Jumping for Joy on June Third!

Lit Live ends its reading season with a juicy June line-up at Homegrown Hamilton, at 27 King William Street. Oh, what a hot-bed of literary fascinations for the first Sunday of the month! Cocktails at 7:30 p.m. Entrées for the mind, shortly after.

Noah Richler leads the way with What We Talk About When We Talk About War, published in 2012 by Goose Lane Editions.

George Amabile brings both prose (Dancing with Mirrors, Porcupine's Quill) and poetry (Small Change, Libros Libertad) published in 2011.

Ruth Roach Pierson reads from her latest poetry collection Contrary, published by Tightrope Books in 2011.

Lillian Necakov brings us Hooligans, the title of her latest book of poems from Mansfield Press.

Nico Rogers presents The Fetch, a collection of tales and prose poems, published in 2011 by Brick Books.

Carey Toane guides us through The Crystal Palace, her first poetry collection, published by Mansfield Press in 2011.

Noah Richler

Raised in Montreal and London, England, Noah Richler is a former books editor and literary editor for the National Post and has contributed to publications on both sides of the pond—from the Guardian, Punch, and the Daily Telegraph to The Walrus, Maisonneuve, Saturday Night, and The Globe and Mail. He is also the author of This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada—a bold and impassioned literary travelogue that looks at the country through the work of its contemporary writers. That book won the B.C. National Award for Canadian Nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Non–fiction Prize.

In his latest publication, What We Talk About When We Talk About War, he argues that in the past decade, Canada has gone from being a peacekeeping nation to a “warrior” nation, and he examines what this says about us as a country.

George Amabile

George Amabile lives in Winnipeg and has published poetry, fiction and non-fiction in over a hundred anthologies, magazines, journals and periodicals. He is the author of eight poetry books. The Presence of Fire (McClelland & Stewart), won the CAA National Prize for literature; his long poem Durée placed third in the CBC Literary Competition in 1991; his poem entry`What We Take with Us, Going Away' was short-listed in the CBC competition in  2003. From October 2000 to April 2001 he was Writer in Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library. His most recent book is Dancing, With Mirrors (Porcupine's Quill, 2011).

Ruth Roach Pierson

Ruth Roach Pierson is the author of three poetry collections:

• Where No Window Was (BuschekBooks, 2002)
• Aide-Mémoire (BuschekBooks, 2007), which was short-listed for the 2008 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Poetry
• Contrary (Tightrope Books, 2011).

With Sue MacLeod, she is presently editing an anthology of poems about films entitled I Found It at the Movies, to be published by Tightrope Books in spring 2013.

Lillian Necakov

Lillian Necakov has been writing and publishing for over 30 years. Her work has appeared in publications in Canada, the United States, China, and Serbia. She is the author of Sickbed of Dogs, Wolsak and Wynn (1989), Polaroids, Coach House Books (1997), Hat Trick, Exile Editions (1998), The Bone Broker, Mansfield Press (2007), and Hooligans, Mansfield Press (2011). She was the editor of the very small press the Surrealist Poets Gardening Association for years. During the 1980s she sold her books on the streets of Toronto and was one of the subjects of the documentary film “Street Writers, Lucky to be Here”. Lillian runs the Boneshaker Reading Series on St. Clair Avenue West in Toronto.

Nico Rogers

Nico Rogers is a storyteller and performance artist, and has appeared at writing and folk festivals across the country, as well as on TV and radio. He has taught writing and literature in post-secondary institutions in Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton and now lives in Toronto, where he is working on a novel which will be a thematic continuation of The Fetch. The Fetch is his first collection. Drawing on family recollections, interviews with elders and extensive research in archives and regional museums, The Fetch is neither a novel nor a collection of short stories. It is a compelling volume of tales and prose poems, powered by a broad range of characters. The Fetch was recently short-listed for a Northern LIT award.

Carey Toane

Carey Toane has worked as a journalist, copy editor, ESL instructor and librarian. Her poems and translations have appeared in Canadian journals and anthologies since 2007. She is the co-founder of the Toronto journal Poetry Vendors, and the original host of Toronto reading series Pivot at the Press Club. Originally from Alberta, she has also lived in Finland, the Middle East and New York City. She holds a master’s degree in library and information science at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Her first collection, The Crystal Palace, was published by Mansfield Press in 2011.