union, CUPE. There were some interesting sessions, but I mainly went to actually meet colleagues. When you work distance ed, you sometimes never meet these people. For instance, I finally met my supervisor, who has been in that role for about a year now. Friday night of the conference I attended a powerful talk by Andrew Nikiforuk. Afterwards I gave him one of my bookmarks and told him about my book. I figured he might like and appreciate it, since some of the themes in my book and his talk were the same. He said he’d “look it up.” On the way to Edmonton that day, I stopped and purchased, with the proceeds of my book sales so far, a copy of the 2nd edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and Tim Lilburn’s new book of essays.

Saturday morning we went to the Strathcona Market and then the Edmonton Pubic Library, where there was a massive book sale going on. I bought almost a dozen books–a bio of Auden, 6 or 7 poetry volumes, several poetry studies, and a novel or two–and Sherry bought some books, and we got Wyatt about 10 books for his birthday coming up. Total cost: $37. Very nice.

So I have some reading to do. And I don’t think The Night of the Gun is anywhere on the top. Sorry S&S, I’ll get to it someday. I already started with Lilburn and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

Adrienne sent some photos today. Here are the four stars from the New Leaf Series Launch signing our books.

(Seated from left to right: Kelly-Anne Riess, moi, Taylor Leedhal, Adrienne Gruber)

Some deer stopped by this evening to grab a bite from what’s left of our garden.

Deer #1, just below out kitchen window.

Deer #2, looking a little annoyed that I opened the door to get a picture!

Arrived home at about 8:30 last night. Loooooong day of driving. Wyatt is feeling a lot better now, too. Here’s a picture from the launch.

The launch went very well last night. Some reports had the attendance at 175 people. There was standing room only. I think Thistledown did well with book sales.

I read fourth and during one of my poems, the one about Wyatt, he said “daddy” exactly after I had read the line about practicing his syllables. It was perfect timing, and it was all the talk afterwards. Then by the end of the poem, he threw up, but he seems to be ok. Just a bit of a fever.

Today I got a nice surprise: a small box appeared in my mail that contained several hundred bookmarks advertizing my book. I also received 50 copies of my book in lieu of royalties. Anybody want to but a book? Order directly from me or visit your indpendent bookstore and tell them to order it.

I received my 10 author copies of Terminal Moraine today. It looks great!

It cost us 12 pounds to get in. My highlights: walking past the tomb of Elizabeth I, touching the tomb of Chaucer, seeing the memorial to the WWI poets, and seeing the burial spot of the unknown soldier. We went on August 18.

This coming Saturday I will be in Saskatoon to launch my poetry book, Terminal Moraine.

September 13, 2008
Off-Broadway Dinner Theatre, 7:30pm