Join us for an evening of poetry, prose, and music by local authors and artists, to see off summer with some beautiful words! Curated by Ilona Martonfi, attendance is $6 at the door.

Our lineup for this event:
Michael Foy published stories in The Nashwaak Review, Grain, Blank Spaces & The Impressment Gang. Working on a manuscript of short fiction.

Ilona Martonfi, editor, poet & curator, her latest poetry title is Salt Bride (Inanna, Oct 2019). Forthcoming The Tempest (Inanna, 2020).

Carolina Echeverria, a community builder, a storyteller and an artivist. Founder of Native-Immigrant, where she fosters active cultural collaboration.

Mike Di Sclafani, Multidisciplinary artist, author of Vultures (2017). Forthcoming spoken word album Apothecary, 2019. mikedisclafani.com

Su J. Sokol is an advocate, an activist, and a writer of speculative, liminal, and interstitial fiction.

Nelly Roffé, author of the book of poetry Rose de Chaouen (editions de L'harmattan, Paris). Literary translator from Spanish into French.

Marie-Josée MJ Tremblay is an indie-folk singer-songwriter, photographer, filmmaker, actor and painter of Algonquin ancestry.

Alexandra Pasian is a freelance writer and professor. Her work has appeared in Arc, CV2, Event, and The Fiddlehead.

Darrell Epp, author of 3 poetry books: Imaginary Maps, After Hours, and Sinners Dance. His poetry has appeared in over 130 magazines on 6 continents.

Sandra Sjollema is a published poet and arts-based Concordia University researcher who is involved with Anneau Poetique.

Mary Ann Lichacz-Karwatsky's memoir, My Father's Store and Other Stories, is now in the Canadian Museum of Immigration, Halifax.

It's your time to shine! We'll be hosting our twelfth open mic night since our reopening. Come share stories, poetry, music, or whatever suits your fancy! Let us know you're planning to come at events@argobookshop.ca - we try to accommodate walk-ins, but if you want to be sure of a spot, please let us know in advance. But you can also take your chances coming the day of to lay it on us! See you there.

Interested in exploring Japan's thousand-plus years of literary history, but not sure where to begin? In conjunction with the JET Alumni Association of Quebec/Atlantic (JETAA Q/A), we are offering our third annual free introductory workshop on Japanese literature to get you started with a variety of authors and genres. We will discuss the origins of Japanese writing, the evolution of its poetry, prose, and theater over the centuries, and some favourites of our staff!

After the session and a question and answer period, attendees will also have the opportunity to learn more about the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme through the experiences of former participants.

Please join us for our latest Queer Book Club! In this session, we'll be reading a store favourite, the multi-award-winning Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

We're looking forward to a lively discussion of the book, and we hope you'll join us!

Join us for an evening of poetry, prose, and music by local authors and artists, as we stride into the fullness of autumn! Curated by Ilona Martonfi, attendance is $6 at the door.

Our lineup for this event:
Tom Abray is the author of Pollen (a collection of short stories) and Where I Wanted to Be (a novel). He teaches English at John Abbott College.

Ilona Martonfi is an editor, poet, curator & activist, her latest poetry title is Salt Bride (Inanna, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna, 2020).

Megan Callahan is a writer and translator. Her stories explore family,
mental health, and the natural world, https://medium.com/@meg.a.callahan

Michael Mirolla is a Montreal‐Toronto novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, and co‐owner of Guernica Editions.

Tracey Waddleton is the author of Send More Tourists… the Last Ones Were Delicious, released by Breakwater Books in July 2019.

John Kerkhoven plays in the folk-blues duo BluesReel and in the blues and jazz quartet Mojo Vipers.

Salena Wiener is a poet. Work in Honey and Lime's blog Oceans & Time, Peculiars Magazine, Pulp Poets Press, elsewhere.

Maxianne Berger's fourth book, Winnows, an erasure of Moby Dick, was shortlisted for the Haiku Society of America's 2017 Merit Book Award.

Mike Di Sclafani is a multidisciplinary artist, author of Vultures (2017). Forthcoming, spoken word album Apothecary, 2019. mikedisclafani.com

Lisanne Gamelin is a Francophone presently working on her first novel set in New Orleans. And yes, it’s in English.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the League of Canadian Poets.

Please join us for the latest iteration of our Book Club with the Author, where a local Montreal author joins us to discuss their book! This time, we'll be discussing A Joy to be Hidden by author Ariela Freedman. As with all our book clubs, we recommend reading the book in advance, but you are welcome to attend as long as you are all right with spoilers.

About the author:

Ariela Freedman was born in Brooklyn and has lived in Jerusalem, New York, Calgary, London, and Montreal. Her reviews and poems have appeared in Vallum, carte blanche, The Cincinnati Review and other publications, and she was selected to participate in the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s 2014 Mentorship Program. She has a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches literature at Concordia’s Liberal Arts College in Montreal, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Her first novel, Arabic for Beginners, was shortlisted for the QWF/Concordia first book prize, and won the Mona Elaine Adilman Award for Fiction in 2018. A Joy to Be Hidden (2019) is her second novel.

About the book:
A Joy To Be Hidden is set in a vividly recreated late-90s New York City. The protagonist is Alice Stein, a graduate student whose father died a year before, and who has now lost her grandmother. In the process of sorting through the grandmother's belongings, Alice unlocks a family secret. In addition to its wisdom and rich humour, the novel is full of memorable characters. We can never quite forget the title quote--"It Is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found" (D. W. Winnicott)--and we discover, over the course of the novel, that it applies to all its characters.