Canlit stars return to York's Canadian Writers in Person series

Canadian Writers in Person poster If you have literary aspirations, love hearing talented writers and poets talk about their work, or just want to soak up a unique cultural experience, don’t miss the opportunity to attend the Canadian Writers in Person reading series beginning tomorrow night at York University.

The series features 11 Canadian authors who will present their work, respond to questions from the audience and sign books. All readings are part of a degree credit course on Canadian literary culture offered by the Culture & Expression Program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. You don’t have to enrol in the course to attend the readings.

This year features an eclectic mix of new and established writers.

What would life be like as Aristotle’s daughter? On Sept. 17, acclaimed author Annabel Lyon addresses that question when she reads from her novel The Sweet Girl (2012). The novel follows Aristotle’s strong-willed daughter as she shapes her own destiny. Lyon’s collection of short stories, Oxygen (2000), was followed by The Best For You (2004), which was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. The Golden Mean (2009), Lyon’s first novel, was nominated for all three of Canada’s major fiction prizes: The Governor General’s Award for English Language Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Of the three, Lyon won the Rogers Prize. The Sweet Girl is a sequel to The Golden Mean. Lyon also published Encore Edie in 2010.

On Oct. 1, Pam Mordecai will read from her poetry collection Subversive Sonnets (2012). Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Mordecai has lived in Canada since 1994. The Caribbean experience is a strong focus for her poetry. In addition to Subversive Sonnets, Modecai has written five other books of poetry for adults: Storypoems (1987), Journey Poem (1989), De Man: a performance poem (1995), Certifiable (2001) and The True Blue of Islands (2005). She is the author of four collections of poetry for children: Don’t Ever Wake a Snake (1992), Ezra’s Goldfish (1993), Rohan Goes to Big School (2000), and The Costume Parade (2000). Her book Pink Icing (2006) is a collection of short stories for children, and her play El Numero Uno is also for children. Mordecai was awarded the Institute of Jamaica’s Centenary Medal, Jamaica’s first Vic Reid Award for children’s writing (1993) and the Burla Award (2005) for her contribution to Caribbean literature.

Author Patrick DeWitt steps onto the Canadian Writers in Person stage on Oct. 15 and will read from his award winning novel The Sisters Brothers (2011). His first book, Ablutions (2009), was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice book. The Sisters Brothers is a dark comedy and historical novel that follows two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, who are infamous assassins sent on an errand to kill Hermann Kermit Warm, an ingenious (and, as it turns out, extremely likable) man, who is accused of stealing from their boss, a fearsome figure named the Commodore. The Sisters Brothers was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2011. The Sisters Brothers won the 2011 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the 2011 Governor General’s Award for English language fiction and the 2012 Stephen Leacock Award.

Poetry returns to the series on Oct. 29 when Rita Wong reads from forage (2007), her second collection of poetry. Wong’s poetry investigates the relationships between social justice, ecology, decolonization, and contemporary poetics. She is a professor at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C. forage won the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Prize. Her first book of poetry, monkeypuzzle (1998) won the Willard Ireland Prize and the Asian-Canadian Writers Workshop Emerging Writers Award for Poetry in 1997. Wong co-authored Sybil Unrest (2008) with Larissa Lai. Sybil Unrest is a collaborative long poem begun in Hong Kong at the moment of the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the American invasions of Iraq.

Fred Wah is a prolific poet, novelist and scholar and the current Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, the fifth Canadian poet to hold this office. See Wah on Nov. 12, when he comes to York University to read from Diamond Grill (1996), a bio-fiction based on his early experience working in his father’s café. His early poetry is improvisational and experimental, based partly on his interest in jazz. It is also deeply rooted in the geography of the Nelson area, as his first seven titles show: Lardeau (1965), Mountain (1967), Among (1972), Tree (1972), Earth (1974), Pictograms from the Interior of B.C. (1975), and Loki is Buried at Smoky Creek (1980). In the 1980’s Wah’s focus shifted to his Swedish and Japanese heritage in Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh (1981) and Waiting for Saskatchewan (1985). In 1985, he won the Governor General’s Award for poetry for Waiting for Saskatchewan. His collection of critical essays, Faking it: Poetis and Hybridity further elaborates his long-standing interest in mixed-genre texts and racialized poetics. His 1991 collection of poetry So Far, won Alberta’s Stephanson Award and Diamond Grill received Alberta’s Howard O’Hagan Award for short fiction. His essay collection, Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity (2000) won the Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism in English Canada.

