Book is closed on Raincoast publishing Raincoast Books, which recently announced plans to close its publishing program, will honour all its contractual obligations to authors, according to a company executive.

Jamie Broadhurst, vice-president of marketing, noted that Raincoast Books will push through the publication of 15 titles this spring, with the final book coming out in June.

“We are leaving the publishing field as honourably as possible,” Broadhurst told the Straight by phone. “We are making a commitment to fulfill the marketing campaigns for titles that are being published this spring.”

In a January 7 announcement, the Vancouver-based company said it will streamline its business operations and focus “exclusively on its long-term distribution partners and wholesale business”. The firm cited the rise in the value of the Canadian dollar last year as a major factor in its decision to shed costs.

Broadhurst told the Straight that the company will also cut about a dozen small client-publishers from its distribution business. He pointed out that 85 percent of the company’s revenues comes from distribution, mostly of books from the U.S. “Our role within the Canadian book industry...will be to get Canadian books into Canadian bookstores faster than anyone else in Canada,” he added.

Margaret Reynolds, executive director of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, pointed out that the closure of Raincoast’s publishing division isn’t indicative of a general malaise in the industry. She explained to the Straight that, unlike Raincoast Books, firms that are not engaged in exporting and importing books to and from the U.S. aren’t deeply affected by the high Canadian dollar.

> Carlito Pablo

Townhouses planned for York site The new owners of the York Theatre on Commercial Drive plan to replace the theatre with eco-friendly townhouses.

Paul Phillips, president of EDG Homes Inc., which purchased the property last October as Vintage Development Corp. with business partners Small Favours Pictures Limited and 0805122 BC Limited, told the Straight he is not interested in preserving the theatre.

“Our interest is to develop an environmentally sensitive, LEED-certified townhome development there—a cutting-edge property in line with the EcoDensity of [Vancouver mayor] Mr. Sullivan’s dreams,” he said by phone. “It will be townhomes with attached garages, with roof gardens and low-toxicity materials.”

Phillips said he and his partners will submit their plans to the city within the next week or two, and expect development to begin in May or June this year.

Members of Vancouver’s arts community, led by Tom Durrie, the former general manager of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, have been campaigning to save the York Theatre since last fall. They now hope to find a way to purchase the property from the developers. “The idea is to buy time,” Durrie said.

Roger Chilton, chair of the Downtown Vancouver Association’s arts and culture committee and part of the campaign to save the theatre, told the Straight he’s confident someone will step forward with the necessary funds.

“Whoever ties up the capital wouldn’t lose money,” Chilton said, “but they’d make a huge contribution to the community holding their capital in this investment, which they could always resell.”

Phillips is not completely averse to the idea of selling his recently acquired property. “We’re businessmen and the property’s always for sale, I guess, at the right price,” he said.

> Jessica Werb

ZERO-G dance gets off ground Every dancer’s dream is to escape the limitations of gravity. On December 30, local performer Kathleen McDonagh did just that, with the help of choreographer Jeanne Robinson and the Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G) of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Using a modified Boeing 727 jet, ZERO-G aims to simulate the sensations of space flight through controlled in-flight manoeuvres, and it was this that caught the attention of Bowen Island resident Robinson—author, along with her husband, Spider, of the well-received Stardance trilogy of science-fiction novels.

Currently in preproduction for The Stardance Experience, an IMAX-style large-format feature on weightless dance, Robinson credits her own experience on the December flight with confirming her intuitive understanding of what she calls “the next great art form”.

“Even though I wasn’t really front and centre, I immediately understood that this was exactly what I was writing about,” she said, in a call to the Straight.

The next step in the production process is to book the ZERO-G Boeing for a full day, so that codirector James Sposto and his crew can document McDonagh “flying” in space.

A brief video clip of McDonagh’s zero-gravity dancing can be seen at www.stardancemovie.blogspot.com/.

> Alexander Varty