Diane Schoemperlen: Outdoor Reading & Launch

Our outdoor reading series starts up again in June, with three spectacular authors: Governor General’s Award winning novelist and Taylor Prize finalist Diane Schoemperlen, Windsor’s beloved poet laureate Marty Gervais, and Windsor-based author, poet, and publisher D.A. Lockhart.

In proud partnership with Biblioasis, we’re thrilled to announce that this event marks the national launch of First Things First: Selected Stories (Biblioasis ReSet Books), a beautifully designed reissue of Diane’s earliest and previously uncollected short fiction. The newly released paperback version of her acclaimed memoir, This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications (HarperCollins Canada)—currently shortlisted for the prestigious $25,000 RBC Taylor Prize—will also be available for purchase and signing.

Marty Gervais and D.A. Lockhart, two members of “Windsor’s Group of Seven,” a crew of local poets and writers dedicated to telling “the forgotten stories of the city they call home,” will join Diane to share their latest work and enjoy a relaxed weekend afternoon on the lake.

This is a free event and book launch, with snacks and refreshments generously provided by Biblioasis. Books will be on sale.

ABOUT OUR AUTHORS

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Diane Schoemperlen is the Governor General’s Award winning author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the national bestselling memoir, This Is Not My Life (HarperCollins Canada), a current finalist for the $25,000 RBC Taylor Prize. First Things First: Selected Stories (Biblioasis), a gathering of her earliest and uncollected short stories, will be on sale in May 2017. Schoemperlen is a recipient of the Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She joins us from her home in Kingston, Ontario, where she writes and blogs for Huffington Post Canada.

Marty Gervais is an award winning journalist, photographer, poet, playwright, historian, editor and teacher. In 1998, he won the prestigious Toronto’s Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. In 1996, he was awarded the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award for his book, Tearing Into A Summer Day. He has twice won the City of Windsor Mayor’s Award for literature, and has been the recipient of nearly two dozen Ontario Newspaper Awards for journalism. His forthcoming nonfiction title, ‘The Disappeared: Five Days Walking the Five Towns,’ is forthcoming from Biblioasis this fall.

D.A. Lockhart lives in Windsor, ON. He holds a MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University where he held a Neal-Marshall Fellowship in Fiction. He has received numerous grants from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts for both his poetry and his fiction. His work has appeared throughout North America in journals such as Vinyl, Contemporary Verse 2, the Windsor Review, the Mackinaw, and the Sugar House Review. He is a member of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation.