Join us for the launch of April Ford's new poetry collection, Death is a Side-Effect! After the author reads, books will be available for sale and signing. 

About Ms. Ford:
After a decade of living in rural New York State, where she taught creative writing to college students, April has returned home to Montreal. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in print and online journals in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Germany, and Scotland. In 2015, her short story “Project Fumarase” won a Pushcart Prize. Her book publications include The Poor Children: Stories (SFWP, 2015) and Death Is a Side-Effect: Poems (Frog Hollow Press, 2019). Her debut novel, Carousel, is forthcoming with Inanna Publications in Spring 2020. When she wants to feel capable, she orders Ikea furniture to assemble by herself. She lives with her two rescue cats, Ernie and Nicolas. Author Website

For this round of our Queer Book Club, we're opening it up to you! If you're a book lover, you probably have one (or two, or three) in particular that you particularly like championing and recommending to others. For some, it may be a recent story they couldn't put down; for others, an old favourite they can't forget.

So join us for an evening where we tell people what makes our favourite queer reads so great! Enjoy warm company, refreshments, and bring along a book that you can't wait to recommend to everyone. You'll leave with a shelf's worth of ideas for the future!

Join us for an evening of poetry, prose, and music by local authors and artists, to kick off the official start of summer! Curated by Ilona Martonfi, attendance is $6 at the door.

Our lineup for this month's event:
Robert Martin Evans is a writer and translator, with new work in Where is the river: a poetry experiment.

Ilona Martonfi, her latest poetry title is The Snow Kimono (Inanna, 2015). Forthcoming, Salt Bride (Inanna, Oct 2019). The Tempest (Inanna, 2020).

Victoria LeBlanc is a writer, artist & curator. She has contributed to over 40 publications on Montreal artists. Author of a first poetry book, Hold.

Jason Santerre is an editor. His poems appear in various journals. The Amber of the Moment is his latest chapbook.

Harry Rajchgot, Author of Gravitational Fields & The Sweetness of Life. Editor, JONAHmagazine. Member of Greene Writers. Writing a musical.

Mike Di Sclafani, Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist, author of Vultures. Spoken word album Apothecary, 2019. mikedisclafani.com

Preeti Vyas is a writer who writes about life, work, nature, & extreme emotions. https://pinnacle9blog.wordpress.com

Matt Risk, little did he know, his childhood dreams of becoming a writer, or a wizard, both came true.

Veena Gokhale is the author of Bombay Wali and other stories, and Land for Fatimah, a novel (Guernica Editions).

Jeffrey Mackie is an internationally published and translated poet. He is currently studying for the Anglican priesthood at McGill.

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 Lost in September by author Kathleen Winter. 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:
Kathleen Winter’s debut story collection, boYs (Biblioasis), won the 2006 Metcalf Rooke award. Her 2010 novel, Annabel (Anansi), won the Thomas Head Raddall Award and was a finalist for Canada’s Giller, Writers’ Trust and Governor General’s literary prizes. Her Arctic memoir, Boundless, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust, RBC Taylor Prize, and QWF Mavis Gallant non fiction awards. Lost in September, her 2017 novel based on letters written by General James Wolfe to his mother, was shortlisted for The Hugh MacLennan and Governor General’s literary awards. Winter lives in Montreal.

About the book:
     Enter the world of Jimmy--a tall, red-haired, homeless thirty-something ex-soldier, battered by PTSD--as he camps out on the streets of modern-day Montreal, trying to remember and reclaim his youth. While his past is something of an enigma, even to himself, the young man bears a striking resemblance to General James Wolfe, "Conqueror of Canada" and "Hero of Quebec," who died on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.
     As a young soldier in his twenties, the historical James Wolfe (1727-1759) was granted a short and much longed-for leave to travel to Paris to study poetry, music and dance--three of his passions. But in that very year, 1752, the British Empire abandoned the Julian calendar for the Gregorian, and every citizen of England lost eleven days: September 2 was followed by September 14. These lost eleven days happened to occur during the period that Wolfe had been granted for his leave. Despondent and bitter, he never got the chance to explore his artistic bent, and seven short years later, on the anniversary of this foreshortened leave, he died on the Plains of Abraham.
     Now, James is getting his eleven days back . . . but instead of the salons of 18th century Paris, he's wandering the streets of present-day Montreal and Quebec City, not as "the Hero of Quebec" but as a damaged war veteran wracked with anguish. Much like George Saunders in Lincoln in the Bardo, award-winning author Kathleen Winter takes a brief, intensely personal incident in the life of a famous historical figure, and using her incomparable gifts as a fiction writer, powerfully reimagines him. Here is a wrenching, unforgettable portrait--like none you have ever seen or read--of one of the most well-known figures in Canadian history.

(Photo by Roger LeMoyne)