Calendar :: All Events

About 20. The Secret Lives of Birds

“Erudite and engrossing.” “Salacious and sage.” Hard on the critical success of Silence of the Songbirds, international bird biologist Bridget Stutchbury turns to bird behaviour in The Bird Detective. Why do birds divorce? Why don’t they treat their sons and daughters equally? Why do females sneak quick sex with neighbouring males? How is climate change affecting the way they behave? Stutchbury offers the answers in conversation with Wayne Grady.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 21. Past Perfect

Historical fiction has never been more popular. Some say we’re escaping from the pressures of the present; others contend the past is rich in stories that question and confirm who we are. Commonwealth prize-winner Joan Thomas explores 19th century Lyme Regis in Curiosity: A Love Story, while Sandra Gulland, author of the Josephine B. Trilogy returns to France, to the court of Louis XIV in Mistress of the Sun. In an intimate onstage conversation, Gulland and Thomas discuss the place of the past in the literary present.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 22. Penprick of Conscience

Can writers change the world? Should they try? Join this panel of distinguished authors who pursue, in a range of literary forms, profound questions of social justice and personal engagement in a troubled world. Deborah Ellis (No Safe Place), Karen Connelly (Burmese Lessons), Steven Heighton (Every Lost Country) & Larry Scanlan (A Year of Living Generously). Moderated by Jamie Swift.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 23. Poetry Beyond the Page

Poets, break out of the print ghetto! Move beyond the page, beyond the esoteric literary journals and small-run poetry books, even beyond the stage, to reach a wider audience. Join Jill Battson, who has let her poetry run with the cultural “big boys” in an attempt to infuse theatre, opera and visual art with poetry, as she gives pointers on how to expand your craft and audience and perhaps even use poetry for social change.

A Writers Studio master class.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About A Cross-Country Photo Exhibit Tour presented by WaterCan

The Grand Theatre is pleased to present the Water for Life: An African Photo Exhibit. This photography exhibit features a powerful selection of images by internationally renowned phtoographer Peter Bregg. The exhibit includes forty photographs taken by Bregg during his travels to WaterCan project sites during the fall of 2009. Through this exhibit, WaterCan hopes to deliver its message of fighting global poverty by helping the world's poorest people gain access to clean water, basic sanitation and hygiene education.

As part of Culture Days, this exhibit is free of charge. The exhibit can be viewed at the Grand Theatre September 23 - October 6 from 2pm-5pm daily, and 12noon-5pm September 25 and 26. The opening reception will take place September 23 at 7pm as part of Downtown Kingston's Art After Dark, with Peter Bregg in attendance.

Visit WaterCan online for more information.

About 24. Funny Guys

Satirical columnist and two-time GG nominee Trevor Cole presents the diabolically deadpan wit of his third novel, Practical Jean, a wicked tale of female friendship that puts a fresh and macabre twist on “tough love.” In conversation with the mischievous, insightful and very funny Bill Richardson, who calls Cole’s novel, “the blackest comedy ever written about the white middle class.” Richardson and Cole explore their attraction to comedy as writers and discuss the very serious work of being funny.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 25. Gold Diggers

Devoted to reviving the fascinating characters of Canadian history—Susannah Moodie, Alexander Graham Bell, Mrs. King, Pauline Johnson—for modern readers, Charlotte Gray moves now to the Yukon in Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike. Join her as she traces the stories of Jack London, feisty entrepreneur Belinda Mulrooney, and Sam Steele of the North West Mounted Police, among others, in this portrait of frontier Canada populated by desperadoes and dance-hall girls, gamblers and men of God. An illustrated onstage presentation.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 26. Whose Story Is It?

You have a story in mind, but who is going to tell it? Having chosen a narrative point of view, how do you negotiate its vocabulary and style? Joan Thomas focuses on the Third Person Limited, specifically the free indirect style, as a way of capturing the subjective reality of your character and subtly moving beyond it. Whether your fiction is set in the past, present, or future, discover techniques for transforming the “limited” into the “particular” and fully exploiting the third-person voice.

