Tell me something about who is reading on Feb 2? Ok, here!

But before we get to who is reading at LitLive tonight (and what they look like -- and, yes, we do, Lena Dunham-like, have a $10,000 bounty for the unretouched photos of these writers), let's talk about Groundhogs.

Tonight's reading falls on Groundhog Day (Pennsylvania German: Grundsaudaag, Murmeltiertag) but it also falls on the less well known, Writers' Day (Pennsylvania German: Grumblesdaag, Mumurtag) According to folklore and the Paris Review, if it is cloudy on this day when a poet or novelist emerges from their crumpled paper-strewn burrow, their latte-cluttered coffeeshop, or even the gong-infested sea, then spring publication will come early and the miserable bitterness of life will recede if only for a brief moment, enough to get married in Vegas, maybe, pen a haiku about buttercups, or to stop weeping. Really. If it is sunny, the writer will supposedly see her or her shadow (cf. Carl Jung or how to make dog shapes with your fingers) and retreat back into his or her burrow, and the winter weather, existential alienation, bittersweet longing, and interminable darkness will continue for six more weeks.

Modern customs of the holiday involve celebrations where early morning festivals are held to watch the writer emerging from his/her burrow, but these are ridiculous. Writers never emerge in the morning. Unless they've been up all night, in which case, approach with caution.

Born in the US to Dutch immigrant parents, Patricia Westerhof moved to Amsterdam shortly after birth and then to Canada at age four. She spent her school years in Alberta and Ontario. Westerhof now lives in Toronto, Canada, where she writes fiction and teaches English and creative writing. Westerhof is the author of The Dove in Bathurst Station, a novel, and Catch Me When I Fall, a collection of linked stories.  She also co-authored The Writer’s Craft, a textbook. Her stories have been published in The Dalhousie Review, Room, and the anthology Trees Running Backward. Along with fiction, Westerhof writes curriculum, and she has presented at education conferences in Canada and the U.S. www.patriciawesterhof.com

Born in Thunder Bay in 1947, Gordon Johnston taught poetry among other things at Trent University for forty years, until he retired in 2011. He co-ordinated the very successful Writers Reading Series at the university for a number of years. He served for more than a decade on the Advisory Board of House of Anansi Press. He published a poetic fiction, Inscription Rock, in 1981 with Penumbra Press and a poetry collection, Small Wonder, with littlefishcartrpress in 2006. His most recent book is But for Now, published last September by McGill-Queen’s Press in the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series.

Natalee Caple is the author of five books of fiction and two books of poetry, including the novel The Plight of Happy People in an Ordinary World; the short story collection The Heart Is Its Own Reason, which has been optioned for film; the poetry collection A More Tender Ocean, which was nominated for a Gerald Lampert Award; and the novel Mackerel Sky. Her most recent novel is In Calamity’s Wake published by Harper Collins in Canada and Bloomsbury in the US. She is an assistant professor in the English Department at Brock University.

Shane Neilson is a writer and a family physician. His previous books include Meniscus, Gunmetal Blue, and Complete Physical, which was short listed for the Trillium Poetry Award. Neilson has published essays and reviews in many Canadian literary magazines and newspapers. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.

Paul Sutherland, Canadian-British poet, immigrated to the UK in 1973. He has seven collections and has edited seven others. He is the founding editor of Dream Catcher, a distinguished national-international journal in its 23rd issue. A notable performer, he’s read his poetry in public over a hundred fifty times including twice at Lit Live. He attends festivals and leads workshops in creative writing for all ages and abilities. His poems have appeared in journals and newspapers and anthologies.

Despite being advised as a teenager to pursue office work rather than writing, Janet Turpin Myers has been writing all her life.  Her début novel, Nightswimming, published by Seraphim Editions, was released  September, 2013. Her second novel, The Last Year of Confusion, will be released in  the spring of 2015, also by Seraphim Editions. Her short story, Crashing, recently won 3rd place in the 2013 gritLit Short Fiction competition, and her poems have been published in Hammered Out and Tower Poetry. Currently, she is 168 pages into her next book, UnPredator—a genre-bending, three-planet dystopian/utopian sci/fi fantasy about the end of the world, vegetarians, and Genesis.

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Our host for the evening is Laura Lukasik from the Hamilton Public Library. We've heard they know something about books and writing over there!

