Last Laugh Goes to Self-Published Humorist

The self-published winner of Canada's most prestigious literary humor award now has a publisher. (See "Self-Published Author Wins Prestigious National Award," May 1.)

Douglas Gibson Books, an imprint of McClelland & Stewart, beat out the two other Canadian publishers who had expressed interest in The Best Laid Plans, a political satire by Toronto's Terry Fallis, after it won the CAN$10,000 Stephen Leacock Medal last month.

The literary agent who secured the deal for Fallis had turned him down when she was first approached with the manuscript.

Self-Published Author Wins Prestigious National Award

According to this morning's Globe and Mail newspaper out of Toronto, a debut novel self-published by its author after he couldn't attract an agent or publisher, has won Canada's most prestigious award for literary humor: the CAN$10,000 Stephen Leacock Medal.

Terry Fallis of Toronto, a 48-year-old first-time author, beat out four other finalists, all of whom had been published by regional or national publishers.

Fallis published his political satire The Best Laid Plans with the print-on-demand service iUniverse after successfully offering free downloadable podcasts on his own web site and at Podiobooks.

After Fallis was put on the Leacock Medal's short list earlier this spring, Beverley Slopen, one of Canada's best-known literary agents, changed her mind and agreed to take him on. "I love it when people break the rules and win," Slopen told The Globe and Mail's James Adams.