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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260324T203000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260324T220000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20260302T192340Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260302T192340Z
UID:37688-1774384200-1774389600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Robyn Sarah at Ottawa VerseFest
DESCRIPTION:VerseFest Presents\nRobyn Sarah\, author of We’re Somewhere Else Now: Poems 2016–2024\, will be appearing at Ottawa’s VerseFest on Tuesday\, March 24. She’ll be joined by fellow poets David Galvaude and Melissa Powless Day\, in an event hosted by Chloé LaDuchesse. \nThe event will take place at Club Saw at 8:30PM EST. Tickets are available for purchase here. \nGrab a copy of We’re Somewhere Else Now here! \nABOUT WE’RE SOMEWHERE ELSE NOW \nIn her first collection of new poems in a decade\, Robyn Sarah chronicles the pandemic years with quiet wisdom and her flair for meshing the familiar with the numinous. \nWe’re Somewhere Else Now moves with ease from the particular to the abstract. These are poems of grief and unexpected change\, of quiet awe at the human experience. Each poem is a window for the reader to look into\, “lit room to lit room\,” tracking desultory days of isolation and uncertainty\, while also highlighting reasons to pay attention: playing with a grandchild\, the rarity of a leap year\, the calls of birds. \nABOUT ROBYN SARAH \nPoet\, writer\, literary editor\, and musician\, Robyn Sarah has lived in Montreal since early childhood. Her writing began to appear in Canadian literary magazines in the 1970s while she completed studies at McGill University and the Conservatoire de musique du Québec. Her tenth poetry collection\, My Shoes Are Killing Me\, won the Governor General’s Award in 2015. As well\, she has published two collections of short stories\, a book of essays on poetry\, and a memoir\, Music\, Late and Soon (2021)\, that interweaves her youth as a professional-track clarinetist with her return at fifty-nine (after a lapse of thirty-five years) to the piano teacher who was her life mentor. From 2010 until 2020 she served as poetry editor for Cormorant Books.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/robyn-sarah-at-ottawa-versefest/
LOCATION:Club Saw\, 67 Nicholas Street\, Ottawa\, ON\, K1A 0K7\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/9781771966863_FC-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Winnipeg:20251125T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Winnipeg:20251125T140000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250924T193638Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250924T193638Z
UID:36783-1764072000-1764079200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Jón Kalman Stefánsson: Winnipeg Free Press Book Club
DESCRIPTION:Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (trans. Philip Roughton) is the Winnipeg Free Press Book Club’s November Pick! Jón will be appearing virtually for this online event to speak about the book. \nThe event will take place virtually on Tuesday\, November 25 at 12PM CT. More details TK. \nOrder Heaven and Hell here! \nCheck out the second book\, The Sorrow of Angels\, here! \nABOUT HEAVEN AND HELL \n“Stefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy.”—Eileen Battersby\, TLS \nIn a remote fishing village\, a boy and his best friend spend the lonely hours on shore reading and talking about poetry. When the friend\, absorbed in a borrowed copy of Paradise Lost\, forgets his oilskin one morning and the crew is unexpectedly caught at sea in a savage winter storm\, tragedy strikes. Overwhelmed by grief—and his crewmates’ indifference to what has happened—the boy leaves the village\, determined to return the book to its owner. The hardship and danger of the journey is of little consequence: he’s already resolved to join his friend in death. But when he reaches the town where he intends to end his days\, he couldn’t have imagined the stories and lives he finds. \nNavigating the depths of despair to celebrate the redemptive power of friendship\, Heaven and Hell is an incandescent story of community\, resilience\, and love from one of Iceland’s most celebrated novelists. \nABOUT JON KALMAN STEFANSSON \nJón Kalman Stefánsson’s novels have been nominated three times for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature\, and his novel Summer Light\, and Then Comes the Night received the Icelandic Prize for Literature in 2005. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious P. O. Enquist Award. He is perhaps best known for his trilogy: Heaven and Hell\, The Sorrow of Angels (longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and The Heart of Man (winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize). A subsequent novel\, Fish Have No Feet\, was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/jon-kalman-stefansson-winnipeg-free-press-book-club/
LOCATION:ON
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Virtual Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966511_FC-1.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Winnipeg Free Press Book Club":MAILTO:bookclub@winnipegfreepress.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251117T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251117T200000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20251008T202733Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T202733Z
UID:36920-1763404200-1763409600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Voices of Resistance: Toronto Launch
DESCRIPTION:Toronto friends\, don’t miss the launch of Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide by Batool Abu Akleen\, Sondos Sabra\, Nahil Mohana\, and Ala’a Obaid. The book will be co-launching with Leila Marshy’s Razing Palestine in this event hosted by Samira Mohyeddin. Books will be for sale and signing from Another Story. \nThe double launch is free to attend and will take place at It’s Ok* Studios on Monday\, November 17 at 6:30PM. \nMore details here. \nOrder a copy of Voices of Resistance here! \nABOUT VOICES OF RESISTANCE \nFor two years\, the world has witnessed image after devastating image of Israel’s genocide in Gaza: videos\, photos\, and Instagram reels showing blanket bombardment\, cities in ruin\, and entire families pulled from the rubble of their homes. Such enormity can be difficult to process\, but behind each image lie ordinary lives full of hope\, love\, and community. \nIn these diaries\, four Gazan women—Batool Abu Akleen\, Sondos Sabra\, Nahil Mohana\, and Ala’a Obaid—offer first-hand accounts of Israeli airstrikes\, forced displacement\, and engineered famine. These atrocities are documented alongside the everyday resilience of Palestinians: from the neighbour who fashions an ashtray from the shrapnel of an Israeli missile\, to the street vendor who donates his last egg for a child’s birthday cake\, to the community of displaced people who pool their resources to stage a traditional wedding. Even when homeless\, under fire\, forced to bury loved ones\, or thrown at the mercy of a devastated health system\, the writers of these diaries never abandon their humanity\, their individuality\, or their belief in the future of Gaza. \nAll proceeds from the sale of this book will go directly to the writers and their families.  \nABOUT THE AUTHORS \nBatool Abu Akleen is a twenty-year-old Palestinian poet and translator\, born and raised in Gaza City. She is a student of English Literature and Translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. At the age of fifteen\, Abu Akleen won the Parjeel Poetry Prize for her poem ‘I Did Not Steal the Cloud’\, which was also translated and published as part of the anthology Di acqua e di tempo. Her poem ‘I Want a Grave’ was published in Penguin’s Letters from Gaza (2025). She was the 2024 Poet-in-Residence with Modern Poetry in Translation\, for whom she collected and translated Sea Shells: An Anthology of Emerging Poets from Gaza (edited by Cristina Viti). Her poem ‘Gunpowder’ was among the winners of The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2025. Her debut bilingual poetry collection 48Kg was published by Tenement Press in June 2025. Extracts from her diaries have been performed by Leila Herandi at the Belgrade Theatre\, Coventry. \nNahil Mohana is the author of the novel No Men Allowed\, the short story collection Life in a Square Metre and six plays including High Pressure\, which received the 2008 Abdul Mohsin Al-Qattan Prize; Ghoson\, which received the 2008 Children’s Culture Award; and Lipstick\, which was produced by the Royal Court Theatre\, London. Her writing has appeared in AGNI Online\, Literary Hub\, and The Washington Post. Extracts from her diaries have been performed by Maxine Peake at the Barbican Theatre\, London\, and Julie-Yara Atz at the Belgrade Theatre\, Coventry. \nAla’a Obaid is a writer and a mother of three children. She has held a number of positions in various NGOs and cultural institutions in Gaza\, including Education Officer\, Creative Writing Teacher and Culture Centre Coordinator. Ala’a co-authored the books Writing Behind the Lines and Disturbing Flashbacks\, both of which document the experiences of Palestinians living through the current genocide. She has published several articles in The New Arab. Excerpts from her diaries have been performed by Hind Shoufani at the Barbican Theatre\, London\, and by Zarah Sultana MP at the Belgrade Theatre\, Coventry. \nSondos Sabra\, 25\, holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the Islamic University of Gaza and is a founding member of the Shaghaf Youth Initiative\, which organises discussions of literary works. She is a translator and writer. Her writing has appeared in Mondoweiss\, The New Statesman\, and ArabLit Quarterly. Extracts from her diaries have been performed by Yusra Warsama at the Barbican Theatre\, London\, and Sama Rantisi at the Belgrade Theatre\, Coventry. Her piece ‘We Kill Terrorism’ was read by Maxine Peake to a crowd of 15\,000 protesters outside the 2024 Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/voices-of-resistance-toronto-launch/
