Nov 3rd Reading: Jernigan, Shin, Rogal, Fradkin, & Johnston

Oct 6 Reading: Terpstra, Cayley, Colman, Doctor, Laing, Lorimer

Chris Laing is a native of Hamilton, Ontario. He worked in private business for twenty years before joining the Federal Public Service, where he served in the Department of the Secretary of State and National Museums of Canada until his retirement. In the past few years he has expanded his long-time interest in detective stories from that of avid reader to writing in this genre. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary journals.  His first novel, A Private Man, was published by Seraphim Editions in 2012. He now lives in Kingston, Ontario with his wife, artist Michèle LaRose.

Kate Cayley’s first collection of poetry, When This World Comes to an End, is published by Brick Books. Her poetry and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in various places, including Descant, CV2, The Fiddlehead, The Literary Review of Canada, The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire and The New Quarterly. She is the artistic director of Stranger Theatre, and has co-created, directed and written eight plays with the company. She is a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre, and her play After Akmatova was produced there in 2011. Her first short story collection, How You Were Born, is forthcoming from Pedlar Press.


Farzana Doctor is a novelist and psychotherapist. Her most recent novel Six Metres of Pavement was named one of Now Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2011. Publishers Weekly described Six Metres of Pavement as “...a paean to second chances.” It also won the Lambda Literary and was short-listed for the Toronto Book Award. Farzana was named as one of CBC Books’ “Ten Canadian Women Writers You Need to Read Now.” She is currently working on her third novel and co-curates the Brockton Writers Series. 
 www.farzanadoctor.com

Lois Lorimer was born in Brockville, Ontario and now lives in Toronto. Her poetry chapbook Between the Houses (2010) was published in Edinburgh. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including: Arc, Literary Review of Canada, Hart House Review and in the anthologies: The Bright Well (Leaf Press:2012) and Connectivism (Variety Crossing Press: 2012). Her new book, Stripmall Subversive was published in 2013 by Variety Crossing Press. Molly Peacock has said, “In Lois Lorimer’s radiant debut volume, innocence gleams inside experience. The stripmall is all too real, but the subversion of Lorimer’s poetry is subtle, shining and sophisticated.”

Robert Colman is a Newmarket, Ont., writer and editor. His work has been published in journals across Canada.His first full-length collection of poems, The Delicate Line (Exile Editions, 2008), was nominated for the ReLit Award. His second collection of poems, Little Empires, was published with Quattro in October 2012.









John Terpstra has published many books and chapbooks of poetry, the most recent of which, Disarmament, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2004. A retrospective of his work, Two or Three Guitars: Selected Poems, was published in 2006. Terpstra has also published three prose projects: Falling Into Place, a creative investigation of a giant glacial sandbar which lies beneath one of Canada’s busiest transportation corridors; The Boys, or, Waiting for the Electrician’s Daughter, the story of his wife’s three brothers, who lived with muscular dystrophy until their early twenties; and Skin Boat: Acts of Faith and Other Navigations, a frank reflection on faith and church in a secular era. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

The host for the evening, Stephen Near, is a playwright, performer and educator living in Hamilton. He is Co-Artistic Director of Reaching Symmetry Theatre and has worked with a number of theatre companies in Toronto as a playwright or dramaturge. He is currently the Operations Officer for the Hamilton Arts Council, a member of the Theatre Aquarius Playwrights Unit and sits on the PGC's National Forum as the representative for the Ontario South caucus.

New location for this month!!

September reading: Smith, Starnino, Wood, Blume, Fazlul & Maguire

Look who is excited about September's LitLive!!!!

September's LitLive features six fantastic writers -- novelists, poets, anthologists -- from near and far, reading from a diverse array of work. This month's reading is hosted by Graham Crawford of Hamilton HIStory + HERitage. 

Here is some information about our readers and hosts. And, we wonder, will Stephen Harper attend? Will even a single Mountie? Who knows, but we're sure that this season will be another convivial, inspiring, engaging, and welcoming year of readings.

7:30 pm Sunday, September 8

Artword Artbar
15 Colbourne Street, Hamilton
(west off James Street Norht, one block south of Barton)

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Brad Smith was born and raised in southern Ontario. He has worked as a farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and carpenter. He lives in a eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. His novel, One-Eyed Jacks was nominated for the Dashiell Hammett Prize.

