THE RULES OF POETRY (there are no rules) with ROSS BELOT

TUES JAN 14

7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.

Newcomer Learning Centre, 4th floor,

Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library 

Often people, especially in workshops, talk about rules about writing poetry as if there is some official code written down somewhere. We will take a stab at developing a list of the rules. Ross will bring examples anticipating the rules people have and where the rules are successfully ignored. We will talk about how the poem itself has its own rules it wants to follow rather than ones the poetry police want to enforce.

Ross Belot has lived in Hamilton most of his life. He still does some of the time. He used to work for the oil industry while writing poetry. Now he collects a pension from them while writing poetry. He was a finalist for the 2016 CBC poetry prize and was also long listed for that prize in 2018. His work was selected for Best in Canadian Poetry 2013. He started writing seriously back in 2000 with the McMaster Creative Writing Program. He received an MFA in Creative Writing in 2017 from St Mary’s College of California. His second collection, Moving to Climate Change Hours, is forthcoming in the spring from Wolsak and Wynn. His first collection, Swimming in the Dark, was published by Black Moss Press in 2008.

SHARING OUR STORIES IN DECEMBER

TUES DEC 10
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m., Newcomer Learning Centre, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

As it is our annual tradition at LitChat, everyone is invited to bring a story to read. It may be one that you have written yourself or one of your favourite stories that you would like to share with us, to warm up a wintry evening among friends. The story you choose to read does not have to be about Christmas.

TAKING ON AN ICON: TURNING AN ARTIST INTO A CHARACTER

TUES NOV 12

7.30p.m.-9.00p.m., Newcomer Learning Centre, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

SALLY COOPER writes essays, fiction and screenplays. Her writing has appeared in such publications as The Globe and Mail, Electric Literature, The Million, and TNQ: The New Quarterly. Her recently published fourth novel, With My Back to the World (Wolsak & Wynn, 2019) features iconic abstract painter, Agnes Martin, as a character. 

                                                         

LIVING METAPHORICALLY

TUES OCT 8
7.30p.m., Newcomer Learning Centre, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library.
JEFFERY DONALDSON has recently celebrated his thirtieth year in the English department at McMaster.  A poet and critic, he has consolidated this two-spirited career around a particular attention to metaphor and metaphoric thinking in the humanities and the sciences.  Author of six volumes of poetry, he published his book length study on metaphor (Missing Link:  the Evolution of Metaphor and the Metaphor of Evolution) with McGill-Queen’s in 2015.  A recent selection of notebook entries entitled Viaticum was published this spring with Porcupine’s Quill.  

BLOOMIN' LATE: Learning how to write and publish poetry over the age of 70.

TUES SEPT 10, 7.30p.m.

NewComer Learning Centre, 4th floor, 

Central Branch, Hamilton  Public Library

After a hitch in the U.S. Army, Roy J. Adams, who was born in Philadelphia, earned a Ph.D. degree and secured an appointment in Industrial Relations at McMaster University in 1973. He kept that post for 24 years before taking early retirement. Free from university commitments, he took up again the creative writing challenge he’d failed at as a young man. In his early 70s, although he had never written nor even read much poetry, he gave it a go. Many workshops, “how to” books, university courses, advice from successful poets and a stream of rejections later, he began to have some success. Since 2014 he’s published poems in literary publications in Canada, USA, UK, Australia and Singapore. In 2019, when he was 78, Silver Bow Press in B.C. published his first full book of poetry entitled Critical Mass, a “wonderful book” according to Gena Zuroski of McMaster, that “feels like poetry, a collection of short stories, and a memoir all at once” and Jeff Mahoney of The Hamilton Spectator says is “a terrific effort,” that “leaves you with a jumpy bebop beating infectiously in your ears, mind and feelings…” Roy recently became a full member in the League of Canadian Poets. For more on Roy’s journey see

http://writingdownouryears.ca/writing-in-summer/  

HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN'S BOOK AND GET PUBLISHED WHILE PROCRASTINATING JENNIFER MOOK-SANG

TUES JUNE 11
7.30p.m. LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Jennifer Mook-Sang grew up in Guyana, South America and now lives Burlington Ontario. While reading bedtime stories to her two sons, she fell in love with picture books and decided to write one of her own. In the midst of her writing journey, Jennifer is amazed and delighted to find herself a published author. Her humorous middle-grade novel Speechless (2015, Scholastic) was nominated for a slew of awards. It was named the Surrey Schools Book of the Year and commended as a ‘best book of the year’ by the CBC. Jennifer’s picture book Captain Monty Takes the Plunge was published by Kids Can Press in October 2017. Captain Monty is a stinky pirate who’s never had a bath, because he’s afraid of the water, because he can’t swim. Of course he falls in love with a mermaid. What could be more perfect? Jennifer loves to read and cook (and eat) and talk to her many young readers about writing. The actual writing part? Not so much. She will share her story of becoming a real live writer and her road to publication. Questions welcome!

