swag grab bag

I know I usually post piles of books, both new and new-to-me.

But after I unpacked my suitcase and various satchels from UMP-related travel to Victoria (for the Congress of the Humanities) and Saskatoon (for NAISA), after I'd sorted the books I'd picked up into to-read-immediately and to-read-later piles, I was left with this pile of swag.

Swag is the branded stuff that organizations hand out as prizes or at conferences.

I'm not sure what it says about me that neither of two organizations where I've spent the bulk of my communications/administrative day-jobbery could afford good swag.

A paper gift bag or a fistfull of pens (made out of corn!) was about as far as either organization can/could legitimately stretch itself.

And, really, most swag is useless. Weird non-BPA-free plastic waterbottles. Strangely lightweight carabiners. Cheap hats.

But publisher swag is in a category all of its own.

I mean, how can you go wrong with pens, book bags, and post-it flag thingies?

(I'm still sort of in awe/skeptical of the UTP fortune cookie...)

I'll have you know that I wasn't a bookfair vulture, which is to say that I didn't swoop down and devour all the swag of the other exhibitors. 

My favourites are the pins.

Though I'm not much of a pin-wearer, I could wear the Robert Kroetsch Too Bad cover and Marita Dachsel "Wife" poem pin all day.

(Sourced from the respective booths of the University of Alberta Press and Anvil Press...)

One day, I'm hoping to talk UMP into post-it flag thingies. Or maybe even a black woolen hat with UMP in white on the front...