Carmine Starnino is a poet, essayist, critic and editor of Signal Editions (an imprint of Véhicule Press). His first poetry collection, The New World, was nominated for the 1997 QSPELL A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. His second collection, Credo, won the 2001 Canadian Authors’ Association Prize for Poetry and the 2001 David McKeen Award for Poetry. His recent publications include With English Subtitles (GP, 2004), Lover’s Quarrel on criticism of Canadian poetry, and an anthology called The New Canon. He lives in Montreal.

Heather J Wood was born and raised in Montreal and now makes her home in Toronto. She is the author of the coming of age novel Fortune Cookie, and of Roll With It, a teen-oriented novel about roller derby. Heather is a writer, editor & copywriter who wears many hats, including that of Artistic Director of the Rowers Reading Series, Moosemeat Writing Group organizer and Managing Editor of the Best Canada Poetry series.

Lil Blume is a Hamilton-area writer who, together with Ellen Jaffe, has created three Hamilton festivals of Jewish writing.  Letters and Pictures from the Old Suitcase was the theme of the 2012 literary festival and this anthology was created to accompany the festival. Lil’s poetry and short fiction have been published in local publications, such as Kairos and Hammered Out. She was also one of the first community columnists for the Hamilton Spectator.   Her writing workshops and retreats have been described as “transformative.” Lil's reading will be from the recent anthology, which features writing inspired by letters, pictures, or objects passed down from another era, and sometimes discovered in old suitcases.

Safia Fazlul of Bangladeshi background, was raised in Scandinavia and now lives in Toronto, where she attends the University of Toronto. When she was eighteen she found work as a “phone girl” for a high-end escort agency, an experience that inspired her novel, The Harem.

Shannon Maguire is a Northern Ontario grrrl who has long made Toronto home. She studied playwrighting at the National Theatre School of Canada, holds a degree in English and Drama from York University (Glendon College) and is working on her MFA in Creative Writing through the University of Guelph. She also co-cultivates AvantGarden, a new reading series which foregrounds innovative text and sound based performance by women. Her poetry and work for theatre has appeared in various places including: Nightwood Theatre's 4x4 Off Road Festival and Write-From-The-Hip, Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, Gulch: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose (Tightrope, 2009) and is forthcoming online in EOAGH: A Journal Of The Arts. She won the FuitLupz Award (Supporting Our Youth) for emerging queer playwright in 1999. Her latest book Fur(l) Parachute is published by Book Thug.

Our host for tonight is Graham Crawford of Hamilton HIStory + HERitage. Hamilton HIStory + HERitage is a unique exhibition and meeting space combining historical content (architectural, social and cultural) and new technology (mini-computers and flat screen monitors) to share the story of Hamilton. We are dedicated to celebrating the lives of the men and women who have helped to shape the city of Hamilton.

Happy summer & a look forward to next year's readings

Poetry is like fish: if it's fresh, it's good; if it's stale, it's bad; and if you're not certain, try it on the cat.  - Osbert Sitwell

 

LitLive has gone fishing for the summer, metaphorically speaking,  but we will resume in September with a fantastic line-up of readers of fiction, poetry, and other things. Check out this partial list of who is reading in the coming season:

Aisha Sasha John

Amanda Jernigan

Angie Abadou

Ann Shin

Ayelet Tsabari

Barbara Fradkin

Brad Smith

Carmine Starnino

Chris Laing

Chris Pannell

Christine McNair

Dave Haskins

Don McKay

Erin Mouré

Farzana Doctor

Heather Wood

Jan Conn

John Steffler

John Terpstra

Julie Joosten

Kate Cayley

Laurelyn Whitt

Lil Blume

Lisa Moore

Lois Lorimer

Mark Goldstein

Michael Mirolla

Rhea Tregebov

Roger Greenwald

Safia Fazlul

Sean Johnston

Shannon Maguire

Stan Rogal

Susan McCaslin

Waheed Rabbani

We look forward to seeing you at the readings. And check back here for more details and updates of coming events, biographies of the readers, and various literary tomfoolery.

Have a happy summer!

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.