A look at upcoming readings this year

February 2^nd

Host: Laura Lukasik

Paul Sutherland

poetry

Journeying (Valley Press)

Janet Turpin Myers

fiction

Nightswimming (Seraphim Editions)

  

Shane Neilson

short stories

Will (Great Plains Publications)

Gordon Johnston

poetry

But for Now (McGill-Queen's)

Natalee Caple

fiction

In Calamity's Wake (Harper Collins)

Patricia Westerhof

fiction

The Dove in Bathurst Station (Brindle & Glass Press)

March 2^nd

MC Jeff Mahoney

Angie Abadou

fiction

The Canterbury Trail (Brindle & Glass Press)

Christine McNair

poetry

Conflict (BookThug)

Lynn Davies

poetry

How the Gods Pour Tea (Goose Lane Editions)

Andrew Faulkner

poetry

Need Machine (Coach House Books)

Jim Smith

poetry

Happy Birthday Nicanor Parra (Mansfield Press)

Marcus McCann

poetry

The Hard Return (Insomniac Press)

April

We have a combined gritLIT/LitLive event, hosted by Chris Pannell.

(stay tuned for details!) 

  

May 4^th

MC Jeanie Macfarlane

Susan McCaslin

poetry

The Disarmed Heart (St. Thomas Poetry Series)

Lisa Moore

fiction

February (House of Anansi)

Don McKay

poetry

Paradoxides (McClelland and Stewart)

Aaron Giovannone

poetry

The Loneliness Machine (Insomniac Press)

Catherine Owen

poetry

Designated Mourner (ECW Press)

Waheed Rabbani

fiction

The Rani's Doctor (You write on-Legend Press)

June 1st

MC Chris Pannell

Erin Mouré
Secession/Insession (with Chus Pato, BookThug)

Aisha Sasha John

poetry

Thou (BookThug)

  

Rona Shaffran

poetry

Ignite (Signature Editions)

  

Christian McPherson

Cube Squared (Nightwood Editions)

  

Christine Miscione

short fiction

Auxilary Skins (Exile Editions)

  

Joanna Lawson

poetry

Perspectives (Serengeti Press)

Reading: Feb 2

January 5: Julie Joosten, Roger Greenwald, Gregory Betts, Jane Silcott, Alexander Dolinin, Jason Dickson, and host, Chris Pannell

A great line-up for January. Read about the authors and their books below:

Alexander Dolinin was born and raised in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union, where he earned an MA in Iranian philology from the State University of Leningrad. After emigrating to Canada, he earned a BA in Honours History from McMaster University, with Russian history as one of his areas of specialization. Against Destiny, his first novel, joins his experience of living in the Soviet Union with a specialist’s knowledge of the history, realities and circumstances that shape its main characters and plot. He is a Canadian citizen and a member of the Writers Union of Canada. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

Gregory Betts is an award-winning author, editor and professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. He has been teaching literature for a dozen years now at four different universities in Canada and Germany. He has published five books of poetry, edited five books of experimental Canadian writing, and recently published Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations. He is currently the Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies and Graduate Program Director of Canadian and American Studies at Brock.

Jane Silcott grew up in Toronto and moved west to find out why her father's voice always got softer when he spoke of the mountains. She's still finding out. Jane’s writing has been called "fearless," "honest," "compelling," and "cheeky," and has been recognized by the CBC Literary Awards, the National and Western Magazine Awards, Room Magazine, and the Creative Nonfiction Collective of Canada. Her first book, Everything Rustles, is a collection of personal essays about love, wrinkles, death, fear and laundry – the usual things.

Jason Dickson is a bookseller, publisher and writer who lives in London, Ontario. He is the editor of Clearance: Selected Journals of Dr. Michael Purdon, Parapsychologist (BookThug 2002). He also publishes the London arts and letters magazine, The London Reader.

Julie Joosten has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a PhD from Cornell University.  Her first book Light Light was published by Book Thug (2013).  Her poems and reviews can be found in Jacket 2, Tarpaulin Sky, The Fiddlehead, and The Malahat Review. 

