Hope you’re all staying safe (and dry) tonight, Quill fans! I’ve hunkered down with tea and my laptop in a basement hoping to get some work done while Nature’s lightshow continues outside!

This year is the first year where September doesn’t mark the beginning of a new school year for me – but that doesn’t mean I’ve left academia behind!  If you’re a Canadian Lit prof at a university or college, you’ve probably heard from me in the last few weeks singing the praises of our books and our support to professors who bring our books into the classroom!

Wondering which lucky students will find PQL titles on their reading lists this year? Students at both Brock U and Western will be covering books like The Dodecahedron and The Essential P.K. Page this year!

This is exciting for us – it’s great that a fresh crop of students will be enjoying our books this semester.  We’re hoping there are more opportunities for PQL books to pop up on course lists across Canada in semesters to come, so we’re developing a program to support instructors and students working with our titles.  You might notice on the page for The Dodecahedron, we have a set of Discussion Questions that would serve as great jumping-off points for class discussions, presentations, study sessions, or to help brainstorm for that essay late at night over a half-empty red-bull can. (I’ve been there!) If instructors are planning to teach only a selection from a book (say, a handful of poems from one of the Essential Poets titles), we’d be happy to focus our discussion questions on those areas of the book! Just shoot us an email and let us know what we can help you with!

We Porcupettes are open to all kinds of ideas – want to hold a contest at your university to get students excited about an upcoming book? Want to try and get in touch with the author to ask further questions about the book? Looking for other PQL titles that might suit your course outline? Curious about a title that piques your interest? Have some other fantastic idea that I haven’t listed here? Don’t be shy – let us know! One of the benefits of small-press publishing is the close relationship we have with our customers. We’re available and happy to hear from readers and professors how we can make your reading experience more stimulating and enjoyable.

(and pssst, Western and Brock students – keep an eye on Letters from the Porcupette to see if you can win some books from your course lists before you need them for class!)

Are there any books you studied in school that have stayed with you forever? Let me know in the comments!

PS- If you’re a fan of Better Book Titles, be sure to check out SaltyInk’s hilarious new post Better Book Titles: Atlantic Canadian Edition!