Word on the Street, September 27, 2009

One of the best book events of the year is coming to a city near you! The annual Word on the Street festival, held on Sunday, September 27th, is Canada's National Book and Magazine Festival. WOTS officially happens in 4 cities across Canada; Vancouver, Kitchener, Toronto, and Halifax. Last year, in the four cities combined, more than 275,000 visitors attended 408 programs featuring 471 authors, workshop presenters and arts performers.

The Alcuin Society will have a table display located indoors this year, on the main floor lobby of Library Square. We're having a combined table of book design award winners and general Alcuin material/publications. The WOTS festival is a must see event for book lovers of all ages, and this year there will be some added entertainment from the Vancouver Global ComedyFest. From the WOTS website:

Special News: We're teaming up with the Vancouver Global ComedyFest on our Mainstage to present an exciting and entertaining roster of comedy skits and musical performances.

Click here to see what's on the agenda in Vancouver for September 27.

On a related note, coming up next month, the Vancouver International Writers Festival takes place on Granville Island from October 18-25. And don't forget the Alcuin's very own Wayzgoose festival at Library Square on October 24! It's beginning to look like Fall is the Season of Books in this town!

Alcuin Awards Ceremony 2009

The Alcuin Society and Emily Carr University would like to invite you to an Awards Ceremony, honouring the designers and publishers of the winners of The 27th Competition for Excellence in Book Design in Canada – 2008.

This year's keynote speaker will be Gabriele Wilson, a New York-based graphic designer and member of the faculty at Parsons School of Design. After seven years as Senior Designer at Knopf Books, Gabriele now runs a small design studio and continues to work for numerous publishers worldwide designing jackets and illustrated books, as well as creating restaurant branding and music packaging. Her work has been featured in Communication Arts, The New York Times, Metropolis, Print, USA TODAY, By Its Cover: Modern American Book Design, New Vintage Type, Chip Kidd: Book One, and the AIGA 365 and 50 Books/50 Covers competitions. She is originally from Concord, Massachusetts.

Gabriele's talk -- Gabriele Wilson: Greatest Hits – will be introduced by the evening's moderator, Peter Cocking, Creative Director of Vancouver-based Douglas & McIntyre, himself a winner of numerous Alcuin awards.

The event will be held at Emily Carr University, Room 301, on Thursday, October 1st at 7:00 pm. It is a free event, open to the public; everyone is encouraged to attend. The award-winning books will be on display.

During the day, there will be two related workshops. The first (from 10:30-12:30), an interactive seminar/discussion on book design, will be given by Gabriele Wilson and Peter Cocking. The second (from 1:30 to 3:30), by Celia King, will be a hands-on workshop in which participants will create a simply-bound book in hard covers, complete with dust jacket to pressed finish – discussion will explore type design, visual formats and concept presentation for publishing. Registration will be required for both workshops.

For further information, contact Leah Gordon at (604) 732-5403.