Imaginations inspired at fest
TIM WIECLAWSKI | METRO OTTAWA
Ottawa is a very, very smart city, says the artistic director for the Ottawa International Writers Festival.
“We’ve always heard from the authors that the audience questions and the level of interaction from the audience are second to none here,” said Sean Wilson. “We really are coming into our own as a world capital.”
That reputation for curious and interested audiences has turned the festival into a major draw for both the writers and the general public.
Read the full preview on the Metro Ottawa website: Imaginations inspired at fest
Not just any Talking Head at the Writers Festival
Migneault | Apt613
David Byrne isn’t just a visionary musician however. He also happens to be an activist. It’s his activism, and more specifically his love of cycling, that will bring him to the Ottawa International Writers Festival on Friday. Earlier this year Byrne, a lifelong cyclist, published his book called Bicycle Diaries. You can bet his talk at the festival will focus on the book, which aims to promote cycling as a transportation alternative to motor vehicles in the world’s cities.
If you like cycling and the Talking Heads you can catch David Byrne at the Ottawa Writers Festival Friday October 23 at 6:30p.m. Tickets are $15 and $10 for students and senior citizens. The talk is free for festival members and Carleton students. The talk will take place at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities at 314 Saint Patrick Street.
Full post on Apt613: Not just any Talking Head at the Writers Festival
Ottawa Writers Festival: Thursday Events
Migneault | Apt613
Thursday Oct. 22 will offer a full slate of Ottawa International Writers Festival events. Unless I’ve noted otherwise all these events take place at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities (314 Saint Patrick Street).
Read the full preview over at Apt613: Ottawa Writers Festival: Thursday Events
A Dangerous Love Affair: Karen Connelly chronicles her passion for Burma—and for a guerrilla leader
Paul Gessell, Ottawa Citizen
It was an ordinary day, if one can ever have an ordinary day, in the Burmese capital of Rangoon.
Canadian author Karen Connelly had a memorable conversation with a kindly Buddhist monk. Then, as night fell, Connelly stopped at an outdoor tea shop and was mesmerized by a “feral” boy, as young as nine, holding a cheroot, blowing smoke like a dragon through his nose, as he took a break from his very adult labour in a rail yard …
Karen Connelly will appear at the International Writers Festival on Oct. 24 at noon, to discuss ‘The Struggle for Freedom in Burma,’ with exiled Burmese activist and author Zoya Phan.
Full review: Karen Connelly chronicles her passion for Burma—and for a guerrilla leader
Note: Next Sunday, the Books section of the Ottawa Citizen will feature writers appearing at the Ottawa International Writers Festival, to be held Oct. 21 to 27 at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, 314 St. Patrick St.
Drac is back: Dracula sequel sets original apart from today’s ’sparkly vampires’
Chris Lackner, Canwest News Service
Where: Ottawa International Writers Festival, St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, 314 St. Patrick St.
When: Oct. 25, 8:30 p.m.
While today’s vampires seem more intent on wining us than dining on us, something truly wicked this way comes. Again.
That seemingly toothless pretty-boy Edward Cullen better start baring his fangs, and True Blood’s Bill Compton may want to go elsewhere to do his brooding and down his synthesized blood: Drac is back — and with him, a reminder that true vampires are far more monster than man.
Just when the pop cultural craving for all-things-vamp seems like it couldn’t get anymore bloodthirsty, Dracula is returning in a sequel to Bram Stoker’s classic. Dracula: The Un-dead, co-written by Canadian Bram Stoker descendant Dacre Stoker, will be released today. Stoker reads later this month at the Ottawa International Writers Festival.
Read the full article on the Ottawa Citizen website: Drac is back
Writers Festival October Events Update
Two more great events coming up on Wednesday night at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities (314 Saint Patrick at Cumberland):1. Wednesday, October 14 @ 6:30 PM
THE CASE FOR GOD with KAREN ARMSTRONG
Hosted by Jim Creskey
2. Wednesday, October 14 @ 8:30 PM
NOW OR NEVER with TIM FLANNERY
Hosted by Jay Ingram
Then on Tuesday, October 20th at 8:00 PM, it’s the OTTAWA BOOK AWARDS AND LAMPMAN-SCOTT PRIZE FOR POETRY at Library and Archives Canada (395 Wellington Street). This is a free event and promises to be a wonderful evening.
