We were told not to feed the animals, but what about when they feed us?
A variety of animals accompanied by professional writing students offered a delectable array of baked goodies for sale to passing humans as part of a fundraising event on Oct. 24 in the Lower Bear Pit. Professional writing students of the WRIT 4721 Book Publishing Practicum course organized the sale to raise funds to support the publication of a collection of short stories, written by Toronto-based author Nic Labriola, under the Leaping Lion Books imprint at York University.
Karzan Sulaivany (left) and Francesca Calabretta (aka Cheetah)
Since the provided budget for their publishing endeavour was quite limited, the animal-themed bake sale was the first of many planned fundraisers the students are using to help cover the cost of publishing Labriola's book.
"Our animal-themed bake sale was a great success," said Frances Gao, one of the organizers of the event. "We raised almost $300, which will go towards supporting our ongoing project of publishing a wonderfully dark and quirky collection of stories, written by Nic Labriola."
Labriola has written a collection of 13 dark, offbeat and humorous short stories that explore the themes of suffering and freedom. Animals sneak their way into these unconventional stories, and Labriola blurs the lin
es between humans and creatures.
Kyra Kratzmann (left) and Leah Abrams
The WRIT 4721 Book Publishing Practicum course offers fourth-year professional writing students in the book stream the opportunity to publish a book by an author, providing them with a taste of the publishing industry prior to graduation.
The professor, Michael O’Connor, sets a real publishing date. The students get a real budget and develop a realistic publishing plan that leads to a book.
To learn more about this venture and past titles, visit the Leaping Lion Books website.