| Once upon a time, you had to wait until summer to learn which authors would step up to the WordFest podium in October. No longer. The people at Calgary's largest literary event have just announced that novelist Jane Urquhart will be among the writers at the WordFest: Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival 10th anniversary in October 2005. She'll read from her new novel Map of Glass. Tempted? You can hook yourself up with a festival pass by calling 294-7462. All the details and prices are posted at www.wordfest.com.
It's a simple matter to add a dimension to your experience of the Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays at Alberta Theatre Projects. Just go to Pages on Kensington on Thursday, February 3, where David Gray of the CBC will host a reading and discussion featuring two of the festival's writers. Greg MacArthur reads from his play Get Away and Greg Nelson reads from his new work Mick Unplugged at 7:30 p.m.
South of the Bow, it's still more playRites playwrights, this time at McNally Robinson. On Sunday, January 30 at 2:30 p.m., Conni Massing (The Myth of Summer) reads with Bobby Theodore, translator of The Leisure Society (La société des loisirs) by François Archambault. Bob White, ATP’s artistic director, describes the latter play's dinner-party revelations about middle-class crisis "truly astonishing and shocking." (See the cover story in this issue for the full lowdown.) For more playRites information, call 294-7402 or see www.atplive.com. playRites runs from January 28 to March 6.
McNally Robinson isn’t confining its theatre-related activity to ATP. Christopher Newton, director of Theatre Calgary’s forthcoming production of Macbeth, will be part of a panel discussion with former Alberta finance minister Pat Nelson, former Calgary Herald columnist Catherine Ford and University of Calgary political scientist David Taras. They’ll be discussing the contemporary political relevance of Shakespeare’s tragedy on Monday, January 31 at noon.
Just so the poets don't find themselves entirely eclipsed by dramatists, McNally Robinson also hosts the launch of Poets Talk, a book of interviews with poets well known to local readers: Robert Kroetsch, Daphne Marlatt, Erin Mouré, Dionne Brand, Marie Annharte Baker, Jeff Derksen and Fred Wah. Editors Pauline Butling and Susan Rudy produced the collection for the University of Alberta Press, and they're on hand for the launch on Thursday, February 3 at 7 p.m.
That folksy tale-teller and Ryerson journalism prof Stuart McLean is reading next week at Artspace (the second floor of Crossroads Market). What will he read? Who knows? I can tell you this much, though. The event is a fundraiser for Hull Child and Family Services and tickets are $85. You can get them at McNally Robinson, Owl's Nest and other bookstores. The reading is on Thursday, February 10 at 7 p.m.
That volunteer-run literary magazine filling Station has some new crew members on its masthead. Derek Beaulieu is now managing editor and the new general editor is Jordan Scott. Jani Krulc is fiction editor and Sandy Lam is editing visual arts.
Best-sellers
Best-selling books for January 14 to 22 at Pages on Kensington
Fiction and Poetry
1. Telling Tales
edited by Nadine Gordimer
2. Silt
by Jordan Scott
3. Lighthousekeeping
by Jeanette Winterson
4. Queen's Park
by Garry Ryan
5. Story-Wallah
edited by Shyam Selvaduri
6. The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
7. The Sunday Philosophy Club
by Alexander McCall Smith
8. Sock
by Penn Jillette
9. Casanova in Bolzano
by Sandor Marai
10. A Complicated Kindness
by Miriam Toews
Non-fiction
1. The End of Faith
by Sam Harris
2. A Short History of Progress
by Ronald Wright
3. Alberta Politics Uncovered
by Mark Lisac
4. Grazing
by Julie van Rosendaal
5. Jacob's Wound
by Trevor Herriot
6. On Literature
by Umberto Eco
7. Les Halles Cookbook
by Anthony Bourdain
8. To Rule the Waves
by Arthur Herman
9. Here Be Dragons
by Peter C. Newman
10. Eats, Shoots and Leaves
by Lynne Truss |
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