June 2: Reading! ! ! !

Literature is a donkey braying over a wall. Or is it a writer communicating with a donkey? Is literature the deep green of a field, a stone fence, trees, leaves, or is literature the photograph itself? Maybe writing is the photographer? Or the manifold possibility of pixels ready to signal to the rods and cones of the eyes. We are are here, the pixels say. We are also here, the eyes say. And somewhere, maybe on a planet, scudding behind an exploding star, literature unwraps its little sandwich, sits down on the girder high up on the scaffolding of a construction site and has lunch. "You know," it finally says, "June LitLive looks fantastic. You should see the amazing writers that we have. Just look below.  Come to the reading and I'll share my baloney sandwich with you. And you'll hear some great writing."

Marilyn Gear Pilling lives in Hamilton, Ontario and has roots in Huron County. She is the author of two collections of short fiction and four of poetry. A finalist for the CBC Literary Awards and the Western Magazine Awards, she has won nine Hamilton and Region Arts Council awards for her poetry and short fiction. Most recently, one of her poems won Descant’s “Best Canadian Poem” Winston Collins Award and appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2010. Pilling has read her work in many venues, including Eden Mills, Harbourfront, the Banff Centre in Alberta, and at the historic Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.

  

Beatriz Hausner started writing about Raccoon long before it was established that Toronto was host to the largest population of raccoons in the world. Hausner has written about other creatures also, mostly in verse, which she has published as poetry collections and chapbooks. When not writing or translating surrealist literature, she edits journals, publishes books for others and works full-time as a public librarian in Toronto.

Jay MillAr is author of the several collections of poetry including his most recent Other Poems (2010). He is also the author of many chapbooks and privately published editions such as Woods|Pages and Lack Lyrics, which tied to win the 2008 bpNichol Chapbook Award. In 2006 he published Double Helix, a collaborative “novel” written with Stephen Cain. In addition, MillAr is also an editor, publisher, teacher and the shadowy figure behind BookThug, an independent publishing house dedicated to exploratory work by well-known and emerging North American writers. MillAr teaches creative writing and poetics at George Brown College and Toronto New School of writing.

Stephen Gill, Poet Laureate of Ansted University, has authored more than twenty books, including collections of poems, fiction and literary criticism. Once in a while, he writes poetry in Urdu, Hindi, and Panjabi. His works have appeared in more than five hundred publications. He works as a freelance English/Urdu interpreter and examines doctoral dissertations for universities in India. He was born in Panjab.

Ian Williams is the author of Personals, shortlisted for the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award; Not Anyone's Anything, winner of the 2011 Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada; and You Know Who You Are, a finalist for the ReLit Prize for poetry. He was named as one of ten Canadian writers to watch by CBC. Williams completed his Ph.D. in English at the University of Toronto and works as an English professor.

M. E. Csamer is widely published in Canadian literary magazines. Her books include Paper Moon (watershedBooks, 1998), Light is What We Live In (Artful Codger Press, 2005), and A Month Without Snow (Hidden Brook Press, 2007). Presently, she serves on the Council of The League of Canadian Poets. Csamer lives on a small bay near Kingston, Ontario.

May 5th Reading!

Given the current weather, I'm wondering if we need to establish something analogous to daylight savings time for months. I mean maybe May is the new April. Maybe we have to go back into some famous literature and adjust for global warming wackiness. Move the months around.

I mean May might be the cruelest month with its shoures soote, which brings June flowers. Perhaps it'll be May in Paris soon.

However vernal the weather is or not in good ol' Hamilton, Ontario, May's LitLive promises to be fantastic. After a very successful LitLive/GritLit performance, we return to our usual location at the Homegrown Hamilton/Skydragon location replete with good coffee, beer and wine, and a selection of various munchables.

Here's the line-up and the bios of the performers. Hope to see you at the reading.


Elizabeth (Liz) Zetlin, is an award winning author of five poetry collections, most recently: The Punctuation Field (Black Moss Press, 2011). Liz transforms a field of native grasses into a landscape of language, growing modulators of meaning like the @ symbol, commas and parentheses, and releasing them into the wild. She was Owen Sound’s inaugural poet laureate and is co-founder/former artistic director of the Words Aloud Spoken Word Festival now celebrating its 10th anniversary. Liz is also an award winning filmmaker of the Words Aloud Documentary. This year she received the “Outstanding Individual in the Arts” Owen Sound Cultural Award. See link .

Eva Tihanyi teaches at Niagara College since 1989 and lives in Toronto and Port Dalhousie (St.Catharines, ON). Flying Underwater: Poems New and Collected is her seventh book of poetry. She has also published a collection of short stories, Truth and Other Fictions (Inanna 2009).

Jeffrey Luscombe was born in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. He holds a BA and MA in English from the University of Toronto. He attended The Humber College School for Writers where he was mentored by Governor General Award winning author Nino Ricci. He has had fiction published in Chelsea Station, Zeugma Literary Journal, and filling Station Magazine. In 2010 he was shortlisted for the Prism International Fiction Prize. Shirts and Skins is his first novel. Hey! Check out here .