Roger Greenwald grew up in New York, attended The City College and the St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie Poetry Project workshop, and then took graduate degrees at the University of Toronto. He has won two CBC Literary Awards, one for his poetry and one for travel literature, as well as numerous awards for his translations. He has published one book of poems, Connecting Flight, and several volumes of poetry in translation, most recently North in the World: Selected Poems of Rolf Jacobsen; Picture World, by Niels Frank; and Meditations on Georges de La Tour, by Paal-Helge Haugen.  

HOST:

Chris Pannell serves on the board of Hamilton's annual gritLIT literary festival. He has published four poetry books: Under Old Stars, Sorry I Spent Your Poem,  Drive, and his most recent, A Nervous City. He is also the author of a set of three poetry broadsheets entitled Fractures,Subluxations and Disclocations, which won the Hamilton and Region Arts Council poetry book award in 1997. In 2010, his book Drive won the Acorn-Plantos People's Poet award and the Arts Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year. From 1993 until 2005 he ran the New Writing Workshop at Hamilton Artists Inc. and edited two book-length anthologies for the group. He has been published in literary magazines across Canada and internationally as well.

Rob Ford, semi-colons, poetry, short stories, and prize-winners: Report from The LitLive Reading Series, December 1.

It’s amazing really: each month in Hamilton, actual real live writers—well known nationally or locally—participate in a lively reading of their work live on stage. And it’s free. The series is called Lit Live, not only because it's ‘live’ (as opposed to recorded) but because it makes literature come alive and I don’t mean in a Frankensteinian way.

The reading series is held the first Sunday of each month at Homegrown Hamilton. It features six writers—novelists, short story writers, poets, memoirists, and non-fiction writers, including, this December, three winners of the GritLit Writing Contest. The audience and the guest writers are always impressed at the size of the crowd and how congenial the series is. And no hipster posing (though I try, I try) or cliquishness.  Just fantastic writing in a friendly atmosphere. This evening, as usual, we had to get out extra chairs for the full house. All found their way to a libation and got comfortable.



Writer/educator/cartoonist Jen Jones was the entertaining host. (Each month, there's a different host from the arts community.) Jen explained how she had recently met Margaret Atwood (I think she's a hockey star or something) at Bryan Prince, Bookseller event and, after talking cartooning, Atwood drew a cartoon for her mother for Christmas. (Jen’s mom: if you’re reading this: we’ll make sure that she gives it to you and doesn’t keep it for herself!)
















The first reader was poet/biologist Jan Conn who travelled from Albany, NY to read. Jan Conn has written eight books of poetry and is also a Research Scientist at the Wadsworth Center, Division of Infectious Diseases in Albany. She read a series of dark and darkly humorous poems, some of which incorporated her interest in biology, from her recent collection, Edge Effects.
















Second was Toronto writer, Mark Goldstein. Before becoming a full-time writer, he played drums alongside Leslie Feist and Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning in the indie rock band By Divine Right. Mark read hauntingly from his book on ‘motherloss,’ Form of Forms as well as some of his inventive translations of Celan.

Next up was writer and teacher Dave Haskins who has been involved with the local writing community for many years.  He read from his recently published memoir, This House is Condemned (just out from Hamilton publisher Wolsak & Wynn.) The passage was an evocative account of his English boyhood vision of Canada and of a recent trip to Haida Gwaii.








Then we heard from three winners of the 2013 GritLit Literary Festival writing contest.

Burlington writer Janet Turpin Myers, read her short story, “Crashing,” a dramatic and humorous piece which involved some cars. Crashing. The story placed third in the contest. Her debut novel, Nightswimming was recently launched by Seraphim Editions.

Hamilton writer Alexandra Missett gave a vivid and dynamic reading of her story, "Fire," which won the GritLit short fiction contest.

Raymond Beauchemin, now of Hamilton, closed the evening with a charming reading of three poems (which were part of his 3rd place GritLit-winning poetry entry) and which appear in the novel he is currently writing. Raymond set the scene with some funny stories and read with a beautifully resonant voice.













Then Jen Jones the host asked everyone to look under their chair. We each received a new car and a cruiseship! Alright, so maybe that didn’t happen, but she did let everyone know that all of the GritLit winning writing is available in a chapbook. And that details of the next reading  (Sunday, January 5th, 2014 at 7:30 at Homegrown Hamilton) can be found at the LitLive blog. 

