Thursday, June 28, 2018

Third Annual Love Poetry Festival



The Love Poetry Festival, July 28, 2018
5.00 - 7.00p
Queen Books
914 Queen St. E. at Logan Avenue


Michelle Alfano (emcee) is the author of the personal memoir The Unfinished Dollhouse (Cormorant Books, 2017) which was selected as one of The Globe 100 Best Books of the Year in 2017. Her novella, Made up of Arias, was the 2010 winner of the F.G. Bressani Award for Short Fiction. Her short story “Opera”, on which the novella was based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology.

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Born when rotary telephones came in multiple colours, Domenico Capilongo began writing with pencil and paper, passing poetry notes from the back of the class. He still writes in notebooks, used a typewriter in high school, and his earliest published poems were printed on a dot-matrix printer. His first books of poetry, I thought elvis was Italian (2008) and hold the note (2010), as well as his first book of short fiction, Subtitles (Guernica, 2012), came very close to winning awards and were all mailed in the post. A high school creative writing teacher and karate instructor, he lives with his wife and children in Toronto. Find out more at domcapilongo.wixsite.com/home

George Elliott Clarke has won several prizes, been nominated for a few others, and has published seventeen works-in-verse, including plays, opera libretti, book-length narratives, and narrative lyric suites, and epic poetry. He was Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and Poet Laureate for Canada (2016-17).

James Deahl is the author of twenty-seven literary titles, the five most recent being: Red Haws To Light The Field, To Be With A Woman, Landscapes (with Katherine L. Gordon), Unbroken Lines, and Two Paths Through The Seasons (with Norma West Linder). He is the father of Sarah, Simone, and Shona.

Norma West Linder is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada. A novelist, poet, and short story writer, she lives in Sarnia where she taught English and conducted classes in Creative Writing at Lambton College until her retirement. Her latest publications are The Pastel Planet (children’s novel) and Tall Stuff (adult novel), both from Hidden Brook Press.

Catherine Graham is the author of the award-winning novel Quarry and six acclaimed poetry collections. The Celery Forest was named a CBC Books Top 10 Canadian Poetry Collection of 2017 and appears on their Ultimate Canadian Poetry List. Winner of IFOA’s Poetry NOW, she teaches at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award. See more at catherinegraham.com and on Twitter: @catgrahampoet

Stedmond Pardy is a left handed poet from Toronto. He has performed his work at various venues, in the city and on the radio. His first full length book the pleasures of this planet, aren't enough is coming soon.

Banoo Zan has approximately170 published poems and three books, two of which were released after she landed in Canada—Songs of Exile (2016) and Letters to My Father (2017.) She founded Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Toronto’s most diverse and brave poetry reading and open mic series, in 2012. 

With thanks to the League of Canadian Poets and
The Writers' Union of Canada for its support

Milton Acorn and Gwen MacEwen

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Pride comes before the ... Parade


Pride comes before the ... Parade 
Celebration of Pride Reading
May 27, 2018
5-7p
Queen Books, 914 Queen St. E.

featuring:
Michelle Alfano (emcee) is the author of the personal memoir The Unfinished Dollhouse (Cormorant Books, 2017) which was selected as one of The Globe 100 Best Books of the Year in 2017. Her novella, Made up of Arias, was the 2010 winner of the F.G. Bressani Award for Short Fiction. Her short story “Opera”, on which the novella was based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology.

Dani Couture is the author of three collections of poetry and the novel Algoma (Invisible Publishing). Her new collection of poetry, Listen Before Transmit, was recently published by Wolsak & Wynn.

Darren Greer is the author of four novels and a book of essays. He has been nominated for numerous awards, and won the Thomas H. Raddall Award in 2015 for his novel Just Beneath My Skin,  the 2004 ReLit Award for Still Life With June and the 2017 Dartmouth Book Award for Advocate. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in magazines across North America and Europe and his fifth novel Outcast will be released in the fall of 2018.

