Dancing Cat Books is thrilled to announce that Live to Tell, a young adult mystery-thriller written by Lisa Harrington and published in September 2012, is has won the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature of the Atlantic Book Awards!

More info and purchase links for Live to Tell

Lisa Harrington’s website

The full list of Atlantic Book Awards winners

A Toronto-area book launch for The Family Took Shape, the first novel by Halifax author Shashi Bhat (who was born and raised in Richmond Hill, where the book is set), took place this past Saturday at the Sringeri Community Centre. The entire launch was planned and thrown by Shashi’s family, and was a resounding success. Cormorant Books publisher Marc Côté says a few words to recap the event:

“The launch itself was attended by about 300 guests, who sat in an auditorium to listen to speeches and a reading. I was asked to pull the ribbon tied around a stack of copies of The Family Took Shape, in order to release it officially. Then I spoke very briefly. Shashi read. Then her father – with her mother and her brother, the entire family on stage together, standing behind him – spoke about his daughter. His pride in her accomplishment was something to hear and behold; he began by explaining that he and his wife had tried their best to direct Shashi into becoming a doctor, but that she had become a writer instead. (Big laugh in the audience.) Then he said, ‘And now, she has published her first novel with the very prestigious Cormorant Books.’ He then thanked us all for our work on his daughter’s behalf.

Afterwards, no fewer than about ten people came up to thank John and me for attending the launch and for publishing an Indian immigrant writer. ‘Multiculturalism works when companies like yours publishes our children’ was a phrase we heard at least three times. (Every time I responded, ‘Thank you. But we published Shashi because of her talent and the novel she wrote.’)

It was a terrific afternoon.”

Shashi Bhat’s short fiction has been published in numerous journals, and her story “Indian Cooking” was a finalist for the 2010 RBC Bronwen Wallace Writers’ Trust Award. The official Halifax launch of The Family Took Shape will take place Tuesday June 4, at The Bitter End pub.

Free book!

Our prize will be a copy of Dark Days at Saddle Creek, the latest in Shelley Peterson’s Saddle Creek series of YA novels.

This is to coincide with a special ebook sales promotion for Sundancer, the first Saddle Creek book. For a limited time only, Sundancer is available from the ebook retailer of your choice for only $0.99!

Entry is easy: all you need to do is subscribe to our email newsletter (featuring all the latest in Cormorant/DCB news, events, and contests), and you’re set!

The winner will be selected from our newsletter subscribers at the end of next week (that’s Sunday, May 19th, 2013).

And just for fun, here’s a video of Cormorant/DCB marketing guy Bryan Ibeas riding a horse at Shelley Peterson’s farm:

Several months ago, to celebrate the Governor General’s Literary Award nomination for Deborah Kerbel’s YA novel Under the Moon, we held a contest for high school kids across the country.

Over a hundred talented young writers told us, in prose and in poetry, what keeps them up at night. Unfortunately, only a handful could win our sweet prize packages. It took a lot painful back-and-forth between the judges (Deborah Kerbel and the DCB staff), but we eventually narrowed down the entries we just couldn’t say no to.

So, without further ado, here are the winners of the What Keeps You Up St Night? contest!

Read More »

Shashi Bhat’s debut novel, The Family Took Shape, just landed in our wings or throat pouches or whatever it is cormorants catch books with – and goodness is it pretty.

And now that it’s here, you can win a free copy! Here’s how:

1. Sign up to our free email newsletter, featuring all the latest releases, events, and news from Cormorant Books

2. Wait until Monday, May 6th, when we’ll select a winner of this here giveaway.

The accolades continue to roll in for Lisa Harrington’s YA thriller, Live to Tell. This morning, the Crime Writers of Canada announced that Live to Tell has been shortlisted for the 2013 Arthur Ellis Award in the Best Juvenile/YA category. Read More »

We’re giving away free books … again!

This week, our prize will be a copy of Elizabeth Ruth’s Matadora, set to launch in Toronto on Wednesday with This is Not a Reading Series (check here for launch details)!

Entry is easy: all you need to do is subscribe to our email newsletter (featuring all the latest in Cormorant/DCB news, events, and contests), and you’re set!

The winner will be selected from our newsletter subscribers at the end of the week (that’s Sunday, April 14th, 2013).

We’re giving away free books!

This week, our prize will be the pair of award-nominated titles featured in our latest blog post: Words to Live By by William Whitehead, and Live to Tell by Lisa Harrington.

Entry is easy: all you need to do is subscribe to our email newsletter (featuring all the latest in Cormorant/DCB news, events, and contests), and you’re set!

The winner will be selected from our newsletter subscribers at the end of the week (that’s Friday, April 5th, 2013).

Award-wise, 2013 has been a great year for Cormorant/DCB, and things just keep getting better and better!

William Whitehead’s memoir Words to Live By, about his life working in Canadian culture (both on his own and together with his partner Timothy Findley), was recently shortlisted for the 2013 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor.

Past recipients of the prize include Robertson Davies, Farley Mowat, and W.O. Mitchell. The winner of the $15,000 prize will be announced  on June 6. Click here for the rest of the shortlist

Also recently announced was the shortlist for the Atlantic Book Awards’ 2013 Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature, featuring Live to Tell by Lisa Harrington.

Live to Tell is Harrington’s sophomore YA novel, featuring a teenage girl who awakes in a hospital with no memory of the previous night and accused of a crime she isn’t sure she committed. Harrington joins Kathleen Martin and Sharon E. McKay on this year’s shortlist.

The winner will be announced on May 16.

Dave Hugelschaffer was recently interviewed by Shelagh Rogers on CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter about Whiskey Creek, his latest murder-mystery starring forest fire forensics expert Porter Cassel. Click here to listen to the interview!

And from now until April 1st, we’re offering the first novel in the Porter Cassel series, Day Into Night, at a special promotional price of only 99 cents on Kobo and Kindle! Light the spark, but watch out for the inferno!