Featuring Spencer Gordon, Barry Dempster
Amy Lam, Myna Wallin and Jim Smith
Thursday, 3 June 2010 at 7:00 PM
The Free Times Cafe
320 College Street, Toronto
PWYC - 19+
It's our fifth anniversary, and we're celebrating with featured appearances by five terrific readers! Join us on Thursday, 3 June 2010 for readings by Spencer Gordon, Barry Dempster, Amy Lam, Myna Wallin and Jim Smith. The reading will be "pay what you can" as always, and donations of new and used books in resale condition will be collected on behalf of the Book Ends program at the Toronto Public Library. Stay tuned for reader bios and additional information. Don't miss it!
Spencer Gordon just finished his MA in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto, where he completed a book of short fiction that's really good and is looking for the right home. He's the co-founding editor of The Puritan, and the micropress Ferno House. His writing can be found in places like Contemporary Verse 2, Joyland, a hub of short fiction, Broken Pencil Magazine, The Danforth Review, echolocation, ottawater, Bywords Quarterly Journal, The Frequent and Vigorous Quarterly, zaum, and in anthologies like Gulch: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose, Departures, experiment-o, For Crying Out Loud and Dinosaur Porn. He blogs at dangerousliterature and would love to hear from you.
Barry Dempster is the author of sixteen books, including a novel, The Ascension of Jesse Rapture, a children's book, two volumes of short stories and twelve collections of poetry. He has been nominated for the Governor General's Award twice and has won a Petra Kenney Award, a Confederation Poets' Prize, a Prairie Fire Poetry Contest and the Canadian Authors' Association Jack Chalmers Award for Poetry. Barry is also acquisitions editor at Brick Books. His most recent books include Love Outlandish (Brick), Ivan’s Birches (Pedlar Press) and Blue Wherever (Signature Editions). He has just been nominated for the Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts.
Amy Lam lives in Toronto. She is half of the conceptual comedy duo Life of a Craphead (with Jon McCurley). Recently they made "Storytelling Cube," a 4-metre tall simulator that told the story of Amy falling in a well, in the Netherlands. She is the publisher of My Topics Books.
Myna Wallin is an author and editor born and living in Toronto. Her poetry collection, A Thousand Profane Pieces, was published in 2006 by Tightrope Books. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Contemporary Verse 2, Existere, Eye Weekly, the Literary Review of Canada, Matrix, Nod, and Rampike. She also won an Honourable Mention for the 2010 Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem. Myna hosts the literary talk show "In Other Words" on CKLN. Her first work of fiction, Confessions of a Reluctant Cougar, is being launched with Tightrope Books on 23 June 2010 at Proof Vodka Bar. Cougartinis will be served and Cougar-attire is strongly recommended.
Jim Smith is the author of fourteen books and chapbooks published between 1979 and 2010, including One Hundred Most Frightening Things (blewointmentpress, 1985), Convincing Americans (Proper Tales Press, 1986), The Schwarzenegger Poems (Surrealist Poets Gardening Association, 1988), Translating Sleep (Wolsak & Wynn, 1989), Leonel/Roque (Coteau Books, 1998) and his newest book, Back Off, Assassin! New and Selected Poems, just published by Mansfield Press in November of 2009. Back Off, Assassin! was listed as number 7 in Heather Reisman's first-ever Chapters/Indigo Top Ten List of Poetry Books for National Poetry Month. He is the only Canadian lawyer ever to have published a "New and Selected Poems."
Thanks for visiting! Our website is under construction, so stay tuned for further updates and details on future readings.