After that, we’re back over to Saint Brigid’s for the Festival itself which runs from October 21 to the 27th. If you have yet to check out the schedule, it’s all online here. Some amazing talent will be participating so we hope to see you all week long!!
Tickets are available by phone at 613.562.1243, on our website or in person from Nicholas Hoare, Collected Works and Octopus Books.
Two quick notes:
1) Apostolos Doxiadis has had to cancel his appearance, so his event with Christain Bök on October 24th has been cancelled.
2) The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands has been forced to cancel the book reading event with the authors of The Occupied Garden, due to the ongoing strike at the Canadian War Museum.
Writers Festival: October Events
Here is a reminder about five more great preview events leading up to the Fall Edition of the Ottawa International Writers Festival taking place October 21 to 27, 2009.
Tickets for the October 14 events (as well as Festival Passes and Tickets) are available by phone at 613.562.1243, on the Ottawa International Writers Festival’s website (www.writersfestival.org) or in person from Nicholas Hoare, Collected Works and Octopus Books.
1. Saturday, October 3 @ 6:00 PM
A Life A Legend A Filmmaker
A free event at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street.
The late Ottawa filmmaker Frank Cole is the only human being to cross the Sahara Desert alone. On another crossing he was mysteriously murdered. But he left us his extraordinary films about life and death.
Come celebrate the book launch of Life Without Death: The Cinema of Frank Cole. An evening of words, images, music and surfboards. The event will be hosted by Tom McSorley and Rick Taylor. Also the Canadian Film Institute will screen the Ottawa premiere of Korbett Matthew’s documentary on Frank Cole The Man Who Crossed The Sahara, with Matthews in attendance.
2. Wednesday, October 14 @ 6:30 PM
THE CASE FOR GOD with KAREN ARMSTRONG
Hosted by Jim Creskey
Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, 314 Saint Patrick Street
From the bestselling author of A History of God and The Great Transformation comes a balanced, nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in human life and the trajectory of faith in modern times.
3. Wednesday, October 14 @ 8:30 PM
NOW OR NEVER with TIM FLANNERY
Hosted by Jay Ingram
Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, 314 Saint Patrick Street
“What is our purpose as a species? How does the Earth work?”
Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading thinkers and writers. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, Tim’s books include the definitive ecological histories of Australia (The Future Eaters) and North America (The Eternal Frontier). He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers. As a field zoologist he has discovered and named more than thirty new species of mammals (including two tree-kangaroos) and at 34 he was awarded the Edgeworth David Medal for Outstanding Research. His pioneering work in New Guinea prompted Sir David Attenborough to put him in the league of the world’s great explorers and the writer Redmond O’Hanlon to remark, “He’s discovered more new species than Charles Darwin.”
4. Tuesday, October 20 @ 8:00 PM
AWARD PRESENTATIONS:
OTTAWA BOOK AWARDS AND LAMPMAN-SCOTT PRIZE FOR POETRY
A free event at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington St.
The City of Ottawa and ARC Poetry Society are pleased to invite you to attend a celebration of Ottawa’s vibrant literary scene, in conjunction with the Ottawa Writers Festival Fall Edition. Award presentations will be made to the winners of the Ottawa Book Awards and the Lampman-Scott Prize for best book of poetry, with short readings by the winning authors. Join us for a reception following the award presentations and meet the outstanding authors who have been nominated for these prestigious prizes. RSVP: infoculture@ottawa.ca
And last but not least, on Thursday, October 15 at 6:30 PM, Writers Festival’s friends at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are presenting The Occupied Garden with Kristen den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski at the Canadian War Museum. For free tickets please call Rosemieke van de Meerendonk at 613.237.5031 x225.
Two takes on the future of books: Taylor and Doctorow
Kate Heartfield, The Ottawa Citizen
On Monday night, I was the host for an Ottawa International Writers Festival talk and Q and A session with author Cory Doctorow, who talked mainly about why he gives his books away for free online and why he thinks overzealous licensing and digital-rights-management are evil. What I found really interesting was the first few minutes of his talk (which you can hear in the two YouTube clips below [available on the originating article] or by visiting the writers festival’s channel, where you can also see the Q and A with me that followed the talk, which I didn’t bother to embed here). In these clips, he speaks of “sentimental book fetishism” as an asset – which might surprise Taylor, since Doctorow’s part of that new generation he decries; he’s got ear-buds hanging around his neck. What threatens that healthy sentimentalism, according to Doctorow, is not “electronic gadgetry”, but the people who don’t understand electronic gadgetry, who are afraid of it and who are trying, through anti-piracy rules, to license books and control access to them.
