Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series

Feb. 10 Jan Rehner – On Pain of Death (Sumach,2008)

Jan Rehner has published poetry, literary criticism, a feminist analysis on infertility, and a text on critical thinking. Her first mystery novel, Just Murder (Sumach, 2003) won the 2004 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel. Her second, On Pain of Death (Sumach, 2008), was a finalist for the IPPY Book Award. She lives in Toronto and teaches humanities and writing at York University.

Feb.17 Peter Robinson – Piece of My Heart (An Inspector Banks novel) (McClelland & Stewart, 2006)

Peter Robinson is a crime novelist known for his series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. Since 1987 Robinson has written nineteen Inspector Banks novels, and has won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel five times. In 1996, Robinson won France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Sweden’s Martin Beck Award for In a Dry Season (Avon, 1999), the tenth book in his series.

His most recent work is All the Colours of the Darkness (McClelland & Stewart, 2008).

Mar.17 Debra Anderson – Code White (McGilligan Books, 2005)

Debra Anderson: An award-winning writer, playwright, and filmmaker, Debra Anderson is a recipient of the prestigious George Ryga Award for Playwriting. Her animated short film, Don’t Touch Me, premiered at the 1998 Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival and has been screened internationally at independent film festivals.

Her writing has been anthologized in Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws(McGilligan Books, 2003), Bent On Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales (Women’s Press, 2002), and the Lambda-nominated Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002). The author of one novel, Code White (McGilligan Books, 2005), Anderson also organizes and promotes Get Your Lit Out, an ongoing reading series based in Toronto that promotes local female authors.

Mar. 31 Nino Ricci – Lives of the Saints (Cormorant, 1990)

Nino Ricci’s first novel the best-selling Lives of the Saints(Cormorant, 1990) garnered international acclaim, appearing in over a dozen countries and winning a host of awards including, in Canada, the Governor-General’s Award for Fiction and the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and in England, the Betty Trask Award and the Winifred Holtby Prize. It was followed by In A Glass House(McClelland & Stewart, 1993) and Where She Has Gone (McClelland & Stewart, 1997), which completed the trilogy that Lives of the Saints began.

The Lives of the Saints trilogy was recently adapted for a television miniseries (2004) starring Sophia Loren, Nick Mancuso, and Kris Kristofferson. Ricci’s most recent novel, Testament (Doubleday Canada, 2002), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for Canada and the Caribbean and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and was the co-winner of the Trillium Award. A new novel,The Origin of Species, ( Doubleday Canada, September 2008).

Apr. 21 David Chariandy – Soucouyan (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007)

David Chariandy’s debut novel Soucouyant (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007) was a finalist for five prizes including the 2007 Governor-General’s Award, the 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book (Canada and the Caribbean) and the 2008 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (B.C.). Chariandy teaches English literature at Simon Fraser University, and is one of the founding editors of Commodore Books, the first Black Canadian literary publisher in Western Canada.

Apr. 28 Makeda Silvera – The Heart Does Not Bend (Vintage, 2003)

Makeda Silvera was born in Jamaica and has lived in Canada for over thirty years. She is the co-founder and managing editor of Sister Vision Press and is the author of two collections of short stories,Remembering G (Sister Vision, 1990) and Her Head a Village (Press Gang, 1994). She is the editor of the groundbreaking Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of Colour Anthology (Sister Vision, 1991), The Other Woman: Women of Colour in Contemporary Canadian Literature (Sister Vision, 1994), and Ma-Ka: Diaspora Juks (Sister Vision, 1997). The Heart Does Not Bend (Vintage, 2003) is her first novel. She lives in Toronto.

May 12 Sonnet L’Abbé – Killarnoe (McClelland & Stewart, 2007)

Sonnet L’Abbé is a Toronto-born writer of French-Canadian and Guyanese descent. She is the author of two collections of poetry, A Strange Relief (McClelland & Stewart, 2001) and Killarnoe(McClelland & Stewart, 2007). Her work has been internationally published and anthologized.

In 2000, she won the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for most promising writer under 35. L’Abbé has taught writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, reviewed poetry for theGlobe and Mail and is currently doing doctoral work in ecopoetics in the Department of English at the University of British Columbia

Sep 29 Anthony De Sa – Barnacle Love

Anthony De Sa grew up in Toronto’s Portuguese community, graduating from the University of Toronto. He completed post-graduate work at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and attended the Humber School for Writers and Ryerson University.

He currently heads the English Department at Father John Redmond (FJR) secondary school in Etobicoke, and lives in Toronto with his wife and three boys. De Sa’s first novel, Barnacle Love a finalist for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize was published by Doubleday Canada. His next major work, Carnival of Desire is currently scheduled for release in 2011. His short fiction has also been published in several North American literary magazines.

Oct. 6 Jan Zwicky – Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences

Poet, essayist, philosopher and musician Jan Zwicky, was born in Northern Alberta. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Toronto, and has taught both philosophy and creative writing at various universities and writing centres. She currently teaches philosophy at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Zwicky is an editor for the Ontario poetry publishing company Brick Books.

