Three Cheers for Europe's New Author-Friendly Law

Today I'm just quickly checking back in on an earlier episode to let you know that the European Parliament has indeed voted in favour of progressive new legislation encouraging and protecting professional content, including writing and publishing, across all member states.

Finally, there's a group of lawmakers who see behind the curtain, and have made a real effort to share the online wealth, regulate and require responsible behavior from online platforms. This new law promises new content licensing opportunities for authors and artists fenced off from the banquet created by their own hard work.

You can access this podcast on either Soundcloud, RadioPublic, Stitcher, the Apple podcasts app, or the Google Podcast app. You can find individual episodes through my own website at www.jkdegen.com/, and @bookroompod on Twitter. If you have suggestions for stories I might want to cover, you can reach out on Twitter or by e-mail at bookroom14@yahoo.com.

Image of the European Parliament building in Brussels courtesy me and my little camera.

Talking Books in Parliament

In the last episode, I took you into a ballroom for an award ceremony. Today, we have another fancy room for you.

I’m taking you with me into the Parliament of Canada for a short discussion about the state of writing and publishing in my country, and a specific problem that has plagued the work of authors in Canada for the last seven years now. Free copying of massive amounts of published work by schools, colleges and universities.

You can access this podcast on either Soundcloud, RadioPublic, Stitcher, the Apple podcasts app, or the Google Podcast app. You can find individual episodes through my own website at www.jkdegen.com/, and @bookroompod on Twitter. If you have suggestions for stories I might want to cover, you can reach out on Twitter or by e-mail at bookroom14@yahoo.com.

Image of the Peace Tower courtesy me and my little camera.

Fanciness — the RBC Taylor Prize brightens a winter day

The RBC Taylor Prize for 2019 was awarded in early March at a swanky lunch in Toronto.

Come on into the ballroom with me, and listen to Noreen Taylor describe the very beginnings of the prize. You'll also hear a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada introducing Kate Harris, who wrote "Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road."

Kate Harris is this year's winner of the RBC Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.

You can access this podcast on either Soundcloud, RadioPublic, Stitcher, the Apple podcasts app, or the Google Podcast app. You can find individual episodes through my own website at www.jkdegen.com/, and @bookroompod on Twitter. If you have suggestions for stories I might want to cover, you can reach out on Twitter or by e-mail at bookroom14@yahoo.com.

Peter Penguin

Between periods of a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game, I sit down with my old friend Peter to talk about his — somewhat obsessional — love of Penguin paperbacks. We also get into memory loss, and how we both want to buy a turntable and start collecting vinyl again.

We're really not as old as we sound.

You can access this podcast on either Soundcloud, RadioPublic, Stitcher, the Apple podcasts app, or the Google Podcast app. You can find individual episodes through my own website at www.jkdegen.com/, and @bookroompod on Twitter. If you have suggestions for stories I might want to cover, you can reach out on Twitter or by e-mail at bookroom14@yahoo.com.