"... lit on fire with excitement"

"… But The Silent Wife [by A. S. A. Harrison] has a striking story behind its publication that makes it an unlikely best seller: In a season that has been dominated by brand-name authors—Khaled Hosseini, Stephen King and J. K. Rowling—Ms. Harrison was a Toronto writer and an unknown, who had never published a novel before. Her book was released as a paperback original, not a hardcover, which is the preferred, more expensive format chosen when a publisher wants a book to make a big splash.

     And in a real-life tragic twist, Ms. Harrison died of cancer in April, only weeks before her book was published. She was 65….
     Samantha Haywood, Ms. Harrison’s literary agent in Canada, said that Ms. Harrison spent much of her career working as an editor and writing nonfiction under the name Susan Harrison.
     Until The Silent Wife, Ms. Harrison’s attempts at fiction had sputtered out. She wrote two novels that Ms. Haywood described as 'cozy mysteries,' but they never sold to a publisher.
     Then Ms. Harrison had the idea for The Silent Wife, with its concept of his-and-hers narratives. 'She was lit on fire with excitement,' Ms. Haywood said. “It was quite fully realized as an idea.'"
— Julie Bosman, The New York Times
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"a bigger piece of the action"

"We all know who Superman is. If you’re younger than 75, you don’t even remember a time when he didn’t exist. With the possible exception of Mickey Mouse, the indestructible and incorruptible Man of Steel is surely the most famous fictional character ever created in cartoon form.

     The two nerds from Cleveland who created Superman are not nearly as famous as he is, but they’re not exactly obscure, either. Since the mid-1970s, when the national news media took notice of their plight, it’s been well known that Jerry Siegel (the writer) and Joe Shuster (the illustrator) naïvely sold their rights to the character for next to nothing — and that their fight for a bigger piece of the action has led to a series of victories and has continued even after both men died in the 1990s."
— Peter Keepnews, The New York Times
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From: Lambiek

"Joe Shuster was born in Toronto, Canada, as the son of a Jewish Dutch father and an Ukrainian mother. He met Jerry Siegel when his family moved from Canada to Ohio in 1923. As teenagers, they published science-fiction fan magazines, and this was how they came in contact with Gladiator, the novel by Philip Wylie. This novel proved to be the biggest influence on their conception of Superman in 1933."
— Lambiek
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From: Wikipedia

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Early Atwood

From: Leaside High School Year Book (sosyalokur)

"[…] she told us that her first step in becoming a writer was buying a publication called Writers’ Markets, which said that the money was in true romance stories. She told us: 'I thought, I‘ll do that during the day and write my deathless masterpieces at night.' There was a certain formula to these stories, she said. 'There would be a choice between two men – one would have a motorcycle and one would work in a shoe store. The woman would get involved with the unreliable one . . . . There were various ways of ending the story. The best way was patching things up with the shoe store guy . . . . But there would always be a scene on the sofa: "and then they were one." I couldn’t bring myself to do that. That wasn’t going to happen.'

     Her next idea was journalism school. Her parents, 'biting their tongues', 'dredged up' a journalist second cousin, who told her that, as a woman, she would end up doing 'nothing but obituaries and the ladies’ fashion pages.' She decided to go to university and write in the summer holidays. At the time she graduated, teachers were in great demand, so she taught grammar to engineers at the University of British Columbia. 'At 8.30 in the morning. They were asleep. I was also asleep.'

Becoming a professional writer in Canada wasn’t easy for anyone. Atwood told us that in the 1950s and 1960s there were only about five literary magazines. In 1960, only five novels by Canadians were published in Canada. In bookshops, Canadian poetry and fiction would appear in the 'Canadiana' section. Many aspiring writers left for England or the US."
— Catherine Morris, The Times Literary Supplement Blog
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"These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves." —Gilbert Highet

"Ever wonder what happens to the books at the book store once all of the customers and workers are gone for the day? A friend posted this video on Facebook yesterday and it just blew me away. Sean Ohlenkamp (AKA crazedadman) and his wife plus a team of volunteers shelved and re-shelved hundreds of books night after night at Type book store in Toronto to make this whimsical stop motion piece."
— love and cupcakes
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