By: Deanna McFadden
Novmeber 2007
Now that the fall weather is undeniably upon us, it's the perfect time to curl up with a cup of tea, maybe a bag of munchies, and a good book. There's no end to prize announcements these days, including the short lists for the two large Canadian prizes: the Governor General's Literary Awards and the Scotiabank Giller. Nominees for both read this past month at the International Festival of Authors, which also boasted an appearance by this year's Man Booker winner, Anne Enright. Her gut-wrenching novel, The Gathering, won the award on the Tuesday before her scheduled reading in Toronto-needless to say, she mentioned that in the four days hence, she'd managed just a mere four hours of sleep.
Now that the curtains have closed on this year's IFOA and all the authors have now closed their books and returned home, there's no reason for word enthusiasts to be left out in the November cold with nothing to listen to. In fact, it's the perfect time to step out on a Friday night to attend poet Alex Boyd's IV Lounge Reading Series. The biweekly event has been running for the better part of the last ten years (first hosted by Paul Vermeersch), and has consistently provided a warm, comforting environment for the poets, novelists and writers who grace its stage at 326 Dundas Street, across from the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Boyd, a local fixture on the Toronto literary scene, published his own book of poetry, Making Bones Walk with Luna Publications this year, and manages to find time to blog, edit, and run a great little poetry website called The Northern Poetry Review. His series continues its solid run this month with the following schedule of wordsmiths:
On November 2:
Merle Nudelman (We, the Women, poems), Micheline Maylor (Full Depth: The Raymond Knister poems, poems) and Stacey May Fowles (Be Good, novel)
On November 16:
Nick Maes (Dead Man's Float, novel) Ron Charach (Selected Portraits, poetry) and Colin Carberry (Ceasefire in Purgatory, poetry)
On November 30:
Sean Dixon (The Girls Who Saw Everything, fiction), Ruth R Pierson (Aide-mémoire, poems) and Nadine McInnis (Two Hemispheres, poems)
But if you're feeling particularly crowded for time this month, make sure and mark your calendars for the IV Reading Series coming up on December 14 when Gil Adamson, author of The Outlander, a novel that Noah Richler vigorously defended in Maclean's this past summer, reads.
The article, which caused quite a controversy, not simply because Richler's married to Sarah MacLachlan, the president of Anansi, the novel's publishing company, but also because of the fairly harsh criticism of the two other books in the article, the Giller-shortlisted Effigy and Jacqueline Baker's The Horseman's Graves. I, for one, have had Adamson's novel on my night table for the past few months, and will gladly step out on that Friday night to hear her read. Adamson will be accompanied by novelist Jessica Westhead and poet Souvankham Thammavongsa (Found, poems), whose raw, honest and intriguing work was a treat to hear at this year's IFOA.
Sure there are other literary events happening in the city this month, but why not try something on a stage slightly smaller than that of the Premiere Dance Theatre?
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