"Blame Canada" wins Gold.
On Friday night, June 5th, Trevor won the Gold award in the Business category at the National Magazine Awards. It was for the Report on Business Magazine story "Blame Canada" — a profile of Montana Senator Max Baucus, and a look at the trouble Canadian industry has fighting protectionist US politicians. You can read it here.


Norman Bray... optioned for film
Director Terrance Odette, working with Sienna Films of Toronto, has optioned Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life. Terrance wrote and directed the 1999 movie Heater, which was well-received on the festival circuit, as well as the movies Saint Monica and, most recently, Sleeping Dogs.


New Review of The Fearsome Particles
Blogcritics has just posted its review: "It is one of the most real stories of how well-meaning families go wrong that I have ever read."
Read the full review here.


TFP in Italy!
I’m happy to report that The Fearsome Particles will be published in Italy by Alet Edizioni. Details such as who will do the translation and what the publication dates will be have yet to be determined. But it’s a done deal, so thanks to the people at Westwood Creative Artists for making it happen.


McMaster Writer in Residence
Trevor Cole will be writer in residence at Hamilton’s McMaster University in the fall of 2009.

Trevor Cole has been called "one of the best young novelists in Canada" by The Globe and Mail. He has worked everywhere from a factory floor to the boardroom of a national newspaper. Since 1982 he’s made his living from words, first as a radio copywriter, typing out 30-second spots for bun shops, furriers and Nissan dealerships, then as a magazine editor, then as an award-winning journalist. Aside from an eight-month detour as the Globe and Mail’s travel editor, he spent 15 years in the newspaper’s magazine division, culminating in a successful three-year stint as a senior writer at Report on Business Magazine. Upon leaving the Globe in 2001 he wrote a fortnightly satirical column for Canadian Business, which for two years existed as a notorious irritant to many of Canada’s most prominent business leaders.

While still a journalist writing feature stories for Toronto Life, Report on Business Magazine and other publications, Cole has for the last several years devoted a great part of his energies to fiction. His first novel, Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life, published in 2004, garnered enormous acclaim, appeared on the Maclean’s bestseller list, was adapted for radio and audio book, and was nominated for a Governor General's Literary award and several others, which you can see below. His second novel, The Fearsome Particles, published in September of 2006, won for Cole his second Governor General's award nomination.

Cole is also an enthusiastic writing mentor. He has worked with high-school writers in the Writers-in-Electronic-Residence program, and recently completed a stint as the Edna Staebler writer-in-residence at the Kitchener Public Library, working with and encouraging the local writing community. He has also been a young-writer's mentor in the University of Toronto's Masters in English in the Field of Creative Writing and is currently serving as Writer in Residence at McMaster University.

Finally, Cole is the creator and force behind AuthorsAloud.com, a website dedicated to presenting short audio readings by Canadian poets and authors of literary fiction. The site now features readings by over ninety published writers, including established luminaries and authors at the beginning of their careers.