Zwicky’s poetic works include: Where Have We Been (1982),Wittgenstein Elegies (1986), The New Room (1989), Songs for Relinquishing the Earth (1998), awarded the Governor General’s Award in 1999, Twenty-one Small Songs (2000), Wisdom & Metaphor (2003), Robinson’s Crossing (2004), and Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences (2005). She is also the author of: A Theory of Ineffability (1982), Lyric Philosophy (1992), High Ground Broadsheets: Second Series 1990-1994 (1994), Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, op. 115 (1994), Why I Sing the Blues: Lyrics & Poems (ed. with Brad Cran, 2001), and Contemplation and Resistance: A Conversation (with Tim Lilburn, 2003).

Oct. 27 Lola Lemire Tostevin – The Other Sister

Born to a French-Canadian family in Timmins, Ontario, Lola Lemire Tostevin is a bilingual writer, although she works primarily in English. She earned a degree in Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta, taught Creative Writing at York University, and was a writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario from 2004-2005.

She is the author of three novels, Frog Moon (1994), translated into French as Kaki (1997), The Jasmine Man (2001), and her most recent novel, The Other Sister (2008). She is also the author of several poetry collections and works of literary criticism, and has translated the works of Anne Hébert, Nicole Brossard, Paule Thévenin, Claude Beausoleil and Michael Ondaatje. Several of Tostevin’s poetic works explore the difficulties of writing in a secondary language. Tostevin is currently a contributing editor ofOPEN LETTER, a Canadian journal of writing and theory.

Nov. 3 Lien Chao – The Chinese Knot and Other Stories

Lien Chao was born in China and received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Wuham Teachers’ College in 1982. Two years later she came to Canada to pursue her studies, earning an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English from York University. She currently teaches English to adults with special needs for the Toronto District Board of Education, writing in her spare time.

Lien Chao is the author of six publications. Her first book, Beyond Silence: Chinese Literature in English (1997) was awarded the Gabrielle Roy Prize for Criticism by the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures / Association des Littératures Canadiennes et Québécoise. Other publications include: Maples and the Stream: A Bilingual Long Narrative Poem (1999), Tiger Girl (Hu Nü). A Creative Memoir (2001), Strike the Wok: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Canadian Fiction (Ed. with Jim Wong-Chu, 2003), More Than Skin Deep: A Collection of Poetry in English and Chinese (2004), and her most recent work, The Chinese Knot and Other Stories (2008).

Nov. 17 David Bezmozgis – Natasha and Other Stories

Author David Bezmozgis was born in Riga, Latvia in 1973 and immigrated to Toronto with his parents in 1980. He received an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English literature from McGill University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. He quickly rose to success after having several of his short stories published in prominent magazines such as Harper’s, The New Yorker, Zoetrope and The Walrus.

His work has also been included in the anthology Best American Short Stories, 2005. Bezmozgis currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. His first book Natasha and Other Stories, a national best-seller, was published by Harper Collins Canada in 2004. This debut by Bezmozgis is a collection of seven linked stories that detail the experiences of the Bermans, a Latvian immigrant family not unlike the author’s own. As a Russian-Jewish-Canadian writer, his prose has been compared to Mordecai Richler’s and Philip Roth’s.

Dec. 1 Ken Babstock – Airstream Land Yacht

Ken Babstock was born in Newfoundland but grew up in the Ottawa Valley. He has worked as a faculty member (poetry) at the Banff Centre for the Arts and currently lives in Toronto. His poems have appeared in several Canadian journals and anthologies including The Malahat Review, Fiddlehead, PRISM International, and Canadian Literature, and have been translated into Dutch, Serbo-Croatian, and Latvian. Babstock’s first book Mean won the Atlantic Poetry Prize (1999) and the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award (1999).

His second collection, Days into Flatspin was shortlisted for the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing (2002). His third collection, Airstream Land Yacht is a winner of the Trillium Book Award for Poetry (2007). It was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award (2006), the Griffin Poetry Prize (2007), and the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing (2007).

Dec. 8 Film Screening/Launch – Redefining the Classroom

The Canadian Writers in Person Series has invited an impressive lineup of emerging and established Canadian writers to read at the York campus. Professors John Unrau, Gail Vanstone, Stephen Cain and Leslie Sanders have directed this course for students and community members.

For over eleven years, students, members of York, the public, and community at large are free to explore the contemporary work of renowned Canadian poets, playwrights, and prolific fiction writers, as well as have a unique opportunity to engage with them in a dialogue about their work.

This film is a compilation of database material/interviews collected over the past five years.

We invite you to join us on December 8th, 2009 at 7pm in 206 Accolade West, for the launch of the film.

A demonstration of how “readers” can access its data-based contents will be followed by a short panel discussion between writers and publishers of Canadian literature, ending with a reception in the lobby adjacent to the lecture hall. Featured at the event will be a display of the Canadian Writers in Person yearly posters.

Special guests will include: Anthony De Sa, Lien Chao, Caitlin Fisher, John Unrau, and others.