The writers stuck around to chat with the audience, many of whom visited the booktable to buy books and have them signed.  Before we all left, Rob Ford who was in the audience, suddenly stood up and said, “This kind of reading series is great opportunity to hear a diverse range of both new and familiar writers in an intimate setting (as opposed to those poetry readings at the ACC); it is an experience of writing that is vivid, fun, engaging, and often moving.” Then he said, “Did I just use a semi-colon?”  “I can’t comment on a semi-colon that may or may not exist,” Mayor Bratina said. “But this was a really great night of literature in Hamilton.” OK, so if you’ve read this far, you deserve to know that that none of this paragraph is true, except for the great night of literature part. And the part telling you that none of it was true except for that part. And, you know, this part.

I do invite you to come out to a LitLive Reading. The series really is a great opportunity to hear great writing in a welcoming and congenial setting; and semi-colons.

January 5th Reading! Joosten, Greenwald, Betts, Silcott, Dolinin, Dickson.

Dec 1 Reading: Dave Haskins, Jan Conn, Mark Goldstein, and the winners of the gritLIT Contest Winner (Alexandra Missett, Raymond Beauchemin, and Janet Turpin Myers.)

Dave Haskins emigrated from England to Beamsville in 1953 at the age of eight, and now lives in Grimsby with his wife and his 1970 MGB. He holds an Honours B. A. in English from McMaster University and an M. Ed. from University of Toronto. His teaching career spans 35 years, mostly in secondary schools, five as Department Head of English, but also in Brock University, and for Ontario Ministry of Education correspondence courses in writing and journalism. Other writings include a Creative Writing text, theatre reviews for a Toronto arts newspaper, and memoir pieces. He is currently preparing books of recent poems, and a children’s fantasy novel.

Wolsak & Wynn writes: This House is Condemned is equal parts elegy, portraiture and exploration of a life lived at the edge of Lake Ontario. In prose both hard-hitting and heart-felt, David Haskins writes essays of immigrating to Canada and building his life as a teacher and writer. Currents of poetry run through the book, which is as touched with humour as it is with sadness. He writes of indestructible garden forks, rafts that bear him away unexpectedly and of the loves that ebb and flow throughout a life. This House is Condemned is a powerful collection that picks the reader up and places them beside the author, walking along the shores of the lake.

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Born in Asbestos, Quebec, Jan Conn received her Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Toronto. She has lived in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Caracas (Venezuela), Gainesville (Florida), and Burlington (Vermont). Since 2002 she has been living in western Massachusetts, conducting research on insects that transmit pathogens. Her book South of the Tudo Bem Cafe, Vehicule Press, 1990, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award. A suite of her poems, Amazonia, won 2nd prize in the CBC literary awards for 2003. Her poetry has been featured in many anthologies and journals, and broadly reviewed across Canada. She is a member of both the League of Canadian Poets and the Writers' Union of Canada.

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Toronto writer Mark Goldstein is the author of three books of poetry published by the award-winning BookThug: Form of Forms (2012); Tracelanguage (2010); and After Rilke (2008). His poetry and criticism have also appeared in periodicals such as Matrix Magazine and Jacket2. He has taught transtranslation workshops at the Toronto New School of Writing, SUNY Albany and lectured on translation in Paris at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Before becoming a full-time writer, Goldstein played drums alongside Leslie Feist and Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning in the indie rock band By Divine Right.

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gritLIT Contest Winners

Despite being advised as a teenager to pursue office work rather than writing, Janet Turpin Myers has been writing all her life: novels, poems, short stories. Her poetry has appeared in Hammered Out and Tower Poetry. Her debut novel, Nightswimming was published in 2013 by Seraphim Editions. She resides in Burlington.

Alexandra Missett has been writing for ten years and staring in an annoyed way at blank pages throughout. She has had work published at the University of Indiana and, in 2009, she won Best Fiction at Humber College. She loves tea, and dogs, and listening to Neil Gaiman speak.

Raymond Beauchemin of Hamilton is the author of the novel Everything I Own and Salut! The Quebec Microbrewery Beer Cookbook. His anthologies include 32 Degrees and Future Tense, edited with his wife, the writer Denise Roig. His poems "Watershed," "Rapture" and "Words for Snow" are part of the novel Doctor Lavigne.