LOCATION:It’s Ok* Studios\, 468 Queen Street W\, Toronto\, ON\, M5V 2B2\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/VoR_launch.jpeg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251109T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251109T120000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250924T183224Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250924T184031Z
UID:36767-1762682400-1762689600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Mélikah Abdelmoumen at Wild Writers Festival: The Literary Brunch
DESCRIPTION:Mélikah Abdelmoumen\, author of Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be at Wild Writers Literary Festival\, for their “Literary Brunch!” Mélikah will be joined by fellow writers Vinh Nguyen and Susan Swan\, with moderator Sarah Scott\, discuss their latest works\, writing process\, and lives as writers. Intimate\, casual\, and engaging—an ideal way to spend a Sunday morning. \nThe Wild Writers Brunch Buffet Includes: \n\nScrambled Eggs with Chives\nBacon and sausage\nHash Browns\nCinnamon French Toast\nSeasonal Fresh Fruit\nFreshly Baked Assorted Breakfast Pastries\nChilled Assorted Juices\nCoffee & Tea\n\nThe event will take place on Sunday\, November 9 at 10AM\, with brunch served at 10:15. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me here! \nABOUT BALDWIN\, STYRON\, AND ME \nAn unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity\, race\, and censorship. \nIn 1961\, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day\, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations\, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write\, in first person\, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim\, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968\, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community. \nDecades later\, the controversy around cultural appropriation\, identity\, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me\, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity\, race\, equity\, and the often contentious public debates about these topics\, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement. \nABOUT MELIKAH ABDELMOUMEN \nMélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon\, France\, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles\, short stories\, novels\, and essays\, including Les désastrées (2013)\, Douze ans en France (2018)\, and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises\, a Québec literary magazine\, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/melikah-abdelmoumen-wild-writers-fest-2/
LOCATION:Grey Silo Golf Course\, 2001 University Ave E\, Waterloo\, ON\, N2K 4K4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-Literary-Brunch.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251108T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251108T150000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250924T181858Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250924T181916Z
UID:36761-1762608600-1762614000@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Mélikah Abdelmoumen at Wild Writers Festival: Telling Other People’s Stories
DESCRIPTION:Mélikah Abdelmoumen\, author of Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be at Wild Writers Literary Festival\, for the discussion “Telling Other People’s Stories.” Mélikah will be joined in conversation by Sadiqa de Meijer\, with moderator Lara El Mekaui\, to explore the power and responsibility that come with telling stories that are not our own. \nThrough their thoughtful and nuanced work\, they examine the complexities of voice\, identity\, and empathy\, challenging assumptions about belonging and representation. Don’t miss this engaging conversation about how sharing “other people’s stories” can foster understanding\, connection\, and a reimagined sense of community \nThe even will take place on Saturday\, November 8 at 1:30PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me here! \nABOUT BALDWIN\, STYRON\, AND ME \nAn unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity\, race\, and censorship. \nIn 1961\, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day\, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations\, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write\, in first person\, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim\, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968\, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community. \nDecades later\, the controversy around cultural appropriation\, identity\, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me\, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity\, race\, equity\, and the often contentious public debates about these topics\, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement. \nABOUT MELIKAH ABDELMOUMEN \nMélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon\, France\, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles\, short stories\, novels\, and essays\, including Les désastrées (2013)\, Douze ans en France (2018)\, and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises\, a Québec literary magazine\, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/melikah-abdelmoumen-wild-writers-fest-1/
LOCATION:Balsillie School of International Affairs\, 67 Erb Street West\, Waterloo\, ON\, N2L 6C2\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Other-Peoples-Stories-v2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251106T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251106T200000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250924T173750Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251023T141447Z
UID:36757-1762453800-1762459200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Mélikah Abdelmoumen in Conversation with Madeleine Thien
DESCRIPTION:Toronto friends! Mélikah Abdelmoumen\, author of Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be in conversation with Madeleine Thien and Vinh Nguyen at Queen Books. The event\, “Migration\, Friendships\, and the Politics of Writing” will be hosted by Thy Phu\, and is sponsored by the Critical Refugee and Migration Studies Network of Canada. \nThe conversation will take place on Thursday\, November 6 at 6:30PM. \nDetails here. \nGrab Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me here! \nABOUT BALDWIN\, STYRON\, AND ME \nAn unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity\, race\, and censorship. \nIn 1961\, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day\, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations\, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write\, in first person\, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim\, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968\, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community. \nDecades later\, the controversy around cultural appropriation\, identity\, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me\, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity\, race\, equity\, and the often contentious public debates about these topics\, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement. \nABOUT MELIKAH ABDELMOUMEN \nMélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon\, France\, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles\, short stories\, novels\, and essays\, including Les désastrées (2013)\, Douze ans en France (2018)\, and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises\, a Québec literary magazine\, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/melikah-abdelmoumen-in-conversation-with-madeleine-thien/
LOCATION:Queen Books\, 914 Queen St E\, Toronto\, ON\, M4M 1J5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Abdelmoumen_QueenBooks.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251105T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251105T210000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T202047Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251023T133428Z
UID:36687-1762369200-1762376400@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Precarious: Toronto Launch!
