Tues January 8 2013
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m. at the Hamilton Room of the Hamilton Public Library, Central Branch

JEFF MAHONEY on Exploring the Divide Between Popular Writing and "Literature." Is It Widening Or Narrowing and Why Does It Exist At All?
Jeff Mahoney has been a reporter/writer/columnist at The Hamilton Spectator for almost 25 years. He has done reporting and critiques on the visual arts. Jeff has also been a humour columnist and currently does a tri-weekly feature on city life, people and history in Hamilton.

Until recently he taught a course on Reporting and Writing for the Mass Media at Brock University in St. Catharines.

INSPIRATION for MY WRITING LIFE

OCT 14

7.30P.M.-9.00P.M.

Homegrown Hamilton, 27 King William Street

VALERIE NIELSEN will share glimpses of a fascinating variety of people, places, books and events that have influenced  her writing life. Beginning with her birth in England to writer parents, she will tell of the family's immigration to Canada, her work, travels and avid reading. She is now pulling all these threads together to create a memoir as a legacy for her family. 

Valerie Nielsen holds a B.A. in Religious Studies and English Literature from the U. of T. and a Masters of Religious Education from Emmanuel College.  Her professional background includes teaching, counselling and ministry. She is president of The Tower Poetry Society, and her book of poetry is  entitled Green Light. She  facilitates The Writers' Circle at The First Unitarian Church of Hamilton and leads retreats on creativity and spirituality at her home on Lake Ontario.

GEOGRAPHY, MEMORY AND STORY- the sense of place in writing with ELLEN S JAFFE

SUNDAY SEPT 9
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.
Homegrown Hamilton, 27 King William Street, Hamilton
ELLEN S JAFFE is a Hamilton writer. Her books Writing Your Way: Creating a Personal Journal and Water Children have received awards from Arts Hamilton, and her young-adult novel Feast of Lights received the Moonbeam Children's Book Award for Multi-cultural Fiction. She will have a new poetry collection published by Guernica in 2014. Ellen has received teaching and writing grants from the Ontario Arts Council and also works with Learning/Living through the Arts, teaching writing in schools and to community groups.
We will look at private, public, and imaginary places, and the stories contained in these different settings.

THE LYRIC PROCESS

JUNE 10, 7.30-.9.00p.m.
Homegrown Hamilton, 27 King William Street
NORMAN BROWN leads in a two-part interactive session designed to provoke heated debate, deep thought and mild enthusiasm in a format that tends to be very non-threatening, friendly and comfortable for anyone of any level of poetic understanding.
Norman had his education in many universities including one in North Carolina and one in the U.K. He was a community college professor and a secondary school teacher for 33 years. He also taught behavioural and learning disabled students. He has been involved in amateur theatre for 21 years. He is the owner of Norman Brown Photography and was a past president of Tower Poetry Society in Hamilton

Playwriting and Poetry: Variations and Similarities

MAY 13 7.30p.m. to 9p.m. at Homegrown Hamilton, 27 King William Street.
Award winning writers John Terpstra and Stephen Near will co-host a discussion  on their approaches and challenges in writing fiction, poetry and plays.

ALTERNATIONAL MEDIA by GARY BARWIN

Sunday APRIL 15
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m. at Homegrown Hamilton,
27 King William Str.,
GARY BARWIN discusses
Alternational Media: Small Press, Micropress, Poetry Zines, Chapbooks, Broadsides, Blogs, Online Journals, Literary Ephemera, and DYI Publish, what they are, how they are made, and what their context is.
Gary is a writer, composer, multimedia artist, performer, educator and more. For more check his website at
www.garybarwin.com/

PHILIP LARKIN: POET, ANTHOLOGIST, CRITIC

SUNDAY MARCH 11, 7.30p.m.to 9p.m. at Homegrown Hamilton, 27 King William Str., Hamilton
DAVID COHEN is a freelance writer. His interests are international and local: a just and peaceful resolution to the Palestine-Israel conflict and a more prosperous and livable Hamilton through modern public transit (read LRT) and a denser, more attractively built form.

USING CINEMA TO CREATE MORE AND BETTER POEMS by ALEXANDRA OLIVER

SUNDAY FEB 12, 7.30 -9.00p.m. Homegrown Hamilton, 27 King William Str.
ALEXANDRA OLIVER was born in Vancouver and currently lives in Toronto. She has been nominated for a CBC Literary Award and the Pushcart Prize. Her poetry regularly appears in journals worldwide, and her first collection, Where the English Housewife Shines, was published in 2007 in London, England. She has performed her poems at Lollapalooza and The National Poetry Slam, and on CBC Radio One and National Public Radio, and was a featured performer and interviewee in the 1998 documentary, Slam Nation. Oliver is currently completing an MFA at the University of Southern Maine and co-editing (with Annie Finch) an anthology of poetry in non-iambic meters. Her second collection is due out soon.