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On Nov. 26, novelist Wayne Johnston comes to the Canadian Writers in Person series and will read from his newest book, The Son of a Certain Woman. In 1985, Johnston was awarded the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel award for best first novel The Story of Bobby O’Malley (1985). In 1988, his second novel The Time of Their Lives (1987) won the Air Canada/Canadian Authors Association Award for Most Promising Young Canadian Writer. His novel The Divine Ryans (1990) won the 1991 Thomas Head Raddall Award and was subsequently adapted to the screen. Johnston wrote the screenplay, won best screenplay in the Atlantic Film Festival and was nominated for an Actra Award. He has published nine works of fiction including Human Amusements (1994), The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1999), The Navigator of New York (2003), The Custodian of Paradise (2006), A World Elsewhere (2011) and The Son of a Certain Woman (2013). Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York were shortlisted for the Giller Prize. He is also the author of Baltimore’s Mansion (2000), a memoir that won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction. Johnston has also written a series of short fiction and essays on subjects ranging from hockey to myth in Newfoundland. In 2011, he was awarded the Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award in recognition of his contribution to Canadian Literature.

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On Jan. 14 Canadian short story writer and novelist Madeleine Thien will read from her novel Dogs at the Perimeter. Born in Vancouver, Canada to a Chinese-Malaysian family, Thien is the author of four books. Her first book, a collection of short stories titled Simple Recipes (2001), won the City of Vancouver Book Award, the VanCity Book Prize and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Her next book, The Chinese Violin, was written for children and published in 2002. Her third book, Certainty (2006), won the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Ovid Festival Prize and was a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction. Her fourth book, Dogs at the Perimeter, was published in 2011 and was a finalist for the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. The novel was subsequently published by Granta Books in 2012 and translated into 8 languages. Dogs at the Perimeter is about a woman who survives the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and is exiled to Canada with her family.

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Safia Fazlul of Bangladeshi background, was raised in Scandinavia and now lives in Toronto, where she attends the University of Toronto. When she was 18, she found work as a phone girl for a high-end escort agency, an experience that inspired her debut novel, The Harem (2012). The book explores from a feminist perspective, the quest for freedom by two young Asian women who find themselves in a Muslim ghetto in a large Canadian city. Fazlul will read from The Harem on Jan. 28.

On Feb. 11, playwright and novelist Cordelia Strube, will read from Milosz (2012), which tells the story of Milo, an out of work actor. Milo’s Latvian girlfriend has dumped him and his miserable father has vanished. The only person Milo really likes is Robertson, the autistic 11-year-old who lives next door. So when Robertson gets bullied and his dad moves out, Milo is ﬁnally spurred to action. A prolific writer, Strube is the author of the novels Alex & Zee (1994), Milton’s Elements (1995), Teaching Pigs to Sing (1996), Dr. Kalbleisch and the Chicken Restaurant (1997), The Barking Dog (2000), Blind Night (2004), Planet Reese (2007), Lemon (2009) and Milosz (Coach House, 2012). Lemon was shortlisted for the 2010 Trillium Book Award. Her plays include Fine (1985), Mortal (1986), Shape (1987), Scar Tissue (1987), Attached (1988), Caught in the Intersection (1988), Marshmallow (1988), Mid-Air (1989), Absconder (1989), On the Beach (1989) and Past Due (1989). Mortal won a radio play, won a CBC Literary Award. Attached won the Nellie Award for Best Radio Drama in 1988.

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Born in 1965 in Jarrow, England, author Michael Winter moved to Newfoundland when he was three. He now lives in Toronto. On March 4, Winter will read from his documentary fiction The Death of Donna Whalen (2010), which describes the courtroom drama surrounding a murder of a young woman and the wrongful conviction of her boyfriend. (The book is based on the real-life case involving the 1993 murder of Brenda Young and the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of her boyfriend Randy Druken.) Winter is the author of This All Happened (2000), which was awarded the Winterset Award. His book, The Big Why (2004), was shortlisted for The Trillium Award and the Thomas Head Raddall Award. The Architects Are Here (2007), was shortlisted for the Giller Award. His short fiction works include: Creaking in Their Skins (1994), One Last Good Look (1999) and The Sparky Book a children’s book which was made into an animated film in 2006 by the National Film Board. In 2008, he was awarded the Writers’ Trust Notable Author Award.

Wrapping up the 2013-2014 Canadian Writers in Person Series is Linda Spalding, the author of five novels: Daughter of Captain Cook (1987), The Paper Wife (1994), Riska (1999), Who Named the Knife (2005), The Purchase (2012), and Mere (2001) with her daughter Esta Spalding. Spalding will read from The Purchase, which won the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Award, for her Canadian Writers in Person Reading on March 18. Her non-fiction book, A Dark Place in the Jungle: Following Leakey’s Last Angel into Borneo was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award and the Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. Spalding has also edited The Brick Reader (1999) with her husband author Michael Ondaatje and Lost Classics (2000) with Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding and Ondaatje. Spalding was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize for her contribution to the Canadian literary community.

For more details and information, contact Professor Gail Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca. All readings are held Tuesdays at 7 to 10pm in 206 Accolade West Building, Keele campus.

Canlit stars return to York’s Canadian Writers in Person series