Hello friends. Passing this on...
I'm sure you have heard about what's going on in the writing world concerning the legislation that the government is trying to pass.
To sum up: they are going to cut funding for magazines and periodicals with subscriptions under 5000, which means ALL of the existing Canadian literary magazines. This includes more than just literary journals - which are centrally important to spreading new work - but also mags like The Walrus and other alt-news publications, children's outdoors mags like OWL and Chickadee (which I grew up with), visual/comic distributions like Carousel, etc. Almost every literary journal in our country basically lives off of volunteer work and is in no way a for-profit organization. If the bill passes then, likewise, every journal will go under because they won't be able to finance shipping costs. It doesn't matter how many people buy off the shelves: the gov't, intentionally or no, is going to silence our written culture because of subscription numbers.
So in response, a whole bunch of these magazines have gotten together and are offering a deal for subscription, in order to at least show that they're making an effort while the protest process (lobbying, writing to MPs, and so on) goes forward. The deal is subscribe to two and get one free, no taxes if you order online, and it makes it far cheaper than if you were to buy them off the newsstand. I believe the deadline is March 15th for this deal. If you have any fiscal freedom then it'd be a good show of support to sign up. Split it with someone you know who's interested - give one as a gift to someone else - anything to get the word out I suppose.
Here's the link:
https://secure.magazinescanada.ca/index.php?cat=20&catagory=LiterarySome other blogs in which this issue has been featured:
- http://www.descant.ca/blog/2009/03/07/encounters-with-books-in-particular-those-small-ones-that-arrive-in-the-mail-with-every-season/- http://biblioasis.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-peril.htmlI think it is most essential that the word gets out. If you can't subscribe- tell people. Write about it in your blog. Send letters! Speak out to preserve support for Canada's thriving literary and arts culture.