All County, All the Time Since 2010 MAKE THIS YOUR PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY HOME...PAGE!  Thursday, March 28th, 2024

PEC Author’s Festival continues Saturday

More than 430 students from Prince Edward County elementary schools showed their delight at hearing Marie Louis Gay and David Homel read their stories using the theatre screen as a backdrop. The Authors Festival event was presented by the Library and the Regent Theatre. Events continue all day Saturday. See schedule below.

 

Marie-Louise Gay

Marie-Louise Gay: “I love to write with words and pictures,” says Marie-Louise Gay, one of Canada’s top children’s authors and illustrators. Gay publishes in both English and French and her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She has created more than sixty children’s books, including the famous Stella and Sam series, and has received numerous awards for her work. She and her husband, writer David Homel, have co-written the humorous children’s book Travels With My Family and its equally enjoyable sequel, On the Road Again!: More Travels With My Family. Gay and Homel will delight schoolchildren at the Festival’s Kids @ The Regent Theatre event.

David Homel

David Homel: Novelist, journalist, filmmaker, teacher and translator, David Homel began to write fiction in the mid-1980s. Both his fiction and his translations have received numerous awards. Born and raised in Chicago, Homel now lives in Montreal with his wife, children’s author and illustrator Marie-Louise Gay. They are co-authors of the captivating children’s book Travels With My Family and its equally enjoyable sequel, On the Road Again!: More Travels With My Family. Homel and Gay will appear together at the Festival’s Kids @ The Regent Theatre event.

Saturday April 14th

Saturday sessions are $8 each, or $20 for an all-day pass

9:00am Breakfast Panel

Alison Pick, Maria Meindl and moderator Hal Niedzviecki will discuss how social media’s “peep culture” affects us: is it transforming our thoughts about privacy, individuality and even humanity?

11:00am Fiction/Poetry Readings with Lilian Nattel and David Penhale

Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel: “My oldest friend remembers me telling stories when I was five years old, but I didn’t decide to be a writer until I was ten. That was when I discovered not all authors were dead.” So recounts award-winning novelist Lilian Nattel, author of The River Midnight which she presented at our Authors Festival in 2001, The Singing Fire and her most recent, Web of Angels, which came out in February. This latest work examines the phenomenon of dissociative or multiple personality disorder in a compelling exploration of good and evil. Nattel will read at the Authors Festival’s fiction/poetry session on Saturday, April 14, 11:00 am

David Penhale

David Penhale: Poet David Penhale has recently published his first novel, Passing Through, a gripping and very funny story of loss and regeneration, culture shock and the bittersweet vagaries of life. It draws on his experiences in Dubai, where he lived for several years, and his responses to two Canadas: the one you are immersed in and the one you see with astonished eyes after years away. Penhale will read from this work at the Authors Festival fiction/poetry session on Saturday, April 14, 11:00 am. Penhale now lives in Toronto, where he teaches writing and is at work on a second novel.

1:30pm Fiction/Poetry Readings with Hal Niedzviecki, Stuart Ross and Alison Pick

Hal Niedzviecki

Hal Niedzviecki: Peeping Tom’s transgression — he spied on the vulnerable Lady Godiva’s nakedness while everyone else considerately looked away — inspired the title of Hal Niedzviecki’s The Peep Diaries. Tom used to be a model of what people shouldn’t do. Now, with reality TV, social media, security cameras and more, we’re all involved in spying and being spied on. Niedzviecki explores this phenomenon, and its repercussions, in his thought-provoking work. “The more we entertain ourselves by looking at other people’s lives, the less we connect to them as human beings,” he warns. Niezviecki, who also writes fiction, will lead a discussion of peep culture and its impact on what we read and write during the Authors Festival Breakfast Panel on Saturday, April 14, starting at 9:00 am. He will also read at the fiction/poetry session at 1:30 pm the same day.

