PUTTING YOURSELF ON PAPER

TUES MAR 10

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

Our guest Lise Lévesque will speak of the joys and pitfalls of crafting a memoir. Her intention is to compare her own process to that of writing a novel.

Montreal-born Lise Lévesque worked in the fields of travel, communication, education and mental health. A graduate of the McMaster`s Writing Program, she thrives on travelling, research, reading and writing. Her stories have been published in anthologies such as Main Street, In the Wings, Brought to Light and Engraved. At present she is putting the final touches on her memoir entitled On the Way to the Lilac Garden.

WRITING COLLABORATIONS with GARY BARWIN

Tuesday FEB 11

7.30p.m., Newcomer Learning Centre, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of twenty-four books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His work includes many collaborations works with writers as well as with other artforms. His latest books include A Cemetery for Holes, a poetry collaboration with Tom Prime (Gordon Hill, Fall 2019) and For It is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems, ed. Alessandro Porco (Wolsak and Wynn, Fall 2019.) His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates (Random House Canada) won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour as well as the Canadian Jewish Literary Award (Fiction) and the Hamilton Book Award (Fiction). It was also a finalist for both the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A new novel, Don’t Fence Me In will appear from Random House in 2021. Barwin has been Writer-in-Residence at several universities and public libraries and is currently writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto (Scarborough Campus) as well as faculty at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com

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!

COUNTRY NOIR: BRAD SMITH in CONVERSATION with GRAHAM ROCKINGHAM

TUES JAN 8 2019

7.30p.m.-9p.m.

LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

BRAD SMITH was born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, in southern Ontario, a couple of hours from Toronto. After high school, he worked for the signal department of the Canadian National Railway for three years, and then got a chance to work on a rail project in South Africa. Upon returning from Africa, Smith worked all over the place - Alberta, British Columbia, Texas - at a variety of jobs. Farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher , maintenance mechanic, roofer, and so on. He became a carpenter and built custom homes in Canada. He still works as a carpenter when not writing. He now lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie.

Novels:

RISES A MORAL MAN – 1990 – Penumbra Press

ONE-EYED JACKS – 2000 – Doubleday Canada

ALL HAT – 2003 – Penguin Canada

BUSTED FLUSH – 2005 – Penguin Canada

BIG MAN COMING DOWN THE ROAD – 2007 – Penguin Canada

RED MEANS RUN – 2012 – Simon & Schuster Canada

CROW’S LANDING – 2013 – Simon & Schuster Canada

SHOOT THE DOG – 2014 – Simon & Schuster Canada

ROUGH JUSTICE – 2016 – Severn House

HEARTS OF STONE – 2017 - Severn House

THE RETURN OF KID COOPER – 2018 – Skyhorse New York 

Screenplays:

ALL HAT – premier Toronto International Film Festival 2007

FADING FAST – Bravo TV 2009

OUR STORIES IN DECEMBER

TUES DEC 11
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library.
Everyone is invited to bring and share a story for this December evening.

DIVIDED with LINDA FRANK

TUES NOV 13

7.30-9.00p.m., LINC classroom, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Linda Frank's fourth book of poetry, published by Wolsak & Wynn this spring, is called Divided. Her work has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. She has been short listed for the Pat Lowther Award and won the Bliss Carman Award.

Linda will discuss research and poetry. How do you research when writing a poem? Can facts be lyrical? Are facts truth in poetry? Can poetry tell the truth without fact?

PAUL LISSON on Anniversaries: HAL magazine, 10th Year / Short Works Prize, 5th Year

TUES OCT 9

7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.

4th floor, LINC classroom, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Paul Lisson was born in the north end of Hamilton into a family of union card carrying steel workers who played in bagpipe bands.

Poet and archivist. Winner: Hamilton Art Award for Visual Art and Writing (1997); and for Arts Administration (2017). Winner: McMaster University Rand Memorial Prize for Accomplishment in Print. Paul was, for many years, the Librarian in the Programming Department at the Hamilton Public Library and organized hundreds of concerts, exhibitions, and talks. Co-founder with Fiona Kinsella and Peter Stevens (1963-2015) of Hamilton Arts & Letters magazine. Co-founder of the Short Works Prize for Hamilton writers.

Paul’s first full-length book of poems, The Perfect Archive, will be published by Guernica Editions in 2019.

HOMEWORK: LOCALISM IN AND AGAINST THE SPACE OF FLOWS

TUES SEPT 11
7.30-9.00p.m.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Innis spent a lot of time wondering “Why do we attend to what we attend to?” Our attention is increasingly divided between the space of places and what Manuel Castells calls the space of flows, the apparently fluid and encyclopedic space beyond our screens.  We will consider a few works of fiction in which this city is depicted, and also some of the blogs which have arisen in the space of flows to direct attention to the city’s places. Is the space of places freer than the space of flows? Citizens living under censorious regimes sometimes resort to “inner emigration.” Does it make any sense to think about defecting from the global aggregation of attention in the space of flows to dwell only in the space of places?

Shawn Selway is a Stelco-trained millwright and the author of “Nobody Here Will Harm You”, a book about the evacuation of Inuit from the Eastern Arctic to the Hamilton Mountain Sanatorium during the sixties. His writing has appeared in a variety of journals and on the local civic affairs blog, ”Raise the Hammer”. He is currently an active member of the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network. Don't agonize, organize.

"I WRITE THE SONGS "

TUES JUNE 12
7.30p.m. - 9p.m.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

LAURA KEATING is a Hamilton-born singer-songwriter who engages audiences with her personal stories which are the framework of vibrant melodies. When Keating plugs in her acoustic guitar, away she goes, on a journey to the heart of life; soothing the soul and waking up the mind.
Let Me Tell You is her debut album.
laurakeatingmusic.com

AUTUMN GETTY on A Mystery Topic on Poetry

TUES MAY 8
7.30p.m. -9.00p.m.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

AUTUMN GETTY is the trans female author of two books of poetry published by Nightwood Editions. Reconciliation won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Hamilton and Area Arts Council Award for poetry and was nominated for the Trillium Award for Poetry. The Winnipeg Free Press named her second book, Repose, one of the top ten books of poetry published in Canada in 2008. She has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature and was nominated for the Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts as an emerging writer.