October 11, 2011—Tomorrow, Port Colborne will become home to the tenth installation in the Project Bookmark Canada series when a Bookmark plaque is unveiled at Lock 8 on the Welland Canal. This Bookmark will feature a fictional scene set right at the lock, from the novel Sailor Girl by Sheree-Lee Olson, published by The Porcupine’s Quill.
“We’re very pleased to bring this portion of Sailor Girl to Port Colborne and to make the connection between the site and the story,” says Miranda Hill, Founder and Executive Director of Project Bookmark Canada.
Project Bookmark Canada installs plaques (called “Bookmarks”) bearing text from stories and poems in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set. The national charitable organization is building a cross-Canada network of site-specific literary installations that will allow Canadians and visitors to read their way right across the country.
This tenth Bookmark is made possible through an initiative called Ontario: Read It Here, produced in partnership with Open Book Ontario (OpenBookOntario.com)—the organization that connects the public to Ontario’s vibrant literary scene—and the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College. Ontario: Read It Here is generously funded by the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Each Bookmark in the Project Bookmark Canada series is installed on public—or publicly accessible—land, and the participation of local governments is vital to the initiative. “Port Colborne could not have been more enthusiastic to host this tribute to their city as a fictional setting,” Hill says. “The mayor’s office, the local media and the celebrated Roselawn Reading Series have all welcomed the Bookmark and the author to the community.”
“We’re happy to invite visitors to Port Colborne and to encourage our residents to get to know our city even better, through facts and now through fiction,” says Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey. “We’re very pleased to be part of the Project Bookmark Canada network.”
Tim Inkster, publisher of The Porcupine’s Quill, notes that the Sailor Girl Bookmark is doubly significant for him. “My father sailed on the Lakers as a deckhand, briefly, in the late 1930s, and my father's father was Captain Walter Inkster of Collingwood, who was something of a legend on the Lakes,” Inkster says. “So it is with great personal pride that I welcome the installation of Sheree-Lee Olson's Sailor Girl Bookmark at Lock 8 in Port Colborne.”
Sailor Girl author Sheree-Lee Olson says that the Bookmark also deepens her connection to the area. “It's an amazing honour to have a presence in a landscape that helped shape who I am,” says Olson. “This Bookmark feels like coming full circle, in all its senses."
The Bookmark for Sailor Girl will be unveiled by author Sheree-Lee Olson and Mayor Vance Badawey on Wednesday, October 12 at 10:45 a.m. at the park at Lock 8. Members of the public are invited to attend the unveiling. To learn more about the Bookmark series, visit projectbookmarkcanada.ca. Find articles and interviews about the novel, the author and the area at OpenBookOntario.com.
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Contact:
Miranda Hill, Founder and Executive Director
Project Bookmark Canada
905-975-1797
miranda.hill@projectbookmarkcanada.ca
www.projectbookmarkcanada.ca
@BookmarkCanada
Nancy Giles, Executive Assistant to Mayor Badawey
City of Port Colborne
905-835-2900 ext. 301
nancygiles@portcolborne.ca
www.portcolborne.ca
