Seeds of NQ Spring

About five weeks until our copy deadline (March 7) and we've two great pieces already edited and filed and a batch more at various creative stages, from scrawl-on-a-post-it-inspiration to just-need-byline-info-and-we're-done. We've even sighted one potential cover image...with a couple of other possibilities floating around...the NQ will look gorgeous, for sure. Outside our magazine offices I can see the fresh white snow, the bare trees calm in the windless afternoon, the students walking with their hoods down, 'cause it's so mild. A bit of sunshine turning the Phys Ed facade into a warm buff tone. And, as people were saying at the gym yesterday evening, sure, for all that, it's been a halfway easy winter, and there's barely four months to go, five tops.

(Image: Jeanette Jobson, illustratedlife.blogspot.com.)

Sparks warmth

The NQ had a lovely time at Sparks this year - and the readings were recorded by CBC's Jamie Fitzpatrick for The Performance Hour, so you'll have (another) chance to catch them. The foyer, where we set up alongside Running the Goat, Walking Bird and Rattling Books, was festooned with balloons and feathers, the closing reception featured California pinot grigio, Chilean reds and herring, and even the weather more-or-less co-operated for most of the day. The sessions were packed; there's surely something very comforting about spending a winter Sunday being read to; comfort food for the ears.

(Image: winterinfisherhude.)

Great Big Acknowledgement

As part of the NQ's "Lives of Our Girls and Women" issue we thought to include a series of "Portraits", short bios on significant women in our history. We'll try and find some unsung heroines, but even prominent figures like Stella Burry and Margaret Duley deserve a shout-out as well. Just Googling "Famous Newfoundland and Labrador Women" throws up some intriguing names, including Demasduit, lately both a character in Kevin Major's new novel (New Under The Sun), and the inspiration for a song by Great Big Sea.

(Image: pastelpixels.com.)

P. S. Almost forgot - look for us at the Sparks Literary Festival this coming Sunday.

Lives of Our Girls and Women

A quiet, mild, public-transit-less January day, and high time to get the NQ in gear. First we'll start working through our submissions; we've already received a few articles on our theme (above). Then we'll set our printing schedule for the year, so our columnists, or house writers, can prepare their dulcet prose. And there is always something extra and unexpected that turns up and somehow brings the issue together: an image, a quote, a poem.

(Painting: Vermeer, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, mystudios.com.)

2011: Look About & Look Ahead

Two days before Old Christmas Day; still time for mummering, or to read (or watch John Huston's wonderful film adaptation of) James Joyce's The Dead. The weather outside the NQ office windows is uncommonly foggy and mild, which makes it hard to remember that it is a New Year, and we must move forward, perhaps propelled by 2011 plans for travel/education/enormous self-improvement. We'll start by sketching out our next issue, which currently consists of a green file folder studded with post-its of story ideas and suggestions, plus a glimmering of design-type notions, buds that will blossom in the spring.

(Image: oocites.com. I can't quite make out the signature: G. Loranger?)