Last night, as some of you may know, was the joint launch of Salon des Refusés issues from both The New Quarterly and Canadian Notes & Queries as well as my birthday. In celebration of two such momentous events, I took the night off work and made an appearance at the event, a kind of panel discussion about putting together the Salon issues, the Penguin anthology they were a response to, as well as anthologizing and short fiction more generally. I’m not hugely familiar with CNQ and their mandate, but TNQ is exceptionally good at author interviews and has sponsored lively discussions in the past (see their “Wild Writers We Have Known” issue, if you can find it), so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The discussion was good, but I’m not sure how productive it was; there were no real dissenting voices on almost any issue, and Kim Jernigan, though a fine editor and an acquaintance whom I greatly respect, is not entirely in her element as a moderator. But there was a good turnout as well as tremendous enthusiasm, and it was nice to see some familiar faces (in addition to knowing Kim, I went to school with TNQ managing editor Rosalynn Tyo) and it was also good to finally meet Mr. Beattie face to face. I took my camera but failed to remember to take photos. I will certainly remember at any future events I may attend. I will be blogging soon about the issues themselves.
