| There’s no such thing as down time in Calgary’s literary scene – from toilets to motorcycles, farting dogs to painful poetics, it’s a jam-packed week of wordy mayhem.
R.J. MacSween was an important fellah – he established Canada’s first university-level creative writing course – so why haven’t you heard of him? Stewart Donovan rectifies this gap in Canadian history with The Forgotten World of R.J. MacSween: A Life, which he shares at McNally Robinson on June 21, 7 p.m.
Catherine DeVrye grew up in hardship. After being abandoned as a baby, her adopted parents both died while she was in university, and she was later diagnosed with the same malignant melanoma that claimed her adoptive mother. Rather than succumbing to despair, however, she went on to bicycle over the Andes, sail to the Antarctic, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, carry the Olympic torch, write eight bestselling books and become one of the most popular motivational speakers in the Asia/Pacific area. She returns to Calgary with her new memoir, Serendipity Road, from which she’ll read at the Ramsay Community Hall (1136-8 Street S.E.) on June 21, 7:30 p.m.
Bee stings, snake bites and aborted romance – two friends unite on a motorcycle adventure in Motorcycle Therapy: A Canadian Adventure in Central America, a mostly autobiographical, continent-spanning novel by Jeremy Kroeker. He’s at McNally Robinson on June 22 at noon to share his wheelie-popping tales.
Sudhir Jain’s first book of short stories, Isolde’s Dream and Other Stories, follows his journey from India to Canada and all the discoveries in between. He reads from his work at the Castell Central Library on June 22 at noon.
Walter the Farting Dog is back, and – guess what – he’s in trouble! When a massive fart blows away the Crabbe family’s beach umbrella, Walter finds himself Banned from the Beach in Glenn Murray’s latest children’s book. Readers aged three and up can laugh along with Walter’s gaseous misadventures at McNally Robinson on June 23, 2 p.m.
Joan Spencer has stared down her gambling addiction and come out the other side. Now, she shares her experience in A Place Where Weeds & Roses Grow, a retrospective on her destructive lifestyle. She speaks at McNally Robinson on June 27, 6 p.m.
When you flush the toilet, you’re probably thinking less about the sociopolitical history of waste management and more about the inadvisable chili you had for lunch, but Jamie Benidickson, professor of environmental law, is about to change all that. In The Culture of Flushing, Benidickson looks at how water, one of our most invaluable resources, became an acceptable means of disposal. He appears at McNally Robinson on June 28, 7 p.m.
As a teenager, did you ever compare your misery to a withering bouquet of abandoned roses? Sara Bynoe, editor of Teen Angst: A Celebration of REALLY BAD Poetry, raids your closet and presents the most putrid poetry imaginable in her latest show, Fuck Off and Die: Tales in Teen Angst Poetry. Directed by AJ Demers and co-hosted by Loose Moose and TeenAngstPoetry.com, this one-night-only performance will dredge out classics like "No one understands me!" and "I will never love again" to a chorus of Kurt Cobain memorial sonnets. Join Bynoe for a painfully perfect evening of angst and anguish at the Loose Moose Theatre (Crossroads Market) on June 28, 8 p.m.
Every year, the Markin-Flanagan program draws world-class authors to Calgary, where they split their time between consultations with local aspiring writers and focusing on their craft. They’ve just announced their 2007-08 Writer-in-Residence: Sina Queyras. Her residency stretches from August to June, during which time she’ll work on a plethora of projects – Expressway, a collection of poetry; Autobiography of Childhood, a novel; Everyone is Always Talking, a play about Gertrude Stein; Swallow, a collection of short fiction; an essay on Canadian women’s writing; and two anthologies. |
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