DESCRIPTION:Join us in celebrating the Toronto launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. Marcello will be in conversation with Zoë Newman and Vannina Sztainbok. The event is presented by Another Story Bookshop\, Talking Precarity Podcast\, and Biblioasis; and sponsored by the Workers Action Centre. \nThe launch will take place on Wednesday\, November 5 at 7PM. The event is free\, and you can RSVP on Eventbrite. \nMore details here. \nGrab a copy of Precarious here! \nABOUT PRECARIOUS \nA series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents. \nIn 2023\, after weeks of investigation\, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused\, intimidated\, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded\, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. \nIn Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers\, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields\, bathe our elderly\, and serve us our Double Doubles\, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance\, resilience\, and humanity\, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see\, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails\, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity. \nABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO \nMarcello Di Cintio is the author of six books\, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades\, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense\, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail\, The Walrus\, The International New York Times\, and Canadian Geographic\, among others. He lives in Calgary.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/precarious-calgary-launch/
LOCATION:Workers Action Centre\, 720 Spadina Avenue\, Toronto\, ON\, M5S 2T9\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/precarious-toronto.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251104T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251104T210000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20251015T201221Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251015T201221Z
UID:36966-1762282800-1762290000@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Precarious: Windsor Launch!
DESCRIPTION:Join us in celebrating the Windsor launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. Marcello will be reading from his latest book followed by an audience Q&A at Biblioasis Bookshop\, where books will be available for sale and signing. \nThe launch will take place on Tuesday\, November 4 at 7PM. \nGrab a copy of Precarious here! \nABOUT PRECARIOUS \nA series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents. \nIn 2023\, after weeks of investigation\, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused\, intimidated\, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded\, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. \nIn Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers\, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields\, bathe our elderly\, and serve us our Double Doubles\, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance\, resilience\, and humanity\, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see\, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails\, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity. \nABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO \nMarcello Di Cintio is the author of six books\, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades\, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense\, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail\, The Walrus\, The International New York Times\, and Canadian Geographic\, among others. He lives in Calgary.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/precarious-windsor-launch/
LOCATION:Biblioasis Bookshop\, 1520 Wyandotte St E\, Windsor\, ON\, N9A 3L2\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966597_FC-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251028T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251028T163000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T192756Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T192756Z
UID:36681-1761665400-1761669000@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Elaine Feeney at Sacred Heart University
DESCRIPTION:Elaine Feeney (Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way) will be reading at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. \nThe event will take place in the Martire Center Loris Forum on Tuesday\, October 28 at 3:30PM. \nMore details here. \nOrder Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way here! \nABOUT LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY \nAn Observer\, Irish Times\, and Sunday Times Ireland Preview Selection \nClaire O’Connor is a promising writer who left the family’s struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London\, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother\, she is racked with grief\, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer\, she decides to return home to care for him\, destroying everything she’d so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows\, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine\, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wives she discovers on social media. When Tom\, her lost London love\, unexpectedly shows up the next town over\, her anxieties and obsessions collide\, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family’s historic trauma—a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled. \nRanging through recent Irish history\, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s most ambitious novel to date\, a work of literary and cultural exorcism and a profound exploration of family\, history\, violence\, and hope. \nABOUT ELAINE FEENEY \nElaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel\, As You Were\, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award\, the McKitterick Prize\, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise\, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories\, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth\, The Paris Review\, The Stinging Fly\, Poetry Review\, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/elaine-feeney-at-sacred-heart-university/
LOCATION:Sacred Heart University\, 5401 Park Ave\, Fairfield\, CT\, 06825\, United States
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/9781771967044_FC-2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251026T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251026T180000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T190714Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T190714Z
UID:36676-1761494400-1761501600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Elaine Feeney at Ottawa Writers Fest: Now and Then
DESCRIPTION:Elaine Feeney (Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way) will be appearing at the Ottawa Writers Fest for the panel “Now and Then.” Elaine will be joined by fellow Irish novelist Eimear McBride in a conversation hosted by Ottawa’s Poet Laureate\, David O’Meara. \nThe event will take place at Library and Archives Canada on Sunday\, October 26 at 4PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nOrder Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way here! \nABOUT LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY \nAn Observer\, Irish Times\, and Sunday Times Ireland Preview Selection \nClaire O’Connor is a promising writer who left the family’s struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London\, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother\, she is racked with grief\, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer\, she decides to return home to care for him\, destroying everything she’d so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows\, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine\, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wives she discovers on social media. When Tom\, her lost London love\, unexpectedly shows up the next town over\, her anxieties and obsessions collide\, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family’s historic trauma—a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled. \nRanging through recent Irish history\, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s most ambitious novel to date\, a work of literary and cultural exorcism and a profound exploration of family\, history\, violence\, and hope. \nABOUT ELAINE FEENEY \nElaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel\, As You Were\, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award\, the McKitterick Prize\, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise\, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories\, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth\, The Paris Review\, The Stinging Fly\, Poetry Review\, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/elaine-feeney-at-ottawa-writers-fest/
LOCATION:Library and Archives Canada\, 395 Wellington Street\, Ottawa\, ON\, K1A 0N4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/9781771967044_FC-2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Vancouver:20251025T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Vancouver:20251025T210000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20251015T200355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251015T200355Z
UID:36960-1761418800-1761426000@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Precarious: Victoria Launch!
