Alistair Macleod: International Bestsellers

Robertson Davies Dept: We love them at first when our books are accepted. We hate them later when it becomes increasingly clear that they have no idea how to turn them into international bestsellers, according to Montreal Gazette. That, at least, is the message conveyed in the slyly funny epilogue to Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, and Others. No matter what goes wrong - nasty reviews, clueless booksellers, tight-fisted friends are all included in Gibson's catalogue of probable post-publication calamities - feel free, go ahead, blame the publisher and if pressed, most authors will confess that their relationship with their publishers tends to be a love-hate one. This isn't a question of ambivalence, but of chronology. And while we may, on occasion, regret entertaining such bitter thoughts, the good news is we don't have to feel bad about this any more. According to veteran Canadian editor and publisher Douglas Gibson, he and his colleagues expect nothing less from us and our kind. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.