It was my first time as a judge for a literary awards contest and I approached the job with trepidation. I'm not much of a fan of book awards in the first place, as it seems like the vast majority of the accolades go to books that have already been spotlighted by every magazine and newspaper in Canada. Meanwhile, other books go ignored, victims of a process that often confuses mass appeal with talent. Nevertheless, I took the assignment, figuring that at the very least I could influence the awarding body, point the way towards recognizing a book or two that hasn't been shaped by the CanLit cookie cutter and expertly baked into an appealing, if somewhat artificial, mass-produced confection.

As it turns out, QSPELL, also known as the Quebec Society for the Promotion of English Language Literature, didn't need my prodding. And the rigours of acting as one of the judges whose duty it was to nominate a shortlist of five books published in 1997 and written by first-time authors residing in Quebec were ameliorated by the fun-loving, bizarre, and boisterous texts sent my way. Other awards bodies in Canada could learn a thing or two from the books entered in the QSPELL first author competition. In fact, almost anybody interested in the state of publishing in Canada could learn something from a survey of the books that arrived on my doorstep one morning, though their arrival in a large cardboard box initially provoked a gut feeling of having made a terrible error.

Beyond CanLit's Cloisters

I took a deep breath and started ripping up packing tape. Pretty soon I had 15 books piled on my living room floor. Just looking at the heap convinced me that I was in for an experience that would take me far beyond the cloistered confines of established CanLit circles. Some of the publications I had been sent looked more like chapbooks than books (always a good sign). As well, there didn't appear to be a single large mainstream publisher in the group. While this might not bode well for the financial prosperity o f aspiring writers of Quebec (and it might not speak well of the capacity of the big publishers to find talent outside Toronto) it certainly suggested that I wasn't going to be stuck plowing through a bunch of Alice Munro rip-offs.

Of the 15 books, 10 came from independent small presses (half of them from outside Quebec), and five were self-published. I was, quite frankly, very surprised. Not because so many people published their own books (as editor of the guide to underground culture and publishing in Canada, I know better than anyone that talented individuals often go the route of self-publishing). What amazed me was that an official arts organization -- no doubt saddled with all the bureaucracy and high-brow cultural prejudice that drag so many well-meaning arts organizations into the cesspool of irrelevance -- was actually sanctioning the activities of one of Canada's least respected, least represented literary constituencies: the self-publisher.

What a refreshing relief it was to see a book awards program that didn't automatically discount writers whose desire to be a participant in the cultural discourse overcame their financial good sense and the societal stereotype that turns its nose up at the self-publisher. True, some of these books were awful. But they were awful because their pages oozed with naive hope, not because their author had colluded with the marketing department to crank out yet another cynical dirge on Bre-X. At their worst, these books were amateur; they were never pointless.

The Real Thing

Of course, even if one of the self-published books I read ends up winning the award, its author will have to walk the long road toward respectability. QSPELL's hopefuls seemed well aware of the fact that good writing isn't all it takes for a book to reach an audience. These author-entrepreneurs went to great pains to actually make their books look like the real thing. Whether they were perfect bound or stapled, had full colour or two colour covers, these books looked like they could have come spewing off of the book industry assembly line. Thanks to technological innovations, the average book buyer would be unable to tell that these texts were self-published. Only the subject matter deviated: futuristic, reality-distorted urban fiction, an academic study of Montreal Jews, dense language poetry.

Once I had managed to get through all the books -- some of them laughably bad, others reaching for noble pinnacles but falling short, victims of poor editing and lofty expectations -- I was forced to come to some type of judgment. I had my favourites, but I also had immense respect for the whole stack of books, each one representing the best of intentions, piles of printed words that stood for a literary world not about sales or grants or marketing tie-ins with gourmet coffee chains, but for the immense capacity of the human spirit to engage in creative activity, regardless of the cost, the consequences, or, worst of all, the indifference of the publishing industry and its awards.

In the end, I wanted to give them all a little something: recognition, a cash prize, a hearty handshake. If it were up to me, I'd take the cash the big G events lavish on promotions and gala dinners and dispense them to the self-publishers and fledgling writers of Montreal. But it's not up to me. I'm just a former QSPELL judge, and the only award I can dispense is a few kind words to my unrecognized peers, adventurers who go where far too few book competitions are willing to follow.