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.

ALCHEMY, MEDITATION, SERENDIPITY AND DREAMS with JANET TURPIN MYERS

TUES JANUARY 14
7.30-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room. Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
Join novelist and poet, Janet Turpin Myers for an exploration of this inscrutable realm of mystery and happy surprises. Janet Turpin Myers has been writing all her life, despite being advised as a teenager to pursue office work rather than writing.  Her poetry has appeared in Hammered Out and Tower Poetry. Her debut novel, Nightswimming was published in 2013 by Seraphim Editions, and recently, her short story, Crashing, won third place in Hamilton's gritLIT Short Fiction competition. She is a graduate of McMaster University, and a happy resident of the ravines and forests of north Burlington's beautiful escarpment lands.

STORIES WE SHARE

TUES DEC 10
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
Be ready to read a story that you like and want to share with us on a cold and dark December evening. This is also the time when you are welcome to read a story you have written, in the presence of very attentive listeners.