June: Rain or Sun?

It’s like the first pages of a book. You just never know what you’re going to get.

I am so behind on keeping you all up to date here, but for good reason. The last couple of months, I feel like I have read so many great books, have spoken to so many fantastic writers and I have had some good news on my own writing, so I hope you’ll accept my excuses!

What happened in May?

I chatted with Benjamin Fidler about writing, winning a marathon writing contest, and we talked about his lovely novel, GONE TO PIECES from Anvil Press.  Check out the video.

GONE TO PIECES follows Curzio Malaparte named by her father for the Italian author of Kaputt, a fictional autobiography. Estranged from her father, Curzi is annoyed when the hospital calls to say that he is dying, and instead of dealing with him, she jumps on a plane to Sweden to see her brother, where they both decide to find out whether their father’s oft-repeated stories about horses, a frozen lake and forest fire, is in fact true. A novel about complicated families and the mythological tales that haunt us through the generations, GONE TO PIECES is an engaging novel about finding oneself, and a miracle, in a dark and dreary world.

I also had a fantastic conversation with Matt Cahill, author of RADIOLAND from Wolsak & Wynn. You can also find the video on our YouTube channel.

Set in Toronto, RADIOLAND takes us on a labyrinthine journey through the minds of two (or three) very different characters. Jill (not her real name) has magical powers and makes money cleansing houses, while distracting herself with drinking and chatting with Dzeko, a phantasm of her old therapist. After Jill pins a sign that says WE WILL NEVER MEET. TEXT ONLY, to a tree, she hears from Kris, a Polaris Prize winning musician, who’s suddenly overwhelmed by life after horrific events from his childhood resurface, all the while a third character (or is it?) is luring strangers to their deaths.

What’s happening in June?

SUNDAY JUNE 9 Online: Register here.

Lydia Kwa joins us with her incredible novel, A DREAM WANTS WAKING from Wolsak & Wynn.

In 2219 CE Luoyang, a city patched together after the great cataclysm, the half-human, half-fox spirit Yinhe moves through her most recent incarnation. The city is watched over by No. 1, an artificial intelligence housed in a giant brain created by the scientists of Central Government, which entertains and monitors all the inhabitants of the city, both human and chimerical. But No. 1 is starting to behave erratically and the power of the Spirit Supreme Assembly, with its demand for pure bloodlines, is growing. Yinhe is summoned to the Dream Zone, where the chimerical creatures formed by the scientists are contained to do the most dangerous jobs of the city. There Yinhe is given information that will give her the chance to create great change in the city, to stave off an ancient enemy and, perhaps, to reunite with her soulmate, lost many lives before.

SUNDAY JUNE 23 at TYPE Books in the Junction: Register for Livestream available here soon.

Spencer Gordon, Martha Batiz and Tomas Hachard join us for readings and a Q and A at 2887 Dundas Street West.

Spencer Gordon will read from A HORSE AT THE WINDOW, his genre-bending collection of dramatic monologues that shine a light on the anxious, self-directed gaze that defines contemporary consciousness. CEOs lose their obscene wealth in lurid hellrealms; an aspiring writer reassembles a personal history out of fragments from the 2000s; police cadets receive a curious crash course in transduction and ethics; the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and Deepwater Horizon oil spill reveal the immanent sublime. From House of Anansi.

All royalties from the sale of the book are being donated to Fred Victor an organization battling homelessness in Toronto.

Martha Bátiz shares work from NO STARS IN THE SKY from House of Anansi. The nineteen stories in No Stars in the Sky feature strong but damaged female characters in crisis. Tormented by personal conflicts and oppressive regimes that treat the female body like a trophy of war, the women in No Stars in the Sky face life-altering circumstances that either shatter or make them stronger, albeit at a very high price. With an unflinching hand, Bátiz explores the breadth of the human condition to expose silent tragedies too often ignored.

Tomas Hachard will read from his debut novel A CITY IN FLAMES from Flying Books. At once evocative and propulsive, City in Flames is a love story about two isolated people with a deep yet fragile bond trying to find their way to each other while political disorder engulfs the world around them. It is a story that illuminates how people can grow separated from each other, the ways that these bonds can be healed and re-established, and how humans define themselves through their relationships with others.

Hope to see you there!

Also stay tuned for my The First Thirty conversation with Farzana Doctor on July 11. Follow us on Instagram for more details.