Ottawa Reading with Anita Lahey
258 Elgin St
Ottawa, ON K2P 1L9
Canada
Join Anita Lahey (The Last Goldfish: A True Tale of Friendship) in person for readings and conversation on the theme of friendship alongside Bardia Sinaee (Intruder, Anansi), and Anne Marie Todkill (Orion Sweeping, Brick Books), moderated by Ottawa poet Ben Ladouceur (Mad Long Emotion, 2019). The event will take place at Perfect Books on Tuesday, September 20 at 7:30PM ET.
Refreshments will be served. Masking when possible is requested.
More details here.
Get your copy of The Last Goldfish from Biblioasis here!
Twenty-five years ago and counting, Louisa, my true, essential, always-there-for-everything friend, died. We were 22.
When Anita Lahey opens her binder in grade nine French and gasps over an unsigned form, the girl with the burst of red hair in front of her whispers, Forge it! Thus begins an intense, joyful friendship, one of those powerful bonds forged in youth that shapes a person’s identity and changes the course of a life.
Anita and Louisa navigate the wilds of 1980s suburban adolescence against the backdrop of dramatic world events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. They make carpe diem their manifesto and hatch ambitious plans. But when Louisa’s life takes a shocking turn, into hospital wards, medical tests, and treatments, a new possibility confronts them, one that alters, with devastating finality, the prospect of the future for them both.
Equal parts humorous and heartbreaking, The Last Goldfish is a poignant memoir of youth, friendship, and the impermanence of life.
Anita Lahey‘s latest book, The Last Goldfish: a True Tale of Friendship, was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. Series editor for the Best Canadian Poetry anthology, she’s the author of two Véhicule Press poetry collections (Spinning Side Kick and Out to Dry in Cape Breton), as well as The Mystery Shopping Cart: Essays on Poetry and Culture, a Palimpsest Press book. Anita lives in Ottawa, on unceded Alongonquin, Anishinabek territory.
