Sunday, February 2, 2014

Reading: March 2nd: Angie Abdou, Christine McNair, Lynn Davies, Andrew Faulkner, Marcus McCann and Jim Smith


Andrew Faulkner co-curates The Emergency Response Unit, a chapbook press. His poems have been published in The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011, and his chapbook Useful Knots and How to Tie Them was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. He lives in Toronto. His latest book Need Machine "clamours through the brain like an unruly marching band. Both caustic and thoughtful, these poems offer a topography of modern life writ large in twitchy, neon splendour, in a voice as sure as a surgeon and as trustworthy as a rumour."

Angie Abdou lives in the Canadian Rockies where she writes, teaches, mothers, and recreates. BC BookWorld called her first book, a story collection titled Anything Boys Can Do (Thistledown 2006), an "extraordinary literary debut" and Victoria Times Colonist praised its original take on female sexuality. Her first novel, The Bone Cage (NeWest Press 2007), was the inaugural One Book One Kootenay selection, a Canada Reads 2011finalist, and the 2012 MacEwan book of the year. Her most recent novel, The Canterbury Trail (Brindle & Glass 2011), is a tragicomedy about mountain life, small-town identity politics, and our relationship with the environment. It won a 2012 IPPY gold medal for Canada West and was a finalist for the Banff Mountain Book of the Year. Angie will also read from her forthcoming novel, a satire about international nannies and hot yoga (Arsenal Pulp Press 2014). 


Christine McNair's work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, ottawater, Misunderstandings magazine, The Bywords Quarterly Journal and a few other places including a recent above/ground press broadside. She won second prize (poetry) in the Atlantic Canadian Writing Competition and an honourable mention in the Eden Mills Literary competition. Her new book is Conflict (BookThug). She tries to pay the bills working as a book conservator in Ottawa.

Jim Smith is the author of fifteen books and chapbooks published between 1979 and 2012, including One Hundred Most Frightening Things (blewointmentpress, 1985), Convincing Americans (Proper Tales Press, 1986), The Schwarzenegger Poems (Surrealist Poets Gardening Association, 1988), Translating Sleep (Wolsak & Wynn, 1989), Leonel/Roque (Coteau Books, 1998), Back Off, Assassin! New and Selected Poems (Mansfield Press, 2009) and his newest collection, Happy Birthday, Nicanor Parra (Mansfield Press, 2012).  Jim’s Back Off, Assassin: New and Selected Poems was long-listed (leaked list) for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.  Jim finally visited his poetic hero, Nicanor Parra, in Chile in February 2012.

Lynn Davies was born in Moncton, New Brunswick. She lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for 16 years and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Honours English from the University of King's College. She now lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She's taught creative writing at the University of New Brunswick, through Continuing Education in Halifax and Fredericton, and has taught poetry at the Maritime Writer's Workshop. Lynn now works as a private tutor for children with reading and writing problems and as an ESL teacher. She also conducts workshops on creative writing and book making for children at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and in schools.

Marcus McCann is a poet and journalist. He is the author of Soft Where (2009, Chaudiere Books) and The Hard Return (2012, Insomniac) and a number of chapbooks, including Labradoodle, The Glass Jaw and Force Quit. A former artistic director of the Transgress! Festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club, he is a part-owner of Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop. He has won the John Newlove Award and the EJ Pratt Medal. Born and raised in Hamilton, he now lives an hour northeast.