Steven Heighton Remembered
1418 Rte 105
Chelsea, QC J9B 1P4
Canada
On this Sunday afternoon you will get to know Steven Heighton: the thoughtful writer, poet, musician and spontaneous giver who passed away in April 2022. Rhonda Douglas, along with Steven’s friends and fellow authors Angie Abdou, Wayne Grady and Dave O’Meara, will steer a conversation about this gifted creative architect of language and story.
Steven’s legacy endures through his poems, novels, short stories, memoir and songs, and in the hearts and memories of those he touched through his capacity to love, listen and empathize. Personal tributes will be given by Ginger Pharand, Steven’s editor and life partner, and Hugh Christopher Brown, his friend and music producer. Also a musical retrospective, Chris and Ginger will perform some of Steve’s songs from his 2021 album The Devil’s Share, along with newer works soon to be produced.
The memorial will take place at the Motel Chelsea on Sunday, May 28 at 4PM, with tickets available beginning April 4.
More details here.
Order your copy of Steven’s posthumous collection, Instructions for the Drowning, here.
Check out Steven’s previous work, Reaching Mithymna, here.
Steven Heighton (1961–2022) was a writer and musician. His nineteen previous books include the novels Afterlands, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and the bestselling The Shadow Boxer; the Writers’ Trust Hilary Weston Prize finalist memoir Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos; and The Waking Comes Late, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.
ABOUT INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DROWNING
“To say Heighton is an immensely talented writer is true enough but insufficient … As good a writer as Canada has ever produced.”—National Post
A man recalls his father’s advice on how to save a drowning person, but struggles when the time comes to use it. A wife’s good deed leaves a couple vulnerable at the moment when they’re most in need of security—the birth of their first child. Newly in love, a man preoccupied by accounts of freak accidents is befallen by one himself. In stories about love and fear, idealisms and illusions, failures of muscle and mind and all the ways we try to care for one another, Steven Heighton’s Instructions for the Drowning is an indelible last collection by a writer working at the height of his powers.