Mona Faith Mousa is a spoken word poet and motivational speaker living in toronto. having toured actively her whole poetry career, last year alone mona has booked over 200 shows all over north america. When she is at home Mona is heavily active in all facets of her community as the founder and director of feather & anchor a talent management agency serving performance artists from the nation's BIPOC community.

Anthony Oliveira is a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Toronto. His dissertation, entitled “Exit the King: Sovereignty and Subjectivity in the Literature of the English Baroque,” is a nominee for the ProQuest-UMI Distinguished Dissertation Award, while his writing on pop culture and politics has appeared on Birth/Movies/Death, Torontoist, and The Queer Bible, while his recent editorials for Hazlitt Magazine have garnered him nominations for Best New Magazine Writer and Best Essay. You can follow his work on twitter.com at “meakoopa” (ME-A-KOOPA) where he tweets (incessantly) about the arts, politics, and LGBT culture, or on his podcast, The Devil’s Party, as he reads through Milton’s Paradise Lost and its demonic twists and turns.

Charlie C. Petch is an award winning playwright, spoken word artist, haiku deathmaster, host and musical saw player. Petch is touring two spoken word theatre pieces, their multimedia piece "Daughter Of Geppetto" and their vaudeville play "Mel Malarkey Gets the Bum's Rush" which won "Best of 2017" from Electric City Magazine for the radio play accompanying album "Mel Malarkey, Odes & Acts". They have published books with Wordpress and LyricalMyrical and poems with Descant, The Toronto Quarterly, Matrix and Oratorealis journals. Petch is the creative director of "Hot Damn It's A Queer Slam" a multi-city touring poetry slam series. www.charliecpetch.com

Natalie Wee is the author of Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (Words Dance Publishing, 2016). She has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and two Pushcart Prizes. Born in Singapore to Malaysian parents of Peranakan descent, she currently resides in Toronto.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

International Women's Day Reading


International Women's Day Reading
March 11, 2018
5-7p
Queen Books, 914 Queen St. E. 

Featuring:

Danila Botha is the author of two short story collections, 2010's Got No Secrets, and 2016's For All the Men (and Some of the Women I've Known) which was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award and The Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature. She's also the author of the novel Too Much on the Inside (2015) which won a Book Excellence Award for Contemporary Novel and was short listed for a ReLit Award. Danila teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto and Humber School for Writers. She's currently working on a new novel and on a new collection of short stories.

Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor, critic and community organizer with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. She is the author of Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, 2017), a CBC best book of the year. She was born in St. Luca and lives in Whitby, ON.


Sofi Papamarko is a writer and matchmaker (love, not sulfur) who lives in Toronto's west end. Her writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, The Globe & Mail, Chatelaine, Taddle Creek, Readers Digest, Room and Maisonneuve.


Gianna Patriarca is an award-winning author of eight books of poetry, one children’s book and a collection of short fiction.  Her work has been extensively anthologized, adapted for the stage, CBC radio drama and appears in numerous documentaries.  Her books are on the course list of universities in Canada, Italy and USA.


Ayelet Tsabari’s first book, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. The book was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Kirkus Review best book of 2016, and has been published internationally. Her memoir, The Art of Leaving, will be published with HarperCollins next year.

Jessica Westhead’s fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards, selected for the Journey Prize anthology, and nominated for a National Magazine Award. She is the author of the novel Pulpy & Midge and the critically acclaimed short story collection And Also Sharks, which was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book and a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Short Fiction Prize. Her new short story collection is called Things Not to Do.

 and as emcee

Michelle Alfano is the author of the personal memoir The Unfinished Dollhouse (Cormorant Books, 2017) which was selected as one of The Globe 100  Best Books of the Year  in 2017. Her novella, Made up of Arias, was the 2010 winner of the Bressani Award for Short Fiction. Her short story “Opera”, on which the novella was based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology.