Monday, October 31, 2011

Treats & a pumpkin patch


Preoccupied as we are with production details and marketing ideas and booth measurements and travel itineraries, today's significance hasn't escaped us, and we have stocked up on mini KitKats, Coffee Crisps and boxes of Smarties for the potential visitation of Jedi Knights, ballerinas and vampires (Twilight-, not Count Dracula-style). Halloween has gotten slightly overblown - and strangely adult-oriented - lately; just our opinion, but, then again, we never saw any need to venture beyond the two-holes-cut-in-a-bedsheet Ur-costume. Surely there's still room for the classics, like a Ray Bradbury story or a Peanuts special?

(image: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, internetmonk.com.)

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Gearing up for the fairs


We're deep into Craft Fair logistics; designing a new banner so our booth defines 'eye-catching'; organizing magazines and treats to compose our famed 'Christmas bundles'; and figuring our how to get our gorgeous subscription prize, Jean Claude Roy's Happy Valley, Goose Bay (2011) (which shows, we've been told, the Moravian church) safely to and fro not just the St. John's event but the 'do in Corner Brook as well.

(image: favouriteideas.com.)

Oh, and we have our next cover selected, too...

Monday, October 17, 2011

Framing the performing arts


While we're avidly waiting to see what our contributors submit for our "Performing Arts" issue, our own in-house writing is coming along as well. As mentioned before, MUN's Performing Arts Archives is a gold mine (and an apt and safe repository for those scripts, programs, papers and ephemera you may yourself have created or collected). We could do an issue on the posters alone.

(Image: acinl.ca.)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Start saving those dates


Our copy and ad deadline reminders are circulated; we like to give contributors a nudge about a month in advance, as this tends to stave off last minute panicking. A month from now we'll be knee-deep in filed prose, and also embarked on that time of year known as Craft Fair Season. Amazingly, it's on our marketing horizon already & again. This time next November we'll be halfway through the St. John's event. Might want to mark your own calendars (oh, and we'll have our new 2012 calendars on offer).

(Image: us123.rf.com.)

Monday, October 3, 2011

NQ branches out


One of the noted dates on the campus social calendar is the Pratt Lecture, and last Saturday novelist and former writer-in-residence Jane Urquhart did the honours. She talked about houses, actual, historical, and imaginary, and the architecture they lend to fiction (Thornfield Hall, anyone?). A reception followed, giving the NQ a chance to hobnob, and chat up the Fall Issue. Monday morning of course sees us back in the office and poised for another week of writing, editing, and creatively constructing the upcoming magazine.

(Image: abebooks.com.)