Fiction

Relaunched! At Long Last


Some of you will recall that last year my computer did the unforgivable and died unexpectedly, taking AuthorsAloud with it. Yes, the site still existed on-line, and visitors were still able to come and listen and enjoy. But the site was static; all the page files that made up the structure of AuthorsAloud were gone and so I wasn’t able to add new readings. What was required was a complete reconstruction from the ground up. And that took much longer than I had anticipated.

But now we’re back, and I believe we’re better than ever.

First of all, we’re relaunching with the benefit of six new readings, bringing our running total to 90 authors! Five of those new authors can be seen in the featured readings section near the top of the page, and the sixth, Christopher Willard, will get his face up there soon. The new readings are a nice mix of prose and poetry. Tricia Dower, Anik See, Jessica Westhead and Christopher Willard offer a readings from their latest and very different works of fiction. While poets Catherine Black and Desi Di Nardo share readings from their latest collections. I’m excited to be able to bring the work of all six of these exciting authors to you. Black, Di Nardo, Dower and Willard have also taken the trouble to record Insights into their work, and they’re fascinating listening.

While we’re here, let me tell you about a couple of new features of AuthorsAloud. Both in their very early stages.

The first is the events section, which means to provide visitors with listings of live author readings all across the country. AuthorsAloud is all about supporting Canadian authors by providing an audience for performances of their work, and I believe that should include live performances as well as recorded ones. There’s nothing more encouraging to an author on tour than seeing people come out to their readings (and nothing more dispiriting than the opposite) and AuthorsAloud would like to contribute to the success of those performances by making visitors aware of where and when authors will be reading at a city nearby.

The success of the listings will depend largely on the participation of authors and publishers. AuthorsAloud doesn’t have the resources to go out and gather these listings; it’s going to be up to authors and their publicists to provide the information in the necessary format so that it can be published easily and quickly. A portal has been provided for that purpose.

The other new feature is the AuthorsAloud Poll. Go and vote!

There are more plans for more improvements to AuthorsAloud. Now that the site is back up and running, it will continue to improve and evolve. I hope you’ll come back often and see what the future brings!

— Trevor Cole
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