| Writers coming to the streets and classrooms of Calgary
The word on the street is that Word on the Street will be marching on this fall despite the news that Chapters/Indigo has pulled its sponsorship. Jim Button of the Event Group, which is organizing this year’s festival in Calgary, says it will go ahead on Sunday, September 23 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Eau Claire Market, although it may be slightly scaled back. He adds that the withdrawl of Chapters leaves some room for independent bookstores to become more involved in the event to pick up the slack. This year’s festival will focus on literacy, and some of the writers scheduled to participate are Ken Rivard, Hiromi Goto, Richard Harrison, Clem Martini, Wendy McGrath, Anita Horriks, Shanaaz Nanji, B.J. Bayle, Marie Jackobar, Dave Duncan, Kimmy Beach, Sarah Murphy, Catherine Moss, Rajinderpal Pal, Eugene Strickland, Deborah Miller and Ken McGoogan. Watch this space for more details closer to the event.
The Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Programme is once again bringing distinguished writers to Calgary. Eden Robinson, who was nominated for both the Giller Prize and a Governor-General’s Award for her novel Monkey Beach, will be spending the next 10 months at the University of Calgary as the Canadian Writer-in-Residence. She begins her term this month, and will engage in a number of public events as well as pursuing her own writing.
Robinson, 32, is from the Haisla First Nation in the village of Kitimaat, BC. She moved to Vancouver and studied writing at the University of B.C. Her first book, Traplines, a collection of bleak but compelling short stories, won a prestigious Commonwealth Award. Her recent novel Monkey Beach, a dark, psychological thriller with supernatural overtones, won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize at the B.C. Book Awards in May. To launch her residency, she will present a public reading on Thursday, September 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Engineered Air Theatre in the Centre for the Performing Arts.
Also this fall, Timothy Findley will be in residence at the University of Calgary’s English Department as a Distinguished Visiting Writer from September 15 to October 13, 2001. In addition to visiting creative writing classes and meeting with local writers and students, he will present two public readings: Thursday, September 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the Rozsa Centre on the U. of C. campus, and Monday, September 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the Jack Singer Concert Hall in the Centre for the Performing Arts. He will also be involved in an on-stage interview with CBC Radio’s Eleanor Wachtel, also at the Rozsa Centre, on Tuesday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m., co-sponsored with PanCanadian WordFest.
Born in Toronto in 1930 and self-educated after Grade 10, Findley worked as an actor for 15 years before full-time writing in1962. Findley is best known for his novels, such as The Wars, Not Wanted on the Voyage, The Piano Man’s Daughter and Pilgrim. His latest book, Spadework, is in production. He has also written plays such as The Trials of Ezra Pound in 1995 and The Stillborn Lover in 1993.
The Markin-Flanagan Programme, established nine years ago with an endowment from two local benefactors, offers residencies both for promising Canadian writers and to writers of international stature, and is intended to benefit the community of readers and writers in Calgary, Alberta and Canada.
All Markin-Flanagan events are free and open to the public. For further information, please contact Sandra Vida at 220-8177. |
