June Events (are better than sunshine)

Who cares that every morning for the past month we’ve witnessed the winter monster skulking on our balconies and hiding in the frostbitten bushes in our backyards? Does it matter that we can’t sit outside for too long without them poking us with their icicle-sword, nudging us back into the house to grab a winter jacket or toque? I mean who needs summer when we’ve got books? It’s almost better this way – less guilty to sit in a comfy chair with a book all day than having to go for a bike ride or something.

I am joking, of course, but certainly I have enjoyed placing my June books in a pile and preparing myself for a perfect month (rain or shine) of reading right here where I am and not on some sandy beach or tree-filled park.

On June 8, I get to chat with Zilla Jones, a Writers’ Trust Rising Star, about her incredible debut novel, THE WORLD SO WIDE from Cormorant Books. The novel centres on Felicity Alexander, a world famous opera singer whose love for a revolutionary takes her to Grenada on the eve of the coup in the 1980s. When she should be taking to the world stage, she finds herself under house arrest, not knowing this experience will be the catalyst she needed to truly find herself. This is a pay-what-you-can virtual event. All paying attendees will be entered in the raffle draw on June 22. Register now.

On June 22, we celebrate our season finale with Martha Baillie, Sara Flemington and Rachel Phan live-streamed and in-person at TYPE Books Junction, 2887 Dundas Street West.

Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, THERE IS NO BLUE is “Martha Baillie’s richly layered response to her mother’s passing, her father’s life, and her sister’s suicide is an exploration of how the body, the rooms we inhabit, and our languages offer the psyche a home, if only for a time.” Coach House Books.

Sara Flemington will share a reading from R.I.P. SCOOT , a radical and eclectic “literary mystery that asks us to examine what stories, real or fiction, become the metaphors we use for working through our own challenges and uncertainties.” Nightwood Editions.

Rachel Phan’s Memoir of Family and Belonging, RESTAURANT KID is a “warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach.” Douglas & McIntyre. We are grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of Rachel’s reading through the National Public Readings Program.

On June 26 I get to chat with Nina Berkhout about writing and the writing life with her fourth novel, THIS BRIGHT DUST. Set in the Prairies just after the Great Depression, the novel “deftly explores the relationship between people and the land they inhabit.” Goose Lane Editions.

We hope you’ll join us at one or all of our upcoming events. And while you’ve got your calendars open, why not add our two summer The First Thirty Insta Live events? Pratap Reddy will chat with me on July 17 about his latest short story collection from Guernica Editions, REMAINDERED PEOPLE & OTHER STORIES. And on August 21, I will have a conversation with Nicole Haldoupis about the writing life and their coming of age, coming out story, TINY RUINS from Radiant Press.