DESCRIPTION:Join us in celebrating the Victoria launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. Marcello will be in conversation with host Seb Bonet. Books will be provided for sale and signing by the University of Victoria Bookstore. \nThe launch will take place on October 25 at 7PM. \nMore details TK. \nGrab a copy of Precarious here! \nABOUT PRECARIOUS \nA series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents. \nIn 2023\, after weeks of investigation\, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused\, intimidated\, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded\, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. \nIn Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers\, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields\, bathe our elderly\, and serve us our Double Doubles\, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance\, resilience\, and humanity\, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see\, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails\, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity. \nABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO \nMarcello Di Cintio is the author of six books\, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades\, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense\, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail\, The Walrus\, The International New York Times\, and Canadian Geographic\, among others. He lives in Calgary.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/precarious-victoria-launch/
LOCATION:University of Victoria\, 3800 Finnerty Rd\, Victoria\, BC\, V8P 5C2\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966597_FC-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Vancouver:20251024T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Vancouver:20251024T150000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T190158Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T190158Z
UID:36673-1761310800-1761318000@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Elaine Feeney at Vancouver Writers Fest: The Conversations
DESCRIPTION:Irish author Elaine Feeney (Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way) will be appearing at the Vancouver Writers Fest for the panel “The Conversations.” Elaine will be joined by fellow authors Ian Williams and Jack Wang\, as moderator Tara McGuire conducts back-to-back interviews with these authors of some of the most anticipated novels of the season. Come for the dialogue\, and you’re sure to leave with all three of these must-read books in hand. \nThe event will take place at Performance Works on Friday\, October 24 at 1PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nOrder Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way here! \nABOUT LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY \nAn Observer\, Irish Times\, and Sunday Times Ireland Preview Selection \nClaire O’Connor is a promising writer who left the family’s struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London\, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother\, she is racked with grief\, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer\, she decides to return home to care for him\, destroying everything she’d so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows\, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine\, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wives she discovers on social media. When Tom\, her lost London love\, unexpectedly shows up the next town over\, her anxieties and obsessions collide\, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family’s historic trauma—a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled. \nRanging through recent Irish history\, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s most ambitious novel to date\, a work of literary and cultural exorcism and a profound exploration of family\, history\, violence\, and hope. \nABOUT ELAINE FEENEY \nElaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel\, As You Were\, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award\, the McKitterick Prize\, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise\, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories\, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth\, The Paris Review\, The Stinging Fly\, Poetry Review\, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/elaine-feeney-at-vancouver-writers-fest-the-conversations/
LOCATION:Performance Works\, 1218 Cartwright Street\, Vancouver\, BC\, V6H 3R9\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-Showpass-Squares_52.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Vancouver:20251024T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Vancouver:20251024T120000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T185547Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T185547Z
UID:36669-1761300000-1761307200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Ira Wells at Vancouver Writers Fest: On Book Banning and Censorship
DESCRIPTION:Ira Wells\, author of On Book Banning\, will be speaking at the  Vancouver Writers Fest event “On Book Banning and ” Ira will be joined by politics and culture critic David Moscrop in a robust discussion of public and private book banning. Is it wrong to embrace the books of people who do things we abhor? What is ‘equity-based weeding’? How can we know the true scope of book banning when according to a study by the American Library Association 82 to 97 percent of all library challenges go unreported? Do we have a national\, communal history? If so\, how can we best protect it? \nThe event will take place at the Revue Stage on Friday\, October 24 at 10AM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab a copy of On Book Banning here! \nABOUT ON BOOK BANNING \nThe freedom to read is under attack. \nFrom the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature\, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases\, literary controversies\, and philosophical arguments\, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization\, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves. \nABOUT IRA WELLS \nIra Wells is a critic\, essayist\, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto\, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic\, Globe and Mail\, Guardian\, The New Republic\, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/ira-wells-vancouver-writers-fest/
LOCATION:Revue Stage\, 1601 Johnston St\, Vancouver\, BC\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-Showpass-Squares_50.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251020T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251020T140000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T182711Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251015T195823Z
UID:36657-1760961600-1760968800@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:"Lit Up Lunch" at Indigo with Alex Pugsley and Russell Smith
DESCRIPTION:Biblioasis authors Alex Pugsley (Aubrey McKee\, The Education of Aubrey McKee) and Russell Smith (Self Care) will be in conversation together at the Indigo on Bay and Bloor in Toronto! The conversation also features author Jean Marc Ah-Sen\, and will be hosted by Emily Weedon. \nThe event will take place on Monday\, October 20 at 11:30PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGet Self Care here! \nGet Aubrey McKee and The Education of Aubrey McKee here! \nABOUT SELF CARE \nBetween writing a weekly column for The Hype Report and managing her mood stabilizers\, Gloria navigates a series of quasi-relationships while commiserating with her best friend about dating apps and dick pics\, married men and questionable boundaries. But when she makes a glib pass at Daryn\, a stranger on a subway platform crowded with young anti-immigration protesters\, and finds him waiting for her outside her health club a couple of days later\, a surprising curiosity leads her not to consider a restraining order\, but to talk to him. \nClaiming she wants to interview him for an article on the incel movement\, Gloria meets Daryn for coffee and soon invites him back to her apartment—where his earnestness and painfully restrained desire inspire her to dominate him sexually. As their physical relationship intensifies\, so does their emotional connection\, and Gloria can’t shake the sense that she’s headed in a dangerous direction. \nAn electric examination of sex and love\, self-loathing\, and twenty-first century loneliness\, Self Care is a devastating novel about women and men\, what they want and what they say they want\, and the violent tension between the two. \nABOUT RUSSELL SMITH \nRussell Smith is the author of twelve previous books of fiction\, nonfiction\, and translation. His fiction has been nominated for every major Canadian award\, including the Giller Prize\, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize\, and the Amazon First Novel Award. A  journalist and cultural commentator\, his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Review of Books\, the Globe and Mail\, The Walrus\, and elsewhere. An acquiring editor at Dundurn Press\, Smith lives in Toronto. \nABOUT AUBREY MCKEE  \nFrom basement rec rooms to midnight railway tracks\, Action Transfers to Smarties boxes crammed with joints\, from Paul McCartney on the kitchen radio to their furious teenaged cover of The Ramones\, Aubrey McKee and his familiars navigate late adolescence amidst the old-monied decadence of Halifax. An arcana of oddball angels\, Alex Pugsley’s long-awaited debut novel follows rich-kid drug dealers and junior tennis brats\, émigré heart surgeons and small-time thugs\, renegade private school girls and runaway children as they try to make sense of the city into which they’ve been born. Part coming-of-age-story\, part social chronicle\, and part study of the myths that define our growing up\, Aubrey McKee introduces a breathtakingly original new voice. \nABOUT THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE \nLonglisted for the 2024 Toronto Book Awards • A Toronto Star Most Anticipated Spring Title • A 49th Shelf Can’t Miss Title for Spring \nThe scene is Toronto\, the early 1990s\, and at a house party Aubrey McKee falls in love with a bewitching stranger who talks him into stealing a piece of cake. This woman—a poet named Gudrun Peel—rapidly becomes the person for whom he would do anything at all. Together\, Aubrey and Gudrun make a life of delirious idiosyncrasy. Surrounded by friends\, frenemies\, lovers\, and rivals in the underground arts scene\, the possibilities of their destiny remain radically open. But as their relationship deepens\, and their creative and professional lives stumble\, stall\, and then suddenly blow up\, Aubrey and Gudrun struggle against their own inexperience . . . as well as each other. \nThe much-anticipated follow-up to Alex Pugsley’s Aubrey McKee\, The Education of Aubrey McKee is a campus novel in which the city of Toronto is the institute of higher education and the setting for a glittering story about the incandescence of first love. \nABOUT ALEX PUGSLEY \nAlex Pugsley is the author of the novels Aubrey McKee and The Education of Aubrey McKee\, as well as the short story collection Shimmer. Following the publication of Aubrey McKee\, he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch. He has been nominated for Canadian Comedy Awards\, Gemini Awards\, Hot Doc Awards\, National Magazine Awards\, and is a winner of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize. His feature film Dirty Singles is available on Apple TV and Prime Video. His next novel\, Silver Lake\, the third book in a series about Aubrey McKee\, is forthcoming from Biblioasis.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/lit-up-lunch-at-indigo-with-alex-pugsley-and-russell-smith/