THE IMPORTANCE OF POPULAR FICTION with DAVID LEE

TUES MAY 14

7.30p.m. LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Although literary fiction gets the awards, it is worth considering that popular fiction - otherwise called "genre" or even "formula" fiction - is equally evocative of a time and place, and can effectively work its way through an era's most pressing issues. Hamilton author David Lee's 2015 Young Adult novel The Midnight Games won the Hamilton Arts Council's Kerry Schooley Award for the book that "best conveys the spirit of Hamilton." He is also the author of the novel Commander Zero, and the non-fiction books The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field, Stopping Time: Paul Bley and the Transformation of Jazz, and Chainsaws: A History. He is presently completing a sequel to The Midnight Games.

WHY THOMAS MERTON MATTERS NOW

TUES APR 9, 7.30p.m.
LINC classroom,4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Poet and essayist, J.S. Porter was born in Belfast in the north of Ireland and educated at McMaster University (MA in English literature). He is the Culture Critic for The Nancy Duffy Show, a columnist for Dialogue Magazine and a frequent contributor to Hamilton Arts and Letters. His most recent books are The Glass Art of Sarah Hall and Lightness and Soul: Musings on Eight Jewish Writers. He co-authored a book with SusanMcCaslin, Thomas Merton Superabundantly Alive. He is currently writing a book of poetry and notes entitled Furrawn: Talk that Leads to Intimacy.  John reads and writes in Hamilton with his wife Cheryl.             

spiritbookword - The Writings of J.S. Porter

Susan McCaslin is an established Canadian poet and Faculty Emeritus of English and Creative Writing and has published fifteen volumes of poetry, including Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna, Sept. 2017).  Susan has recently collaborated with J.S. Porter on a work of creative non-fiction, Thomas Merton Superabundantly Alive (Wood Lake, Oct. 2018), on the twentieth-century contemplative and activist Thomas Merton. Her Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press, 2011) was short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Poetry Book Prize) and first-place winner of the Alberta Book Publishing Award. Susan resides in Fort Langley, BC, where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect an endangered rainforest along the Fraser River.  www.susanmccaslin.ca

WORKING ACROSS GENRE with KATE CAYLEY

TUES MARCH 12

7.30p.m., LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library       
Kate Cayley’s first collection of short fiction, How You Were Born, won the Trillium Book Award and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. She has published two collections of poetry, When This World Comes to an End, and Other Houses. She has also written a young adult novel, The Hangman in the Mirror, which won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction. She was a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto from 2009-2017, and wrote two plays for Tarragon, After Akhmatova and The Bakelite Masterpiece, which had its American premiere in 2016 and a third production at the New Repertory Theatre in Boston this past spring. She is a frequent writing collaborator with immersive theatre company Zuppa Theatre, most recently on The Archive of Missing Things and This Is Nowhere. She is the writer in residence at McMaster University for the 2018-19 academic year, and is working on a novel and a second collection of short stories. She lives in Toronto with her wife and their three children.

HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN’S STORY AND GET PUBLISHED WHILE PROCRASTINATING

TUES FEB 12, 7.30p.m. LITCHAT is CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER, LIBRARY IS CLOSED.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

JENNIFER MOOK-SANG grew up in Guyana, South America and now lives Burlington Ontario. While reading bedtime stories to her two sons, she fell in love with picture books and decided to write one of her own. In the midst of her writing journey, Jennifer is amazed and delighted to find herself a published author. Her humorous middle-grade novel Speechless (2015, Scholastic) was nominated for a slew of awards. It was named the Surrey  Schools Book of the Year and commended as a ‘best book of the year’ by the CBC. Jennifer’s picture book Captain Monty Takes the Plunge was published by Kids Can Press in October 2017. Captain Monty is a stinky pirate who’s never had a bath, because he’s afraid of the water, because he can’t swim. Of course he falls in love with a mermaid. What could be more perfect? Jennifer loves to read and cook (and eat) and talk to her many young readers about writing. The actual writing part? Not so much. She will share her story of becoming a real live writer and her road to publication. Questions welcome!