Melanie Little, who joined the firm two years ago as senior editor of Canadian fiction, is stepping down to pursue her own writing, the company announced in a press release. She will continue to edit the work of Lisa Moore, Lynn Coady, Saleema Nawaz, and Théodora Armstrong.

Little is the former editor-at-large for Annick Press and the founding editor of Broadview Press’s literary imprint, Freehand Books. She is also the author of the short story collection Confidence (Thomas Allen Publishers) and the YA novel The Apprentice’s Masterpiece (Annick).

Little’s departure has led to a slew of promotions within Anansi. Former managing editor Jared Bland, who joined the firm a year ago, has been promoted to senior editor, and will now be responsible for acquiring both poetry and Canadian fiction.

Former assistant editor Kelly Joseph has been promoted to managing editor, responsible for acquiring French Canadian literature for translation. Former editorial assistant Meredith Dees (responsible for both Anansi and Groundwood Books) has been promoted to editor.

The press release notes that senior editor Janie Yoon remains responsible for acquiring non-fiction, crime fiction, and foreign titles for Anansi International.

This year’s awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, June 3, at the Toronto Congress Centre. The event kicks off the CBA’s annual conference, which is being held in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada’s Store 2012 conference. Bookseller-oriented programming includes presentations and panels devoted to sidelines and ebooks, and a “moderated member forum.”

Margaret Atwood will be on hand to accept a lifetime achievement award.

The nominees are:

Author:
Patrick deWitt
Esi Edugyan
Michael Ondaatje

Fiction:
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (House of Anansi Press)
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Thomas Allen Publishers)
The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay (Knopf Canada)

Non-fiction:
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis (Knopf Canada)
Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill (Greystone Books)
The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery by Andrew Westoll (HarperCollins Canada)

Young reader:
I Am Canada: Deadly Voyage by Hugh Brewster (Scholastic Canada)
This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel (HarperCollins Canada)
The Dragon Turn by Shane Peacock (Tundra Books)

Picture books:
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (Candlewick/Random House)
Picture a Tree by Barbara Reid (Scholastic Canada)
Ten Birds by Cybèle Young (Kids Can Press)

Bookseller:
Blue Heron Books (Uxbridge, ON)
Bryan Prince Bookseller (Hamilton, ON)
Mabel’s Fables (Toronto, ON)

Campus bookstore:
Queen’s University Campus Bookstore (Kingston, ON)
King’s Bookstore Co-operative (Halifax, NS)
York University Bookstore (Toronto, ON)

Editor:
Louise Dennys, Knopf Random House Canada
Jim Gifford, HarperCollins Canada
Lynne Missen, Penguin Canada

Sales rep:
Penny Mason, Penguin Canada
Dot Middlemass, Ampersand Inc.
Michael Reynolds, Michael Reynolds & Associates

Distributor:
HarperCollins Canada
North 49 Books
Raincoast

Small press:
Arsenal Pulp Press
Coach House Books
Nimbus Publishing

Publisher:
Dundurn Press
HarperCollins Canada
Penguin Canada
Scholastic Canada

Silver Snail Comics Queen Street West storefront (Photo: silversnail.com)

Silver Snail Comics co-owner George Zotti is offering the public a video tour of the store’s new home just steps away from Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas Square.

In addition to the standard comic book fare, the 3,300 square-foot store at 329 Yonge Street will house a large kids’ section, gallery space, and lounge area complete with iPads for in-store reading of digital comics. They’re also working on making the second-storey space wheelchair accessible.

Arguably the biggest change from the Queen Street site will be the addition of a cafe, where Zotti plans on getting creative with the menu, with specials like the “Flashiccino.” “You get three [espresso] shots for the price of one shot,” Zotti explains with a laugh. The cafe is a bid to keep the shop competitive in a neighbourhood that’s also home to Indigo, The World’s Biggest Bookstore, BMV, 401 Games, and One Million Comix.

Zotti and partner Mark Gingras revealed the new location last month, a year after announcing the iconic comic book shop would be leaving its historic Queen Street West location this summer. (Check out what’s being proposed for the site.)

According to Torontoist, the Yonge Street location should open by July 1 — just in time to host Dave McKean, the award-winning graphic novelist and illustrator who has collaborated with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Richard Dawkins, and chef Heston Blumenthal.

Kobo users can now read ebooks like Alice in Wonderland, The Last of the Mohicans, and War of the Worlds as illustrated comics, through a content distribution deal between Kobo and the digital publisher Trajectory.

The Classics Illustrated series includes over 120 titles, which are also available for Apple devices and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

Kobo’s promo of The Three Musketeers gives an idea of the series’ style.

In this episode, author Will Ferguson discusses the origins of humour in creative writing.

Ferguson is the author of more than a dozen books, most recently of the thriller 419. He delivered this keynote address at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre on May 11, 2012, as part of the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs conference.

Quillcast is produced with media partners The Walrus, Open Book: Ontario, and Open Book: Toronto, with support from Toronto Life. This project has been generously supported by the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

(Photo: The New Yorker)

Starting tonight, Jennifer Egan’s latest short story, “Black Box,” will be tweeted by The New Yorker’s fiction department (@NYerFiction) over 10 nightly instalments. The story will appear in its entirety in the magazine’s June 4 issue, on newsstands May 28.

“Black Box” places one of Egan’s characters from her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad into a futuristic spy thriller, told in a series of 140-character notes. On The New Yorker’s books blog, Page-Turner, Egan writes:

I’d also been wondering about how to write fiction whose structure would lend itself to serialization on Twitter. This is not a new idea, of course, but it’s a rich one – because of the intimacy of reaching people through their phones, and because of the odd poetry that can happen in a hundred and forty characters. I found myself imagining a series of terse mental dispatches from a female spy of the future, working undercover by the Mediterranean Sea. I wrote these bulletins by hand in a Japanese notebook that had eight rectangles on each page.

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The U.K.’s largest book retailer, Waterstone’s, will begin selling Amazon’s Kindle, and offer other digital services this fall.

The deal is in accordance with the store’s refurbishment plans, which will dedicate resources to ebooks, free wireless Internet, and new coffee shops. Waterstone’s will soon allow Kindle users to browse books digitally and take advantage of the store’s special offers.

The BBC quotes Douglas McCabe from Enders Analysis:

If readers are increasingly downloading books, then it is better for Waterstone’s to embrace that behaviour than to try and work round it.

The deal comes as competition for Kobo and its partnership with WHSmith. Kobo announced earlier this year that it will open branded shops inside 100 WHSmith stores in the U.K., set to roll out this year.