LOCATION:Indigo Bay & Bloor\, 55 Bloor St W\, Toronto\, ON\, M4W 1A5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/event56334.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251012T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251012T133000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250801T181145Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250924T195344Z
UID:36443-1760275800-1760275800@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Caroline Adderson at Greenwood Storyfest
DESCRIPTION:Caroline Adderson will be appearing at the Greenwood Storyfest to speak about her latest collection of short stories\, A Way to Be Happy! \nThe event will take place on Sunday\, October 12 at 1:30 PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab a copy of A Way to Be Happy here! \nABOUT A WAY TO BE HAPPY  \nLonglisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year \nShort stories about disparate characters consider what it means to find happiness. \nOn New Year’s Eve\, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town\, where she receives a life-changing visitation\, and a Russian hitman\, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment\, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century\, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories\, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others. \nABOUT CAROLINE ADDERSON \nCaroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister\, Ellen in Pieces\, The Sky Is Falling\, Sitting Practice\, and A History of Forgetting)\, two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings)\, as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award\, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award\, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes\, the Governor General’s Literary Award\, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize\, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes\, three CBC Literary Awards\, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement\, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/caroline-adderson-at-greenwood-storyfest/
LOCATION:Stephen F. Shaar Community Centre\, 394 rue Main\, Hudson\, QC\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Caroline-Adderson.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251008T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251008T200000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250916T161843Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T201618Z
UID:36640-1759946400-1759953600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Precarious: Calgary Launch!
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an evening celebrating the launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Calgary-based author Marcello Di Cintio. Hosted by Paul Haavardsrud\, this event is presented by Shelf Life Books in partnership with the Calgary Public Library. \nThe launch will take place on Wednesday\, October 8 at 6PM. The event is free\, but RSVP is required on Eventbrite. \nMore details here. \nGrab a copy of Precarious here! \nABOUT PRECARIOUS \nA series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents. \nIn 2023\, after weeks of investigation\, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused\, intimidated\, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded\, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. \nIn Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers\, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields\, bathe our elderly\, and serve us our Double Doubles\, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance\, resilience\, and humanity\, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see\, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails\, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity. \nABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO \nMarcello Di Cintio is the author of six books\, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades\, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense\, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail\, The Walrus\, The International New York Times\, and Canadian Geographic\, among others. He lives in Calgary.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/precarious-calgary-launch-2/
LOCATION:Patricia A Whelan Performance Hall\, Central Library 800 3 St. SE\, Calgary\, AB\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966597_FC-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Moncton:20250928T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Moncton:20250928T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250912T204149Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250912T204149Z
UID:36622-1759071600-1759075200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Richard Kelly Kemick at 'The Catch-Up' Reading Series
DESCRIPTION:Richard Kelly Kemick\, author of Hello\, Horse\, will be joining ‘The Catch-Up’ Reading Series hosted by Fawn Parker. Richard will be joined in conversation by Douglas Walbourne-Gough\, and will be reading from his collection of short stories. \nThe event will take place at Westminster Books on Sunday\, September 28 at 3PM. \nMore details here. \nGet Hello\, Horse here! \nABOUT HELLO\, HORSE \nTaut\, stylish stories take on big moral questions from surprising perspectives. \nA teenager’s job mucking stalls at a dog track takes a strange turn when his co-worker finds a new religion at odds with winning streaks. Two brothers set out in search of fame upon the frozen waters of a subarctic lake. After her mother’s death\, a high school student tries to make rent by winning the Unitarian Church’s Annual Young Writer’s Short Story Competition. An incarcerated man considers the nature of justice between shifts with his fellow inmates at Nations at War\, the ultimate live-action experience for tourists eager to learn about the Canadian Civil War. \nSpanning states and provinces\, and featuring an apocalypse\, a coterie of ghosts\, nuns on ice\, and an above-average number of dogs\, the stories in Hello\, Horse consider the mirage of authenticity and the impact of decisions we make—for better and for worse. \nABOUT RICHARD KELLY KEMICK \nRichard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet\, journalist\, and fiction writer. His limited series podcast\, Natural Life\, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin\, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. Richard is also the author of I Am Herod (also on audiobook)\, which takes readers undercover at one of the world’s largest religious events\, and Caribou Run\, a collection of poetry. He is the recipient of multiple awards including two National Magazine Awards and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s 2019 Award for Best Short Story. He lives in Vancouver\, British Columbia.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/richard-kelly-kemick-at-catch-up/
LOCATION:Westminster Books\, 88 York St\, Fredericton\, NB\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Reading,Reading Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/9781771966078_FC.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250919T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250919T203000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250813T153502Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250813T153502Z
UID:36491-1758308400-1758313800@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Steven Heighton's Sacred Rage: Kingston Writers Fest
DESCRIPTION:Steven Heighton’s second posthumous story collection\, Sacred Rage\, will be included in the Kingston Writers Fest event\, “Bushwacked by Inspiration: Short Stories.” Excerpts from Sacred Rage will be read by Sarah Tsiang\, who will also be joined for the event by Catherine Bush\, Deepa Rajagopalan\, and Jamal Saeed in a discussion of writing short-form fiction\, and its challenges and particular satisfactions. \nThe event will take place in the Rideau Room (Kingston Marriott) on Friday\, September 19 at 7PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab Sacred Rage here! \nABOUT SACRED RAGE \n“A writer only feels like a writer when in the act. And the will\, I said\, is never enough . . . Where does inspiration\, that sacred rage\, originate? Maybe it’s just a matter of stubbornly starting something new and writing your way into the slot.”—Steven Heighton \nIn the years before his unexpected death\, Steven Heighton wrote to his longtime editor John Metcalf to say that he understood that the short story marked his most important contribution to literature\, and that “after the novels\, rereading and writing short stories again felt like returning home.” In the fifteen stories taken from across his four collections\, Sacred Rage offers us Heighton as the moral explorer of the global suburbs\, as chronicler of our innermost stories of love and fear\, sleeping and waking\, of a rebel “unabashedly devoted to the old pursuit\,” as he once called it\, “of truth and beauty.” These are stories of grace and the lack of it; of elegy and requiem; of hope and care in a world where these seem increasingly alien\, stories by one of our most sharp-eyed and generous writers\, whether you’re discovering them for the first time\, or once again. \nABOUT STEVEN HEIGHTON \nSteven Heighton (1961–2022) was a writer and musician. His twenty 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.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/steven-heightons-sacred-rage-kingston-writers-fest/
LOCATION:Kingston Marriott\, 285 King St E\, Kingston\, ON\, K7L 3B1\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/9781771966498_FC.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250919T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250919T170000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250813T151412Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250813T151412Z
UID:36486-1758295800-1758301200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Ira Wells at Kingston Writers Fest: You Can't Read That!
