Wanna have lunch with Margaret Atwood?

If you live in Toronto and want a chance to have lunch and take a literary tour of the city with an award-winning author such as Margaret Atwood, this contest is for you.
Our Public Library is hoping to save the Toronto Public Library from City Council’s cost-cutting agenda that could result in branches closing down, reduced hours, and privatization. In addition to starting a petition to help save the TPL (over 45,000 signatures so far), they’ve just announced an exciting contest. The “My Library Matters to Me” contest allows Torontonians to express their love for the TPL and it gives them the opportunity to win a pretty amazing prize. Winners of the contest will have lunch and visit some literary spots in Toronto with one of the participating authors. You can see the full list of authors here, but these are a few of the names: Joy Fielding, Margaret Atwood. Michael Ondaatje, Jeremy Tankard, Vincent Lam.

For the latest news, rules, and to enter the contest, visit ourpubliclibrary.to/contest.
Good luck!

UnNetworking according to UnMarketing

If you’ve never heard of UnMarketing.com or its president Scott Stratten, the title of this post probably makes no sense to you.

UnMarketing is basically authentic marketing, or as it says in Stratten’s bio, “It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when they have the need, they choose you.” Forget cold calls and awkward elevator pitches. UnMarketing is about building relationships, having conversations, and engaging your market.

Chapter 55 of the book UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. confirmed something that I have long suspected: networking events are evil. 

The chapter goes over the differences between old school networking (random stranger hands you a business card) and new school networking (hugging it out with someone you’ve been talking to on Twitter for months). I’m a fan of the new school approach because, like so many introverted folks out there, I find that networking the old-fashioned way is a little bit intimidating.

Not that there is anything wrong with business cards. I love mine and hand them out proudly. But I think the point is that giving your business card to someone should be done after you’ve made some sort of connection so that the relationship can continue after the event. And I like Stratten’s idea of asking someone what their Twitter handle is right away so that you can follow them on the spot and carry on your conversations online after the event.

I’ve made a lot of amazing connections via Twitter and I love the idea that it can replace the traditional model of networking that has scared off so many people from reaching out to others in the past.

And speaking of Twitter, you should drop by and say hello to me there: @FlorenceMcC.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin is known as the book about the school massacre, but it’s really much more than that. It’s also about motherhood, and it talks having a child in a way that I’ve never heard before. It’s a brutally honest look at a mother who doesn’t want to have children but who does it anyway. Let’s just say it doesn’t turn out very well.

I’m at a time in my life when it seems as though everyone around me is having kids, talking about having kids, or asking me when I’m going to have kids. It’s pretty rare to hear someone say that they don’t want kids, let alone to read about it in a novel. In this interview, the book’s author, Lionel Shriver, gives a pretty honest answer to the question, “Do you think it’s selfish not to have children?”:

I believe that my decision not to have kids is entirely selfish. It’s out of protection of the kind of life that I now lead that I don’t want to give up. The kind of geographical independence I experience. Even what we just spoke of — not wanting to get pregnant. It’s a protection of a physique to which I’m very attached. I can’t think of a single reason that isn’t directed toward me.

The only selfless aspect of not having children is the degree to which I might be considering the welfare of a child born to me if I didn’t really want him.

The movie version will probably focus on the outrageous and over the top aspects of this book and on the school massacre itself, because that’s what movies do. But after watching the trailer, I definitely still want to see it. (I’ll be watching We Need to Talk About Kevin at TIFF this year.)

I highly recommend reading the book, but you should also check out the movie when it opens in theatres.

Awful Library Books

I came across this post on BuzzFeed the other day that led me to what may be my new favourite website.
Awful Library Books is devoted to bringing its viewers the best of the worst when it comes to library books. It’s not really that the books are bad so much as they are strange. In the words of Mary and Holly, the librarians who run the site, “These books are just odd, outdated or maybe should be reconsidered under a current interpretation of collection policies.”

I admit that I’ve purchased some pretty strange books at library sales over the years. And since Awful Library Books accepts submission, I now have a use for them.

One year later

Today is my blog’s one year anniversary.
One year = over 5,000 views, 83 posts including one Freshly Pressed (that was a fun day!), 179 comments.

I just wanted to say thanks for being part of it all.

Now…who wants some cake?