Leslie Shimotakahara is a writer and recovering academic, who wanted to be simply a writer from before the time she could read. Hard-pressed to answer her parents’ question of how she would support herself as a writer, Leslie got drawn into the labyrinthine study of literature, completing her B.A. from McGill, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern American Literature from Brown. Her memoir The Reading List: Literature, Love and Back Again (Variety Crossing Press, 2011) won the Canada Council for the Arts’ 2012 Canada-Japan Literary Award. She is currently completing an historical novel called The Cherry Blossom Queen that deals with the Japanese Internment. She blogs at www.the-reading-list.com

Richard Scarsbrook is a Canadian author, teacher, and entertainer. Scarsbrook grew up in the rural community of Olinda near Leamington, Ontario. He earned an Honours BA in History from the University of Western Ontario, and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Ottawa. He lived and taught in Petrolia, Ontario for nearly a decade where he wrote songs, played the drums and sang in a band called The Know. He also began publishing his first short stories and poems. Scarsbrook now makes his home in Toronto where he teaches creative writing courses at Humber College and George Brown College. He also plays and sings with various rock bands. Scarsbrook’s novel, The Monkeyface Chronicles was published in 2010 to excellent reviews.

Sue Goyette lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia and has published three books of poems and a novel. Her fourth collection of poems, Ocean, is forthcoming from Gaspereau Press in 2013. She's been nominated for several awards including the Governor General's Award for Poetry, the Pat Lowther, the Gerald Lampert, the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and won the 2008 CBC Literary Prize for Poetry, the 2010 Earle Birney Prize and the 2011 Bliss Carman Award. Sue currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Dalhousie University, is faculty for the Banff Wired Writing Studio and works part-time at the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.

The host for this shindig is Hamiltonacorn resident, Gary Barwin. Barwin has never been the Governor of Louisiana. Well, except for that one time and he prefers not to talk about it. I mean there was that incident in Nawlins that just won't be erased from the Internet. Or his police record.

April 7th reading: LitLive + GritLit = Great Lit

BREAKING HAMMER NEWS!! 

For one fantastical Hamilton Spring night, Lit Live combines with Grit Lit to become Grilt Livt.

No wait. Glitr Litv? Gritlillivelit? Glirtt Lliivt?

Oh yeah. Great Lit.

The series continues its tradition of combining our April reading with the fantastic Hamilton literary festival, GritLit for a joint event:

the Lit Live/Grit Lit 

Closing Night Cabaret.  

7:30pm
The Hamilton Sheraton Hotel

Live music provides the introduction for fiction, non-fiction and poetry by Allison Baggio(In the Body), Susan Glickman (The Tale Teller), Mark Leslie (Haunted Hamilton),Moez Surani (Floating Life), Matthew Tierney (Probably Inevitable) and Natalie Zina Walschots (Doom: Love Poems for Supervillains)

note! note! note! note!

THIS EVENT IS AT: 

The Hamilton Sheraton Hotel 

116 King St. West, Hamilton, Ontario

(& not! not! not! not!
at our usual Homegrown Cafe/ Skydragon location.)

Who is reading?

Allison Baggio is the author of Girl in Shades, which was hailed by Chatelaine as “an immensely satisfying coming-of-age tale and a remarkable first novel”. Her writing has appeared in publications across Canada, including Room, LICHEN, subTerrain, Today’s Parent and The Toronto Star. She is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers and lives in Whitby. Visit Allison at allisonbaggio.com.

Susan Glickman grew up in Montreal and has lived in England, Greece, Mexico, and India. Her first novel, The Violin Lover, won her the Martin and Beatrice Fischer Prize in Fiction, and she received the Gabrielle Roy Award for The Picturesque and the Sublime: A Poetics of the Canadian Landscape. She has also published six books of poetry and three children's books. Susan currently lives in Toronto, where she teaches creative writing and works as a freelance editor.

Mark Leslie is the author of One Hand Screaming and the editor of North of Infinity II, Campus Chills, and Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Visit him online at www.markleslie.ca.

Moez Surani is a poet, reviewer and short fiction author. He is the author of two poetry collections, Reticent Bodies, and Floating Life. His writing has been included in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including The Literary Review of Canada and The Walrus. He has attended writing residencies in Finland, Latvia and Switzerland, and his writing has won the Chalmers Arts Fellowship, the Kingston Literary Award and the Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest. He lives in Toronto.

Matthew Tierney is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent of which is Probably Inevitable. His previous book, The Hayflick Limit, was shortlisted for a Trillium Book Award. He is also a former recipient of the K.M. Hunter Award, and he has placed his poems in numerous journals and magazines across Canada. Matthew lives in Toronto.

Natalie Zina Walschots is a poet and music journalist. Her first book of poetry, Thumbscrews, won the inaugural Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her second book, Doom was recently published. She holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Calgary and her poetry has appeared widely in literary magazines. Her secret lair is located in Toronto. Visit her at www.nataliezed.ca.


Music?