A Writers Studio master class.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 27. The Madman & the Butcher

Tim Cook, Charles Taylor Prize winner and Great War historian at the Canadian War Museum, is renowned for his masterful histories of the First World War. In The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie, he focuses on two key characters in the conflict and their personal war that led to one of the most shocking libel trials in Canadian history. In conversation with Eric Friesen.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 28. Literary Mysteries

Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco’s debut novel, won the Man Asia Prize before it was published and has gone on to earn enthusiastic, awed reviews. An inventive, stylish tour de force, it investigates the untimely death of a fictional Filipino writer, drawing on the flotsam of a life. Vancouver writer Genni Gunn’s fourth novel, Solitaria, explores another kind of mysterious death that takes readers to Italy during the Second World War—and into the heart of family secrets and silence. Moderated by Wayne Grady.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 29. Reading Pictures

The creation of a picture book for children is deceptively simple. In order to pare down a story to its essentials while retaining rhythm, poetic images, humor, plot and a child’s vision of the world, writers need a rich visual counterpoint. Images in a picture book add multi-layered dimensions to a story by contributing details and sub-plots, and revealing the characters’ emotions through body language and facial expression. Marie-Louise Gay, creator of more than 60 children’s books, including the Stella and Sam series, explores how images can offer an enriched visual vocabulary that enhances a child’s appreciation of a story.

A Writers Studio master class.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 30. The Cello Suites

Eric Siblin was a pop-music critic and television documentary filmmaker (Word-Slingers, on competitive Scrabble), when he became obsessed with Bach’s Cello Suites and Pablo Casals, the Catalan cellist who found Bach’s music in a second-hand shop and brought it to the public. The award-winning Cello Suites interweaves these two stories with Siblin’s own musical awakening. In conversation with Eric Friesen and accompanied by internationally renowned Quebec Prix Opus cellist Denise Djokic.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 31. Worlds in Collision

Four novelists bring new works that explore themes of conflict and upheaval, both personal and political. Midway, by veteran Quebec novelist David Homel, features a man in full-flight “dromomania,” the particular hysteria that characterizes the male mid-life crisis. Poet-novelist Alison Pick's Far to Go follows one family’s journey through the tumultuous and traumatic events leading up to Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. Kathleen Winter debuts Annabel, a poignant novel of mixed identity that sends its protagonist in search of both a physical and metaphoric home. And Kingston writer Richard Cumyn's fifth collection of short fiction, The Young in Their Country traces time's unpredictable path and the inevitable collisions between youth and age. Hosted by Rosemary Jolly.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 32. Putting Words in Their Mouth

The words a character speaks can make or break a piece of writing. It can reveal back story, illuminate character, move the narrative forward. With monologue, all attention is focused on one character who may be speaking his or her thoughts aloud, directly addressing another character, or speaking to the audience. Originally a poetic device, the monologue is now a standard of standup comedy routines. Join Deborah Kimmett for tips on how to write effective monologue that evokes an entire story through the words a character speaks.

A Writers Studio master class.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 33. International Marquee

Joyce Carol Oates is one of America’s most significant and honoured writers, a key figure in the English-language literary scene since the 1960s. From the 1966 story dedicated to Bob Dylan, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" to this year’s short-fiction collection Sourland, she has published more than fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has written Goth and horror fiction, mysteries under the pen names "Rosamond Smith" and "Lauren Kelly," and stories channelled from the Portuguese. Astoundingly prolific and fascinated by evolving culture, her work mixes Gothic estrangement with high social observation in such classics as Wonderland, Blonde, On Boxing, Foxfire, We Were the Mulvaneys, and The Falls. A unique reading and talk, followed by an onstage conversation with premier Canadian novelist Jane Urquhart.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About Collected Stories

by Donald Margulies | directed by Steve Powell

When a student and protégé develops from an insecure student to a successful writer, she has done so by writing a novel based on her teacher’s affair with poet Delmore Schwartz. The two women then have to deal with the moral dilemma of whether a person’s life events are suitable for another to use in the creative process.

You can also visit Domino Theatre's website.

About 34. Vox Performa

Wrap up your day with a mind-bending cabaret of spoken word poetry featuring the best performers working in the genre today, delivering their words right to your cochlea. Experience the sweetly strange and drolly funny Scottish-Canadian multimedia performer Sandra Alland; amuse-bouches from Adeena Karasick, professor of Global Literature at St. John's University in New York; the soulful lullabies and hilarious diatribes of Ottawa’s Luna Allison; the electrifying rhythms of Vancouver slam poet/musician CR Avery; the outrageous insights of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam alumnus, the New York Lady Gaga of performance poets, Regie Cabico; & the provocative stylings of Brooklyn performance artist Todd Colby. Hosted by Cobourg Poet Laureate and spoken-word activist/impresario, Jill Battson. Cash bar.

Please note: Mature Content.

For full author profiles, please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.