DESCRIPTION:Ira Wells\, author of On Book Banning\, will be speaking at the Kingston Writers Fest event “You Can’t Read That!” Ira will be joined by politics and culture critic David Moscrop in a robust discussion of public and private book banning. Is it wrong to embrace the books of people who do things we abhor? What is ‘equity-based weeding’? How can we know the true scope of book banning when according to a study by the American Library Association 82 to 97 percent of all library challenges go unreported? Do we have a national\, communal history? If so\, how can we best protect it? \nThe event will take place in the Limestone City Ballroom (Kingston Marriott) on Friday\, September 19 at 3:30PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab a copy of On Book Banning here! \nABOUT ON BOOK BANNING \nThe freedom to read is under attack. \nFrom the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature\, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases\, literary controversies\, and philosophical arguments\, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization\, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves. \nABOUT IRA WELLS \nIra Wells is a critic\, essayist\, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto\, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic\, Globe and Mail\, Guardian\, The New Republic\, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/ira-wells-kingston-writers-fest/
LOCATION:Kingston Marriott\, 285 King St E\, Kingston\, ON\, K7L 3B1\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/kwf-wells.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250907T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250907T133000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250801T175049Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250904T204839Z
UID:36437-1757251800-1757251800@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Mark Bourrie at Eden Mills Festival
DESCRIPTION:Join Mark Bourrie (author of Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre) as he speaks at the Eden Mills Writers Festival on the panel “The Kim Lang Set: True North Unsettled: A Conversation on Democracy.” Mark will be in conversation alongside David A. Robertson\, Andrew Coyne\, Ariel Sim\, and Karin Wells\, as well as host Jessica Johnson. \nIn a nation long mythologized as orderly and fair\, what happens when our democratic assumptions and institutions begin to wobble? The cracks have always been there—widening now into fault lines that shape our politics\, our laws\, and our daily lives. In this conversation\, journalists\, a legal historian\, an Indigenous organizer\, and a civic thinker gather to ask how a democracy survives when its story no longer matches its reality. From federal failures to grassroots resistance\, from the rights of rivers to the rights of women\, they invite us to wrestle with the hardest questions: Whose democracy is it? And who gets to decide? \nThe conversation will take place at The Meadow on Sunday\, September 7 at 1:30PM. More details here. \nGrab Ripper here! \nABOUT RIPPER \nSix weeks into the Covid pandemic\, New York Times columnist David Brooks identified two types of Western politicians: rippers and weavers. Rippers\, whether on the right or the left\, see politics as war. They don’t care about the destruction that’s caused as they fight for power. Weavers are their opposite: people who try to fix things\, who want to bring people together and try to build consensus. At the beginning of the pandemic\, weavers seemed to be winning. Five years later\, as Canada heads towards a pivotal election\, that’s no longer the case. Across the border\, a ripper is remaking the American government. And for the first time in its history\, Canada has its own ripper poised to assume power. \nPierre Poilievre has enjoyed most of the advantages of the mainstream Canadian middle class. Yet he’s long been the angriest man on the political stage. In Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre\, bestselling author Mark Bourrie\, winner of the Charles Taylor Prize\, charts Poilievre’s rise through the political system\, from teenage volunteer to outspoken Opposition leader known for cutting soundbites and theatrics. Bourrie shows how we arrived at this divisive moment in our history\, one in which rippers are poised to capitalize on conflict. He shows how Poilievre and this new style of politics have gained so much ground—and warns of what it will cost us if they succeed. \nABOUT MARK BOURRIE \nMark Bourrie is an Ottawa-based author\, lawyer\, and journalist. He holds a master’s in journalism from Carleton University and a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa. In 2017\, he was awarded a Juris Doctor degree and was called to the bar in 2018. He has won numerous awards for his journalism\, including a National Magazine Award\, and received the RBC Charles Taylor Prize in 2020 for his book Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson. His most recent books include Big Men Fear Me: The Fast Life and Quick Death of Canada’s Most Powerful Media Mogul\, the national bestseller Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia\, and Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/mark-bourrie-at-eden-mills/
LOCATION:Eden Mills Writers’ Festival\, 19 Cedar Street\, Eden Mills\, Ontario\, N0B 1P0\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20250826T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20250826T130000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250801T184948Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250801T184948Z
UID:36454-1756209600-1756213200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Ira Wells: Controversy @ Noon 2025 - Banned Books: What's Next?
