What We Are
We are people of the web who love books, and people of the book who love the web, mostly based in Montreal. We are in the process of building something that we hope will be useful to writers and book makers. While we’re working on that, we thought we’d share some of our ideas about books and writing and making books, and other things of interest.
We post the occasional guest contribution. We particularly interested in how reading and writing are changing in the digital era. Send us a note if you are interested.
We’d love to hear from you: contact@bookoven.com
Who We Are (some of us anyway)
Hugh, co-founder of Book Oven, is a writer and web-developer. He’s the founder of LibriVox.org, an all-volunteer project to make free public domain audiobooks, once called “perhaps the most interesting collaborative cultural project this side of Wikipedia.” His company built a cultural podcasting portal for the Canadian government, and earideas.com, a daily compendium of the best audio on the web. He has degrees in Mathematics & Engineering, as well as Philosophy from Queen’s University, and worked in environmental policy, climate change and finance, before rediscovering the web in 2004. In addition to the above, Hugh is co-editor of Datalibre.ca, President of the Board of Directors of the Atwater Library, Canada’s oldest lending library, and its last-remaining Mechanics’ Institute, and Past-President (and — still! — current player) with the Westmount Rugby Club, the oldest rugby club in North America. Favourite authors include: Haruki Murakami, Jose Saramago, Miriam Toews, and Vladimir Nabokov.
Steph, Co-founder of Book Oven, has been working on the web for the last decade or so, wearing many different hats. She happens to be an expert on best web practices, actively involved in grassroots organizations advocating for an open and better WWW through community leadership, education and occasional public speaking. She also has a severe addiction to books, that culminates chronic bookshelf shortage issues in her home. Steph has been writing online since 1999, with her latest and most sporadic project being a series of untitled writings.
Yanik is a sys admin, and senior developer, who has been programming since the early 90’s. He started his own web shop while in college, and sold his first web site around 1996. He obtained a diploma in computer science in 1996 and hopped from traditional desktop application development in C++ to tech support before ending back on the web in 2000. Since then, Yanik has built sites for some of the biggest companies in Canada (banks, telecom firms, media agencies) in ASP, Coldfusion, PHP and Python.
Suw is a blogger, social media consultant, journalist, writer and ailurophile. She works with companies, implementing social tools to improve collaboration and communication. She speaks frequently at conferences around the world and has written for publications such as The Guardian and CIO Magazine.
Suw is also a copyright and digital rights activist. She founded the UK’s Open Rights Group in 2005 and has campaigned on a variety of issues, including fighting the extension of copyright term on sound recordings in the EU.
A passionate supporter of Creative Commons, in 2008 Suw lead ORG’s Creative Business in the Digital Era project. The creative projects studied including Tom Reynold’s book, Blood, Sweat and Tea, which was released simultaneously online and in print.
Suw started blogging in 2002 and now keeps several blogs, including her personal blog Chocolate and Vodka; a blog about social media, business and the media, Strange Attractor (with her husband, journalist Kevin Anderson); and Kits and Mortar, a blog about designing an environmentally responsible and cat-friendly home.
