Say hello to Colin Rier, our new sales administrator! Colin is joining us on a 13-month maternity leave replacement contract, during which time he will coordinate Page Two’s bulk sales and translation rights programs and manage our sales data and inventory needs.
Colin holds a BA in history and Canadian studies from McGill University and was previously a publishing assistant at Penguin Random House Canada. We’re thrilled to have him on our growing sales team.
Read on to learn all about Colin, including his passion for food and cookbooks.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional background?
While at McGill, my love for food led me to host food walking tours at the Jewish Museum of Montréal, develop a food-based community-building project, write about Montréal’s restaurants for Time Out, and work as an intern in the cookbook collection at McGill’s rare book library. For the last two years, I worked as a publishing assistant at Appetite, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada with a focus on lifestyle and cookbook publishing.
What excites you most about your new role?
Supporting authors! Helping authors bring their vision to fruition (and to market) is one of the great joys of working in publishing.
What’s your favorite book you’ve read in the last year and why?
LaserWriter II by Tamara Shopsin. A book that totally takes you into its world, which is especially great when that world is a legendary early ‘90s Mac repair shop. Bonus, the author, who is an illustrator for The New Yorker and The New York Times, designed the book’s amazing cover. If the name Shopsin is familiar, yes, the author is part of the family behind the iconic NYC restaurant.
Honorable mention for 305 Lost Buildings of Canada by Raymond Biesinger and Alex Bozikovic. A book that is both an absolute delight to flip through, but also a sad reminder of all the beautiful buildings that are no longer standing.
And because I’m a staunch believer in cookbooks-are-books-too, I was really impressed by Jessie Sheehan’s Snackable Bakes. I now want every chocolate dessert I make to be as good as the Mexican Hot Chocolate Pudding Cake… and it never is!
Do you have a favorite word (or words)?
Butter.
If you had to eat only one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
This is the question I think about 24/7, yet I’m never quite sure of my answer. I think I have to go with the food I am always craving: tacos al pastor. And yes, they have to be the true trompo variety and preferably from El Vilsito, the Mexico City wonderland that is an auto repair shop by day and a taqueria by night.