David Lee (bass) (pictured)
with Gary Barwin (sax), and Bob Vespaziani (percussion)

Blazing March 3rd Reading: Barry Webster, Tim Conley, Pamela Mordecai, Soraya Erian, Mark Lavorato, Eva Stachniak,

3.3.13

6 writers + 1 host

Right <here>: imagine a really exciting, action-packed trailer--no, not an RV--but a short film which makes you feel lit on fire, literally, literarily, and--as we're near the shores of Burlington Bay-- litorally. 

Yeah, that kind of film. Because we have a matchless reading on this Sunday. Smokin' And one of the authors edited a book entitled Burning City. Another wrote In the Eye of the Sun. But don't believe me. They're Necessary Lies, The Sound of All Flesh, and Certifiable.

Come to the show and find out what kind of a trailer-blazer show we got. 

And in case you're wondering about who the blazes will be wearing the blazers and doing the torching, here's some info to get you fired up.

1 Barry Webster is a classically trained pianist and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His first book, The Sound of All Flesh (Porcupine's Quill), won the ReLit Award for the best collection of Canadian short fiction published in 2005 and was a finalist for the Hugh MacLennan Prize. His short stories have also been shortlisted for the National Magazine Award and the CBC-Quebec Prize. He has written for a wide variety of publications including The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, Event, Fiddlehead, and The Globe and Mail. He has lived for extended periods of time in Barcelona, London, Banff, and Berlin, where he was staying the night the Wall fell. Originally from Toronto he now resides in East Montreal.

2 Eva Stachniak was born in Wrocław, Poland, and came to Canada in 1981. She has been a radio broadcaster and college English and Humanities lecturer. Her debut novel, Necessary Lies, won the Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and her second novel, Garden of Venus, has been translated into seven languages. Her third novel, The Winter Palace, has been published in Canada (Doubleday), US (Bantam) and the UK (Transworld) and will soon appear in Holland, Germany, and Poland. Eva Stachniak lives in Toronto, where she is working on her second historical novel about Catherine the Great.

3 The multi-talented Mark Lavorato was raised on the Canadian Prairies, but has spent most of his adult life living, working, and writing on his travels throughout Central and North America, the Caribbean, and Europe. He was inspired to begin writing while living in the Austrian Alps, reflecting on unsettling true stories he’d heard in the jungles of Guatemala. Aside from his writing, Mark is also a photographer and composer.

4  Pamela Mordecai writes poetry, plays and fiction, slowly. Subversive Sonnets is her fifth collection of poetry. Her Good Friday poem, de man, written in Jamaican Creole, has been performed across Canada and in the Caribbean – she doesn’t always know where. Her writing for children is well known internationally. She has written a reference work, Culture and Customs of Jamaica, with her husband, Martin, as well as a PhD thesis. It took her sixteen years. A former Torontonian, she thanks Canadian taxpayers for life-sustaining grants through the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council.  She lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

5 Soraya Erian is a writer-artist, and a retired Professor of English at Mohawk College, Hamilton, ON. She has an M.A. in English, University of Toronto, and a Ph.D., University of Western Ontario. She has seven books of poetry and drawings, and two novels with drawings/paintings. Her most recent poetry books are: In The Eye Of The Sun, and "Were You My Ariel", and her novels are: The Jasmine Garden, and Mystic Loon. She contributes commentaries and articles to newspapers. She has won numerous best poem awards in Canada and the USA. She came to Canada on a Canada Council Scholarship and decided to make Canada her home. She is married with a daughter and a son, and three grandchildren.

6 Tim Conley is the author of two collections of short fiction entitled Whatever Happens (2006) and Nothing Could Be Further (2011). He was also co-editor of the poetry anthology Burning City. In the time that he isn’t writing he teaches English and Comparative Literature at Brock University. One False Move is Tim Conley’s debut collection of poetry.

+1Hosted by GritLit Artistic Director Jenn Gillies

March 3rd Reading

February 3rd Reading: Bryan Prince hosts--Lit (Live) with hopes that Light the Year's...

LitLive: Sunday, February 3rd @ 7:30pm at the Homegrown Cafe at the SkyDragon Centre

Join us for another Lit Live Reading Series featuring a dynamic line-up of talented writers from across Canada and elsewhere reading both prose and poetry and hosted by legendary local shelf jockey,  Bryan Prince. The details are below, but first a poem by Swinburne about February and lit that lights.  

Because, when was the last time you thought about Swinburne. Oh yeah, that embarrassing tattoo from first year.

Wan February with weeping cheer,

Whose cold hand guides the youngling year

Down misty roads of mire and rime,

Before thy pale and fitful face

The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace

Through skies the morning scarce may climb.

Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,

But lit with hopes that light the year's.

Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Year's Carols: February

Scott Fotheringham will read from The Rest is Silence



Ruth E. Walker will read from Living Underground.

 Mansa Trotman will read from The Space That Connects Us.



Farzana Doctor will read from Six Metres of Pavement.



Nora Gould will read from I See My Love More Clearly From A Distance

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Irene Marques will read from The Perfect Unravelling of the Spirit.



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This season LitLive will host a variety of local figures from the arts & culture scene as MC.

The February MC is Hamilton bookseller Bryan Prince.

January 6th reading! Stephen Near hosts!