DESCRIPTION:Ira Wells\, author of On Book Banning\, will be joining this virtual event held by the Writers Guild of Alberta as a panelist\, to discuss book banning in the Canadian literary community\, particularly in Alberta where certain books are slated to be pulled from school shelves this Fall. What do these types of bans mean for writers and for readers\, now and in the coming months? Years? What calls to action might help prevent the banning of books in the future? \nIra will be joined by fellow panelists Gail de Vos and Malcolm Azania\, along with moderator Peter Midgley\, as they explore the ramifications of banned books and more this August. \nThe virtual event will take place on Tuesday\, August 26 at 12PM MT. The event is free to attend with registration here. \nMore details here. \nGrab a copy of On Book Banning here! \nABOUT ON BOOK BANNING \nThe freedom to read is under attack. \nFrom the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature\, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases\, literary controversies\, and philosophical arguments\, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization\, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves. \nABOUT IRA WELLS \nIra Wells is a critic\, essayist\, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto\, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic\, Globe and Mail\, Guardian\, The New Republic\, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/ira-wells-controversy-noon-2025-banned-books-whats-next/
LOCATION:ON
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Virtual Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/August-2025-CaN-Panel.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Vancouver:20250815T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/Vancouver:20250815T153000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250801T174245Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250801T174550Z
UID:36433-1755268200-1755271800@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Caroline Adderson at Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts
DESCRIPTION:Caroline Adderson will be appearing at the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts to speak about her latest collection of short stories\, A Way to Be Happy! \nThe event will take place on Friday\, August 15 at 2:30 PM PST. \nMore details and tickets here. \nGrab a copy of A Way to Be Happy here! \nABOUT A WAY TO BE HAPPY  \nLonglisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year \nShort stories about disparate characters consider what it means to find happiness. \nOn New Year’s Eve\, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town\, where she receives a life-changing visitation\, and a Russian hitman\, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment\, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century\, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories\, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others. \nABOUT CAROLINE ADDERSON \nCaroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister\, Ellen in Pieces\, The Sky Is Falling\, Sitting Practice\, and A History of Forgetting)\, two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings)\, as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award\, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award\, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes\, the Governor General’s Literary Award\, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize\, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes\, three CBC Literary Awards\, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement\, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/caroline-adderson-at-sunshine-coast/
LOCATION:Rockwood Centre\, 5511 Shorncliffe Ave\, Sechelt\, BC\, V0N 3A7\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9781771966221_FC-1-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250806T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250806T200000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250801T185655Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250801T185655Z
UID:36459-1754506800-1754510400@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Ira Wells: Defending the Right to Read
DESCRIPTION:Ira Wells\, author of On Book Banning\, will be joining the virtual panel “Defending the Right to Read” alongside Authors Against Book Bans members Fin Leary\, Padma Venkatraman\, and Josh Cook. With Wells’ new book as a launching point\, the panelists will discuss the current rise of book bans in schools and libraries\, the history of previous cases of book censorship\, and recent efforts of resistance against the oppression of literature. \nThe virtual event\, organized by Porter Square Books in Cambridge\, MA\,  will take place on Wednesday\, August 6 at 7PM. The event is free to attend with registration here. \nMore details here. \nGrab a copy of On Book Banning here! \nABOUT ON BOOK BANNING \nThe freedom to read is under attack. \nFrom the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature\, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases\, literary controversies\, and philosophical arguments\, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization\, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves. \nABOUT IRA WELLS \nIra Wells is a critic\, essayist\, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto\, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic\, Globe and Mail\, Guardian\, The New Republic\, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/ira-wells-defending-the-right-to-read/
LOCATION:ON
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Virtual Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966634.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Vancouver:20250719T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Vancouver:20250719T210000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250623T164441Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250623T164508Z
UID:36370-1752953400-1752958800@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Caroline Adderson at Denman Island Festival: Main Stage Discussion
DESCRIPTION:Caroline Adderson (A Way to Be Happy) will be joining the discussion “Diving into Darkness to find our humanity/joy/compassion” on the Main Stage\, alongside fellow writers Sarah Leavitt and Fiona Tinwei Lam. \nThe discussion will take place on Saturday\, July 19 at 7:30PM. \nMore details here. \nGrab a copy of A Way to Be Happy here! \nABOUT A WAY TO BE HAPPY  \nLonglisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year \nShort stories about disparate characters consider what it means to find happiness. \nOn New Year’s Eve\, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town\, where she receives a life-changing visitation\, and a Russian hitman\, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment\, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century\, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories\, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others. \nABOUT CAROLINE ADDERSON \nCaroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister\, Ellen in Pieces\, The Sky Is Falling\, Sitting Practice\, and A History of Forgetting)\, two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings)\, as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award\, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award\, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes\, the Governor General’s Literary Award\, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize\, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes\, three CBC Literary Awards\, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement\, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/caroline-adderson-at-denman-island-festival-workshop-2/
LOCATION:Denman Island\, BC\, V0R 1T0\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9781771966221_FC-1-scaled.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Denman Island Festival":MAILTO:diwritersfest@gmail.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250628T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250628T160000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250623T163022Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250623T163022Z
UID:36362-1751119200-1751126400@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Graeme Macrae Burnet at MOTIVE Festival
DESCRIPTION:Come on out to MOTIVE Festival in Toronto\, where Graeme Macrae Burnet will be appearing for the “Small Towns\, Big Secrets” panel! Burnet will be discussing his recent book\, A Case of Matricide\, and will be joined by fellow writers Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti for a conversation moderated by Samantha Bailey. \nThe event will take place on Saturday\, June 28 at 2:15 PM. \nMore details here! \nGrab a copy of A Case of Matricide here. \nABOUT A CASE OF MATRICIDE \nFrom the Booker-nominated author of Case Study and His Bloody Project comes the next adventure of Inspector Gorski. \nIn the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis\, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to kill her; a prominent businessman drops dead. Between visits to the town’s drinking establishments\, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski ponders what connections\, if any\, exist between these events\, all while grappling with his own domestic and existential demons. \nWith his signature virtuosity\, in which literary sleight-of-hand meets piercing insight into human nature\, Graeme Macrae Burnet punctures the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life and unspools a spellbinding riddle that blurs the boundaries between suspect\, investigator\, writer\, and reader. \nABOUT GRAEME MACRAE BURNET \nGraeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock\, Scotland\, and now lives in Glasgow. His Bloody Project\, his second novel\, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016\, won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award 2016\, and was shortlisted for the LA Times Book Awards 2017. His fourth novel\, Case Study\, was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and was included in the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022. A Case of Matricide is his fifth novel\, the third featuring Chief Inspector Georges Gorski.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/graeme-macrae-burnet-at-motive-festival/
LOCATION:Emmanuel College\, 75 Queen's Park Crescent\, Rm 119\, Toronto\, ON\, M5S 1K7\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9781771966474_FC-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250516T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250516T210000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250310T204042Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250410T155845Z
UID:35729-1747425600-1747429200@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me: Ottawa Launch
