| Reluctance is futile...
Readings, book launches, more readings: with all of the literary events continually proclaimed on posters and public service announcements, or even written up in this column, it's difficult to believe that even one single Calgarian could remain who has not succumbed to all this propaganda and found her way, or his way, to at least one reading, book launch, book signing or what have you. Yet such Calgarians there are.
Jason Hammond doesn't see why this can't be changed. He's the Southern Alberta co-ordinator for the Writers Guild of Alberta, and he means to make it even easier for you to have the experience of hearing local authors read their own work. It's a good experience to have! As with the food you eat, the clothes you wear or the music you listen to, meeting the maker can lend reading more flavour, immediacy, genuineness. With this in mind, Hammond has put together a reading event designed to overcome reading-event reluctance. The writers will include members of both the Writers Guild of Alberta and the Alexandra Writers Centre: Rosemary Griebel, Sharon Drummond, Barb Howard, Catherine Moss, Vilnis Muiznieks and Bob Stallworthy. This matinee event is on Sunday, February 3 at 1:30 p.m., at Annie's Bookstore (912 - 16 Ave. N.W.). The whole event is just as free as the further information to be had from Jason himself at 265-2226.
Also at Annie's, Fast Forward's "Best of Calgary" winning poet Rajinderpal S. Pal reads on Tuesday, February 5 at 7:30 p.m. Wondering about parking? There's a lot right next door.
Last summer, novelist, poet, essayist and teacher Robert Kroetsch published his first new book of poems in 10 years. You can hear Kroetsch read from The Hornbooks of Rita K. at Pages on Thursday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. What's a hornbook, you're wondering? It's early handheld reading technology, that's what, in the form of a "book" consisting of a single page protected by a wafer-thin slice of horn. Equipped with a handle, the hornbook could be used by children learning their ABCs. Keats had one. So now you know.
Kroetsch is in Calgary as the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Calgary. To launch his stay, the program is presenting a reading entitled "Lines Written in the John Snow House and other works by Robert Kroetsch read by Robert Kroetsch." That's on Tuesday, February 5 in the Engineered Air Theatre at 7:30 p.m. It's free, and you can call Leigh Hurst at 220-8177 for more info. Or see www.markinflanagan.com.
Also at Pages, Gloria Sawai reads from her new book, A Song for Nettie Johnson. (You may remember Sawai's short story "The Day I Sat With Jesus On The Sun Deck And A Wind Came Up And Blew My Kimono Open And He Saw My Breasts.") She'll be accompanied by Laura Cutler, whose short story collection Out of Her Backpack offers "a non-Club Med view" of world travel. Both women read February 1 at 7:30 p.m.
The Short Happy Life of Harry Kumar is Ashok Mathur's third book (after Loveruage and Once Upon an Elephant). It features a globe-spanning quest that combines humour, politics, the desire for romance (not necessarily satisfied) and, of course, odd dog behaviour. Once a Calgarian, now a Vancouverite, Mathur launches the novel at Vicious Circle (1011 - 1 St. S.W.) on Friday, February 8 at 7 p.m. |