Read more and view video @ Ottawa Citizen online: Two takes on the future of books: Taylor and Doctorow
Margaret Atwood blogs about her trip to Ottawa
Ottawa Event September 22: St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities with the Ottawa Writers’ Festival
Ottawa, Canada’s ambilingual capital city, with its borders and border-crossings, its officials and its official secrets. I was born in it almost seventy years ago, spent the first five winters of my life in it, and, with mittens on strings, fell off my two-runner skates on the Rideau Canal, super-chilling my tiny toes and fingers. Now here I was again. So this is where I got my multiple personality, I thought. Sacré bleu!
Having left the Novotel – chosen by publicist Ashley Dunn for its greenery, heralded by a strange lobby display that showed some deer on a table and a seal sleeping on a Novotel bed – hmm, have you ever smelled one?-I arrived at St. Brigid’s, an early 20th C. Cathedral now being gradually and painstakingly restored as an Arts and Humanities Centre – I admired, not only the astonishing backdrop made of old plastic bags and duct tape and lit so it resembled an abstract stained-glass window, but also the slates with Gardener slogans written on them. Then we were put through a brisk rehearsal by Director Jan Irwin, with the music sung by the exceptional Calixa Lavallée Ensemble. (Helpful hint: Calixa Lavallée was not a girl but a man, and he wrote “O Canada,” the Canadian National Anthem.) The Choir Director is Laurence Ewashko, but the actual conducting for this performance was done by young Mark Wilkinson, who was not only extremely enthusiastic but extremely flexible. He looked like an angel that had been stretched – short, he wasn’t – and the Ensemble followed his every sinuous move with rapt attention, as did I.
The full blog entry can be read on Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood blog: Ottawa Event September 22
Writers Festival Update
Dear Friends:The Fall season certainly got off to an amazing start with two huge events – Nick Cave on Thursday and Margaret Atwood on Tuesday. Not only were the crowds huge, and the audience feedback has been glowing. Both events were also big hits with the authors.
Nick Cave said in an interview on Friday: “Last night (at the Ottawa Writers Festival) was I think the best one of those onstage question-and-answer things I’ve done. I really loved it. … it was the most enjoyable one I’ve done, for sure.”
And today on Margaret Atwood’s Blog she says: “At Ottawa’s St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, I took one look at the stunning backdrop created by designer Thea Yeatman out of old plastic bags, duct tape and string, and thought: Yes! Artists really can make more out of less, and something out of nothing. In doing so, they unify communities and inspire them.”
The special pre-Festival preview events at Saint Brigid’s continue with two events on Monday:
1. September 28th @ 7:00 PM:
LITTLE BROTHER WITH CORY DOCTOROW
Hosted by Kate Heartfield
“A wonderful, important book … I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year.” -Neil Gaiman
Marcus (AKA w1n5t0n) is taking back the world, one hacked game console at a time … Have you ever felt like the technology you love could be used against you? Or that the government is watching you .. a little too closely? Have you ever felt like you just had to skip school? Do you hate bullies? Have you ever felt the call to fight back- and that the fight was waaaay bigger than just you? Join Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother, for a look at what could happen when security and individual freedom clash, and how one tech-savvy teenager fights back.
2. September 28th @ 8:30 PM
GREEN METROPOLIS WITH DAVID OWEN
Hosted by Neil Wilson
Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability…
David Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker whose interests include global ecology, has examined numerous communities across America and discovered one that strikes him as a model of environmental efficiency. That community is New York City, and in Green Metropolis, Owen tdiscusses what green-conscious citizens can learn from Gotham’s example. This promises to be a hugely important event for all of us who want to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint.
I’ll be back in touch again next week with more on Karen Armstrong, Tim Flannery and our other preview events.
I hope to see you on Monday!
All the best,
Sean
