The shortlists for the 2010 ReLit Awards have been announced and we're happy to see so many of our recent favourites have made the cut!

Congratulations go to:

NOVEL

Away From Everywhere, Chad Pelley (Breakwater)
Wrong Bar, Nathaniel G. Moore (Tightrope)
Overqualified, Joey Comeau (ECW)
The Beautiful Children, Michael Kenyon (Thistledown)
The Plight House, Jason Hrivnak (Pedlar)
 

Another set of lists are making the rounds of the book blogs this week -- the most overrated authors of a given nation. The Afterword made sure that Canada was not left out of the fray and published their list on August 24th. However, of more interest to us here at the LPG was the list they posted on August 25th -- the most underrated Canadian authors. Many of the talented writers on their list have published with at least one of our member publishers at some point in time.

Check out these authors:

Clark Blaise - He's published several titles, including Southern Stories and If I Were Me with The Porcupine's Quill as well as Selected Essays with Biblioasis.

Quill & Quire is helping us spread the word that, as they put it, we want you to reach out and touch us!

This fall participating independent booksellers across the country will be featuring a selection of titles from a handful of LPG publishers in our 'Handmade Campaign.' The campaign is meant to remind us, through all the hype and doom of the arrival of ebooks for the masses, of the amazing experience of sitting down with a book -- wherever you happen to be and for as long as you want -- feeling the paper between your fingers as you flip the page, smelling that amazing 'book smell,' and admiring the beautiful work of art that a physical book is.

If that makes you want to go out and pick up a book, we have a few suggestions! Visit our Handmade Campaign book list to browse the participating titles.