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Media Release

For immediate release
June 8, 2005 

New Banff Centre Press book divulges the secrets of first-time authors

Ontario book launches, First Writes:
Friday, June 17, 7:30 p.m. 
The Gallery Café, Kingston
Sunday, June 19  2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
David Mirvish Books & Art,  Toronto

Staring at a ceiling-high stack of remaindered copies of his first book in the backroom of a Toronto bookstore, author Greg Hollingshead thought, “Is this really what it’s going to be like?”  That moment and others from first-time authors form the core of First Writes, the latest release from The Banff Centre Press. This collection of essays offers the sometimes scathing, and often hilarious stories of the expectations, humiliations, and achievements at every stage of an author’s first publication.

Crossing the line from the private to public space can be daunting, whether you’re a writer whose first effort is plucked from a publisher’s slush pile and ushered into print, or a writer whose work takes a painful decade from inspiration to printed page. In First Writes, edited by Kelley Aitken, Sue Goyette, and Barbara Scott, leading Canadian novelists, playwrights, poets, filmmakers, and short story writers take readers on a journey from approaching publishers to publicizing that first book.

The authors included in the anthology are Kelley Aitken, Paul Anderson, Antonia Banyard, bill bissett, Paulette Dubé, Eric Folsom, Sue Goyette, Elizabeth Greene, Irene Guilford, Greg Hollingshead, Helen Humphreys, Chris Koentges, Jeanette Lynes, Annabel Lyon, Rick Maddocks, Don McKay, K. D. Miller, Lorie Miseck, Kim Moritsugu, Leilah Nadir, Peter Oliva, Ruth Pierson, Sina Queyras, Gloria Sawai, Barbara Scott, Anne Simpson, Joan Skogan, Susannah M. Smith, Fred Stenson, Valerie Weiss, and Rachel Wyatt. Their essays reveal that though writers often work in isolation, they are not alone.

First Writes is a perfect companion for those who have signed on for the long and lonely apprenticeship that is the life of a writer. 

The Banff Centre Press will launch First Writes in Kingston, Ontario on Friday, June 17 at the Gallery Café where Kelley Aitken and several of the contributing authors will read excerpts from their pieces. David Mirvish Books & Art in Toronto will host a second launch on Sunday, June 19.