DESCRIPTION:Join author Mélikah Abdelmoumen and translator Catherine Khordoc for the Ottawa launch of Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me\, in partnership with the Ottawa Writers Fest. Host Peter Schneider will sit down with Mélikah and Catherine for a discussion on their acclaimed book. Copies will be available for sale and signing from Perfect Books. \nThe launch will take place at Library and Archives Canada on Friday\, May 16 at 8PM. \nFree tickets are required to attend in person. The event will live-stream from this page. No ticket required to watch online. \nGrab Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me here! \nABOUT BALDWIN\, STYRON\, AND ME \nAn unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity\, race\, and censorship. \nIn 1961\, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day\, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations\, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write\, in first person\, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim\, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968\, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community. \nDecades later\, the controversy around cultural appropriation\, identity\, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me\, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity\, race\, equity\, and the often contentious public debates about these topics\, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement. \nABOUT MÉLIKAH ABDELMOUMEN \nMélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon\, France\, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles\, short stories\, novels\, and essays\, including Les désastrées (2013)\, Douze ans en France (2018)\, and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises\, a Québec literary magazine\, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/baldwin-styron-and-me-ottawa-launch/
LOCATION:Library and Archives Canada\, 395 Wellington Street\, Ottawa\, ON\, K1A 0N4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Discussion,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/9781771966269_FC-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250504T023000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250504T033000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250319T171748Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250410T155623Z
UID:35747-1746325800-1746329400@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:On Book Banning: Ira Wells at Ottawa Writers Festival
DESCRIPTION:Join Ira Wells as he speaks about his new book On Book Banning\, a lively\, accessible survey of the pressing question of literary censorship in our times of crisis and change\, with host Adrian Harewood at the Ottawa Writers Festival. Book will be available for purchase from Perfect Books. \nThis event will take place on Sunday\, May 4 at 2:30PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab On Book Banning here! \nABOUT ON BOOK BANNING \nThe freedom to read is under attack. \nFrom the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature\, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases\, literary controversies\, and philosophical arguments\, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization\, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves. \nABOUT IRA WELLS \nIra Wells is a critic\, essayist\, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto\, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic\, Globe and Mail\, Guardian\, The New Republic\, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/on-book-banning-ira-wells-at-ottawa-writers-fest/
LOCATION:ON
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966634.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250503T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250503T170000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250319T171546Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250410T155753Z
UID:35800-1746288000-1746291600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:On Oil: Don Gillmor at Ottawa Writers Festival
DESCRIPTION:Join Don Gillmor as he speaks at the Ottawa Writers Festival about his new book On Oil\, in which the journalist and former roughneck considers our long\, complex\, tortured relationship with oil. \nThis event\, hosted by Jennifer Baker\, will take place on Saturday\, May 3 at 4PM. \nTickets and more details here. \nGrab On Oil here! \nABOUT ON OIL \nA journalist\, and former roughneck\, considers our long\, complex\, tortured relationship with oil. \nOil has dominated our lives for the last century. It has given us warmth\, progress\, and life-threatening pollution. It has been a gift and is now a threat. It has started wars\, ended wars\, and infiltrated governments—in some cases\, effectively become the government. And now oil’s enduring mythology is facing a messy\, complicated twilight. \nIn On Oil\, Don Gillmor\, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta\, looks at how the industry has changed over the decades and illustrates the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture\, in Canada and elsewhere\, and contributed to armed conflict and war across the world. Gillmor documents the myriad ways that oil companies have misdirected environmental action and misinformed the public about climate concerns and illuminates where we went wrong—and how we might yet change course. \nABOUT DON GILLMOR \nDon Gillmor is the author of To the River\, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of four novels\, Breaking and Entering\, Long Change\, Mount Pleasant\, and Kanata\, a two-volume history of Canada\, Canada: A People’s History\, and nine books for children\, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus\, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone\, GQ\, The Walrus\, Saturday Night\, Toronto Life\, the Globe and Mail\, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/on-oil-don-gillmor-at-ottawa-writers-fest/
LOCATION:Library and Archives Canada\, 395 Wellington Street\, Ottawa\, ON\, K1A 0N4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9781771966672_FC.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250429T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250429T203000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250304T173646Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250304T180649Z
UID:35677-1745953200-1745958600@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:On Oil: Don Gillmor at Words Festival
DESCRIPTION:Join Don Gillmor as he speaks about his new book On Oil\, a searching reconsideration of our long\, complex\, tortured relationship with oil\, in this virtual event with the Words Festival. Don will be in conversation with host and Words Director Josh Lambier. \nThis free virtual event will take place on Tuesday\, April 29 at 7pm EST over Zoom. \nMore details and event link here. \nGrab On Oil here! \nABOUT ON OIL \nA journalist\, and former roughneck\, considers our long\, complex\, tortured relationship with oil. \nOil has dominated our lives for the last century. It has given us warmth\, progress\, and life-threatening pollution. It has been a gift and is now a threat. It has started wars\, ended wars\, and infiltrated governments—in some cases\, effectively become the government. And now oil’s enduring mythology is facing a messy\, complicated twilight. \nIn On Oil\, Don Gillmor\, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta\, looks at how the industry has changed over the decades and illustrates the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture\, in Canada and elsewhere\, and contributed to armed conflict and war across the world. Gillmor documents the myriad ways that oil companies have misdirected environmental action and misinformed the public about climate concerns and illuminates where we went wrong—and how we might yet change course. \nABOUT DON GILLMOR \nDon Gillmor is the author of To the River\, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of three novels\, Long Change\, Mount Pleasant\, and Kanata\, a two-volume history of Canada\, Canada: A People’s History\, and nine books for children\, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus\, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone\, GQ\, The Walrus\, Saturday Night\, Toronto Life\, the Globe and Mail\, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/on-oil-don-gillmor-wordsfest/
LOCATION:ON
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Reading,Virtual Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/gillmor-wordfest.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20250426T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20250426T190000
DTSTAMP:20260405T135357
CREATED:20250310T203056Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250414T195328Z
UID:35722-1745690400-1745694000@www.biblioasis.com
SUMMARY:Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me: AfterWords Spring Foreword
DESCRIPTION:Mélikah Abdelmoumen\, author of Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me (trans. Catherine Khordoc)\, will be a part of the AfterWords Spring Foreword event! Mélikah will be in conversation with Vinh Nguyen and host Fazeela Jiwa. Books will be available courtesy of King’s Co-op Books. \nThe event will take place at Park Place Theatre on Saturday\, April 26 at 6PM. \nMore details here. \nGrab Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me here! \nABOUT BALDWIN\, STYRON\, AND ME \nAn unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity\, race\, and censorship. \nIn 1961\, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day\, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations\, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write\, in first person\, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim\, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968\, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community. \nDecades later\, the controversy around cultural appropriation\, identity\, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me\, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity\, race\, equity\, and the often contentious public debates about these topics\, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement. \nABOUT MÉLIKAH ABDELMOUMEN \nMélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon\, France\, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles\, short stories\, novels\, and essays\, including Les désastrées (2013)\, Douze ans en France (2018)\, and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises\, a Québec literary magazine\, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin\, Styron\, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).
URL:https://www.biblioasis.com/event/baldwin-styron-and-me-afterwords-spring-foreword/
LOCATION:Park Place Theatre\, 5480 Point Pleasant Drive\, Halifax\, NS\, B3H 0B4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Festival
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END:VCALENDAR