The Quebec Writers' Federation has come up with a wonderful campaign to help raise the profile of Quebec's English-language authors. It's called Love Ms. Julie and I was lucky enough to be included.
Ms. Julie is, according to a description of the program by Quill & Quire, a "saucy Quebec librarian with a thing for Quebec writers." The character is featured on a blog and inside a "scrapbook" that includes a listing of recent books by Quebec authors and pictures of Julie hangin' with authors. Here's the two of us (oh what Photoshop can do!):
The shot, taken by Liam Maloney, is also featured in the scrapbook, which was sent out to Canadian literary festivals and other publishing folk. Ms. Julie was also seen cavorting around Book Expo Canada. You can check out the details here.
If you want to take part, grab your copy of my book (you bought it, right?) and snap a fun picture of you reading it. Then send it to me and I'll get it added to the Love Ms. Julie blog.
She looks like Tina Fey. But Canadian.
I wish you would have told me that my hair was sticking up like that ;)
I was unhappy at the idea of Miss Julie, because I was worried her blog and made-persona might be seen as an equivalent to “astroturfing” and put into question us real bloggers who sometimes like to write about local lit. But I’m mellowing out about her, and at least hope she does her job and attracts attention to Quebec Anglo books.