FROM ATTIC SCRAPS TO GLOSSY VOLUME (How to gather family letters, stories and diaries to create a published book)

TUES JAN 13
7.30-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library 
Valerie Nielsen recently launched Over the Top - A Love Story. It was a “novel” handwritten by her grandmother, Grace Wilkinson about her rocky courtship and marriage to a soldier in the days leading up to the WW1.

Valerie, with the help of her husband Bob, has edited it, added family photos and published it for family, friends and hopefully wider audience.

Valerie has a book of poetry Green Light and leads creative writing workshops and retreats.

OUR STORIES ON A DECEMBER EVENING

TUES DEC 9
7.30-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Expect to be surprised and delighted when stories are read aloud on this December evening. LitChat’s annual tradition goes on with an invitation to everyone who wishes to read a short piece of writing in the presence of willing listeners.
                                      
            

CANADIAN SOLDIER-WRITERS OF WORLD WAR ONE: A CELEBRATION

TUES NOV 11
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library 

ROBERT NIELSEN was born in Vancouver and attended University of Alberta (B.A.) and University of Guelph (M.A.). His thesis on Canadian fiction of World War One resulted in his company Potlatch Publication publishing Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harrison, a book long out of print but now an international bestseller. His anthology Canadian Children’s Annual became a Canadian tradition for a dozen years. Other books include War and Revolution, an anthology (Thomas Nelson & Sons), the biography Garney Henley: A Gentleman and a Tiger, Total Encounters: The Life and Times of Mental Health Care Centre Penetanguishene (McMaster University Press), and Athlete’s Foot: or How I Failed at Sports, finalist for the Leacock medal for humour. He has taught for many years in the McMaster Certificate in Writing Program. Bob lives in Stoney Creek with his beautiful wife Valerie on the shores of balmy Lake Ontario.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

TUES OCT 14
7.30-9.00p.m.
HAMILTON ROOM, CENTRAL BRANCH, HAMILTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

How do we reach truth by means of made up stories?
When does embellishment go too far?
Jean Rae Baxter will talk about historical fiction and memoir, keeping in mind a quotation - “Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor”.
Jean Rae Baxter has written two short story collections and a murder mystery. A Hebrew translation of her stories was published in Israel in 2013. Her three young adult historical novels have won awards in Canada and the United States. A fourth, The White Oneida, has just been released in September.
                   

MAKING IT AS A WRITER with SALLY COOPER

TUES SEPT 9

7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.

Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

What does living as a writer look like and how does one get there? Take a look at the nuances of the writing life: from “making” the story to “making it” and what that means. How do writers get and stay inspired? Why is it important to show writing? How do we connect with readers and other writers? Self-talk; time management; motivation: these are all aspects of making a life as a writer. 

 

SALLY COOPER is a bold, powerful writer who lays bare the human heart. The author of acclaimed novels Love Object and Tell Everything, Sally Cooper has published short stories in several magazines such as Grain and Event. A long-time professor at Humber College, Sally Cooper happily devotes her time to writing and raising her two children.

 

www.sallycooper.ca

SIBLINGS IN LITERATURE

TUES JUNE 10 
7.30p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
 
Siblings in literature. From Cain and Abel to the sister fiction of contemporary writers like Rebecca Curtis and Miriam Toews.

What is this fascination with the “other” who is not so other as others?

JEFF MAHONEY has been a reporter/columnist at The Hamilton Spectator for 25 years. He has covered everything from politics to lifestyle but his chief specialties have been culture, the visual arts, commentary and humour.

For the last three years he has been writing a thrice weekly column focusing on area human interest stories, from personalities to quirky twists in the social fabric and colourful echoes of our local history.

Jeff’s other interests include guitar, crossword puzzles and late afternoon naps.

He lives in Hamilton with his wife Anne, daughters Ruby and Lucy, a dog and two cats.

HOW A BOOK GOT BORN

Tues May 13 
7.30p.m. - 9.00p.m. 
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library 

How a Book Got Born - writing, collecting, selecting, the concept, drafts, working title, cover design, interior artwork, substantive and copy edits, track changes, rights, contract, timeline constraints, promotion and distribution, reader reactions.

DAVID HASKINS’ poetry and prose is published in many books (his first being Reclamation, Borealis Press, 1980), journals, anthologies. His work won first prizes from CBC, CAA (Niagara), Ontario Poetry Society, and Arts Hamilton and has been broadcast coast to coast and posted on several internet sites. His current book, and the subject of May’s LitChat, This House Is Condemned, Wolsak and Wynn 2013, is a literary memoir.

NOVELS ABOUT THE GREAT WAR with JEANIE MACFARLANE

TUES APRIL 8
7.30-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
Jeanie MacFarlane  lives in Hamilton and spends some time each year in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, where she is involved with a festival of books and music called Writers at Woody Point. A former newspaper reporter, feature writer and editor, she has also reviewed books for newspapers, magazines and websites, and discussed them on radio and television. Jeanie blogs occasionally about books as The Westdaler, and writes regularly about research and teaching for McMaster’s Faculty of Social Sciences. With the centenary of the First World War’s outbreak almost upon us, she has been thinking about the conflict’s powerful hold on our imaginations – and how writers’ own perspectives influence the way they tell its stories.

DUBPOETRY'S NEOLITERARY IDENTITY with KLYDE BROOX

Tues March 11 
7.30-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library 

Klyde Broox will present us with the meaning of dub, its principles and practices, and how dub poetry’s neoliterary identity can inform other forms of poetry on the contemporary ascendancy of orality. The presentation would  involve some performance specifically geared to be interactive and facilitate discourse.

Klyde Broox is an award winning Jamaican born dubpoet, writer, and literary activist, with a growing international reputation. Broox won the 1979 Nathan Brissett Poetry Prize in Jamaica, a 1992 James Michener Fellowship, from the University of Miami, in the United States; the 2005 City of Hamilton Arts Award for Literature and the 2011 Rev. John. C. Holland Award for Arts Achievement, in Canada. He has published two volumes of poetry, Poemstorm, (Swansea, Wales, 1989) and the award-wining, My Best Friend is White, (McGilligan Books, Toronto, 2005).
Migrating to Canada in 1993; Broox emerged as one of its foremost practitioners of dubpoetry, and was a core member of Toronto’s now inactive Dub Poets Collective. In 2007, Klyde coordinated an international dubpoetry festival in his hometown Hamilton, where, since 1997, he has hosted a monthly performance oriented open-stage series, PoeMagic. Klyde sometimes travels across Canada to perform his poetry, give workshops and deliver guest lectures. Over the decades, he has earned a reputation as “a consummate stage artist who blends speech, song, dance and gesture into a powerful package that is inspirational, entertaining and intellectually provocative.” Klyde usually invites audiences and workshop participants to experience poetry as social communion.

SCREEN SYNTAX with J. ALDRIC GAUDET

TUES FEB 11
7.30 -9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room
Central Branch
Hamilton Public Library

J. Aldric Gaudet is an author, story editor, filmmaker and screenwriting instructor.
He has published three books. 5 Fables for the Young at Heart, Madmen Have No Ears, and Imogen.
Currently in development is his screenplay Anatomy of a Hijacking, a political thriller about the most tragic airplane hijacking pre-911.