Wednesday 18 June 2014

FREE sample of a great summer read...


Hi there

There are so many wonderful books by so many incredible writers. I know I can't keep track of them all. So, since I'm a Montreal writer with a great book you may not have heard of, a book that might be your perfect summer read, I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you about it, and offer you a free sample.

The FREE story is here: http://bit.ly/zXV1ne; “Pie” won Gemini Magazine’s first flash fiction contest. I hope you enjoy it; it’s a story that has deep resonance for me.

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN is an award winning collection of 14 short stories, most of them published in CanLit magazines (The Antigonish Review, carte blanche, Descant, Exile Quarterly, The Nashwaak Review, The New Quarterly, Windsor Review, etc. etc. etc.).

It won the David Adams Richards Prize from the Writers Federation of New Brunswick, the Mona Adilman Prize for fiction on Jewish themes (a JI Segal Award), and made the 2011 CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice Contest Top 10.





The Paperback is $14.40 and the E-book is $5.08 $2.99

"Beverly Akerman’s collection of stories THE MEANING OF CHILDREN manages to capture with both wit and wisdom the effervescence, the indignities, the curiosity, and the fear that are part of a child’s eye view of the world. This book is teeming with wit and quality observation."
~ JI Segal Award Jury

"A keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. A work with a brilliant sense of story…Magical, and so refreshing for me to read. I absolutely loved it and I hope it goes on to do marvellous things. Yours is a luminous talent."
~JoAnne Soper-Cook, Author and Judge, the Writers Federation of New Brunswick's 2010 David Adams Richards Prize

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN was favourably reviewed by The Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, The Rover, and The Western Star, among other places...here are a couple more comments (many more, including the incredible Readers' Choice comments, can be found here):

“This isn’t the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment…[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.”
~Katie Hewitt, The Globe and Mail

“Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others.”
~Anne Chudobiak, The Montreal Gazette

“A collection of 14 short stories which covers the range of experience from the point of view of children, mums, and also aging parents as well. It’s all there in this lovely little book, short stories about life in a family that might just resemble yours. A wonderful gift for mother’s day, perhaps more long lived than the usual cut flowers.”
~Anne Lagacé Dowson, CJAD Radio journalist (Interview: http://youtu.be/djOXwJasZes)

Anyway, that's my spiel. Hope I haven't bent your ear too much and that you have a wonderful summer. 

And thank you for supporting great books and their writers!

Best wishes,

Beverly Akerman

PS THE MEANING OF CHILDREN would love to make your college or university syllabus!