ALBERTA AUTHORS
Literary Arts
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Interview with Laurie Greenwood, bookstore owner, for Dreamers and Doers.
Q: How do explain the success of Greenwoods and literary arts in the
province of oil and cowboys?
A: Well it is interesting.
It’s quite different in Calgary than it is in Edmonton.
I have friends who own independent bookstores in Calgary and
Calgary is pretty much the corporate capital of Canada.
And as such has always had a number of chain bookstores and smaller
independents. Where as in Edmonton, we’ve had a large number of good independent
bookstores, all award winning bookstores, and I think not only because
of the government capital, but because of the University of Alberta being here.
We have 35,000 people on campus, both faculty and students, probably 50,000 with faculty and students, that of course promote reading all the time. I’ve been told that outside of Toronto, Edmonton has the highest per capita use of the library over anywhere else in Canada. And I think that is amazing. Publishers used to come out and say, boy do you ever sell a lot of books here in Edmonton. Why is that? And I’d say well, there’s eight months of snow. You know, winter always helps but I think Edmonton also in particular because of the scholastic community can support a high quality literary scene.
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