FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Barbara Smith's book Passion and Scandal is a history of Canadians who surrendered themselves to passion. Yes, the predictable jokes come to mind (so did they have to move to New York then? Is it a really thin book?) But why this bizarre reluctance to (publicly) associate Canadians with passion? Listen to the music, read the poetry - le Canada, c'est hot, really and truly. Would you call Leonard Cohen (to mention only one fairly well-known example) the bland and passionless voice of an asexual nation? Readers curious about Canada's passion index are encouraged to conduct their own research, but meanwhile Barbara Smith, local author Ken McGoogan and mystery writer Suzanne North will get together to wrestle `a trois with passion and scandal, the topic of Chapters WestHills Local HotTalk on Thursday, November 20 at 8 p.m.
Watch for former Calgary author Yasmin Ladha, who now lives in Chonbuk, Korea, launching her new book Woman Dancing on Rooftoops. Ladha reads at Pages on Kensington, Thursday, November 27 at 7:30 p.m. More on Ladha next week.
The annual December 6 memorial for the 14 young women killed at the University of Montreal's engineering school has become a vehicle for many things, including anger at the continued violence women face, moving testaments to individual women, sometimes painful political conflicts, and sometimes effective public education. (If your own sister was attending the University of Montreal that winter, then every December 6 you revisit your whole family's intense panic, terrible empathy with 14 other families, and relief when her reassuring and grief-stricken voice finally came over the phone that night.) In preparation for this year's memorial, The Centre Gallery is calling for writers to make submissions on the topic "Remembering Women," for an 8 p.m. reading on December 6. Send work to Barbara Bickel, The Centre Gallery, 2nd Floor, 924 - 6th Avenue SW, Calgary, T2P 0V5. Or for further details call 237-0383 or 243-4615.
Harry Vandervlist
Back To Main Contents
Back To This Issue Table of Contents