Stuart Ross

Stuart Ross: “Author of a bunch of books with stupid titles.” That, in his own words, is Stuart Ross, but let’s add poet, essayist, short-story writer, novelist, editor, publisher, creative-writing instructor, co-founder of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair and founding member of the Meet the Presses collective to the mix. Getting back to book titles, though, his most recent work is Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew, a surrealistic but very down-to-earth novel whose hero/antihero, Ben, riffs with humour and heartbreak on his life: the losses, the love and the tender ties that bind the generations together. Ross will read from this new book at the Authors Festival fiction/poetry session on Saturday, April 14, 1:30. He will also lead a writing workshop, “Poetry Boot Camp” on Friday, April 13 from 1 to 4.

Alison Pick

Alison Pick: Poet and novelist Alison Pick’s most recent novel, Far to Go, is the poignant story of a Czechoslovakian family’s experiences in the Holocaust and their impact through the years that follow. Pick’s work has received many awards and honours including, for Far to Go, the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the Man Booker Prize longlist, and Now magazine’s top ten of 2010. She will read from Far to Go at the Authors Festival’s fiction/poetry session on Saturday, April 14, 1:30 pm. She will also participate in the Breakfast Panel discussion earlier that day (9:00 am) on the impact of social media’s “peep culture”. Pick lives in Toronto where she is working on a memoir.

3:00pm Nonfiction Readings with Joshua Knelman and Maria Meindl

Joshua Knelman

Joshua Knelman: an award-winning journalist and editor, co-founder and fiction editor of The Walrus magazine, and the editor of two collections, Four Letter Word… , of fictional love letters by authors from around the world. In his most recent book, Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art, Knelman takes his readers on a dizzying ride through the perils and intrigues of one of the world’s largest black markets: stolen art. He will read from this work during the Festival’s nonfiction session on Saturday, April 14, 3:00 pm at Books & Company. Last year Knelman was named Massey College’s Barbara Moon Editorial Fellow. He is the first to hold this new fellowship, established by Wynne Thomas in memory of his wife, Barbara Moon, renowned editor and writer and long-time County resident who died in 2009

Maria Meindl

Maria Meindl: prolific writer of essays, poetry, radio scripts and stories, has recently published her first full-length book, Outside the Box: The Life and Legacy of Writer Mona Gould, the Grandmother I Thought I Knew. It recounts Meindl’s journey in search of her grandmother — poet, journalist and broadcaster Mona Gould — through the chaotic mass of papers Gould left behind after her death, and through her own memories of this passionate and conflicted woman. Meindl will read from this work during the Authors Festival’s nonfiction session on Saturday, April 14, 3:00 pm. She will also participate in the Breakfast Panel discussion earlier that day (9:00 am) on the impact of social media’s “peep culture”, and on Friday April 13 will lead a four-hour writing workshop: “The Long Haul: Offering a Fresh Perspective on Old and Tired Work.” Maria Meindl lives in Toronto.

Be a part of it all!

Unless a different location is specified, Authors Festival events will take place upstairs at Books & Company, 289 Main Street, Picton. This space is now fully accessible by elevator.

Many events are free of charge. Please contact Books & Company to register for the Friday afternoon workshops or buy tickets for the Friday evening Mix & Mingle Cocktail Hour, the all-day Saturday pass and individual Saturday sessions. For further information: 613.476.3037 or info@pictonbookstore.com

TICKETS
Many events are FREE of charge.To purchase tickets for the following events, please call 613.476.3037 Or email info@pictonbookstore.comFriday Afternoon Workshops:
Limited space available!
Call 613.476.3037 to Reserve your spot.
Maria Meindel $50.00
Stuart Ross $40.00

Filed Under: Arts & CultureFeatured Articles

About the Author:

RSSComments (0)

Trackback URL

Comments are closed.

OPP reports
lottery winners
FIRE
SCHOOL
Elizabeth Crombie Janice-Lewandoski
Home Hardware Picton Sharon Armitage

HOME     LOCAL     MARKETPLACE     COMMUNITY     CONTACT US
© Copyright Prince Edward County News countylive.ca 2024 • All rights reserved.