Calendar :: All Events

About 35. Roslyn Rutabaga

Author/illustrator of a bookshelf of children’s books, Marie-Louise Gay will become even more of a household name in November when Caramba (about a shy cat with a special talent) is given to every grade one child in Canada as part of the 2010 TD Grade One Book Giveaway Program. Join Marie-Louise as she draws and reads from her latest Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth! featuring a feisty, exuberant, and very muddy rabbit.

For families with preschoolers.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 36. Novel Architecture

What is structure in a novel? Pacing, dipping back and forth between memory and action, leaping from dialogue to description, unspooling/snagging time, every movement creating new meaning. In this session, Booker nominee Lisa Moore looks at suspense on the level of the sentence, the paragraph, the page, and over the trajectory of a story. Explore with her how the unfurling of time and action together can provoke an emotional reaction in our readers and build to revelation.

A Writers Studio master class.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 37. Travels with my Family

Children’s author/illustrator Marie-Louise Gay and novelist husband David Homel joined their talents to produce two books for middle–grade readers—Travels with My Family and On the Road Again!— about the incredible road trips of a family with two sons and a cat named Miro. (Coincidentally, they have two sons and a cat named Miro.) In a lively hour of stories and fun, Gay and Homel compare notes with kids on how they spent their summer holiday.

For families with children age 7 to 70.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 38. "Breakfast" Book Launch

Writing couple Merilyn Simonds and Wayne Grady launch their road-trip memoir Breakfast at the Exit Café: Travels in America, a look at our southern neighbour from the outside and a marriage from the inside. This event is free.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 39. Fantastic Fiction

Guy Gavriel Kay has become a world-renowned star of speculative fiction in the tradition of Tolkien. Author of 10 novels with over 2 million copies in print, Kay brings his 2010 release, Under Heaven, inspired by the glory of Tang Dynasty China. In conversation with De Quincey biographer Rob Morrison, he’ll explore the possibilities of parallel worlds in writing what Kay prefers to call “history with a twist.”

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 40. Married, with Manuscripts

Cohabiting, coauthoring couples: how do they do it? Marie-Louise Gay & David Homel compare notes with Merilyn Simonds & Wayne Grady on living and writing under one roof without moving into separate beds. All will be revealed! Moderated by Genni Gunn (who avoided hooking up with a writer).

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 41. Found Fiction

Truman Capote called it a nonfiction novel. Michael Winter calls it documentary fiction. Whatever it’s called, adapting found material to fictional forms is fraught with challenges. What’s appropriate? What’s allowed? Is everything up for grabs? Michael Winter traces the use of real people and events in his novels and reveals the techniques he’s discovered for converting experience and factual documents into engaging, dramatic 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 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 42. Author! Author!

Jane Urquhart, author of The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers, and A Map of Glass and winner of the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, the Marian Engel Award, the Governor General’s Award, and the Trillium Prize, joins author and CBC host Bill Richardson to talk about her new novel, Sanctuary Line. Be there for a fascinating and free-ranging onstage conversation with one of Canada's most celebrated writers.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 43. Paul Quarrington: Life in Music

Paul Quarrington was an award-winning and much-loved author, filmmaker, musician, and teacher. In this film by Judith Keenan, recorded in the months before he succumbed to lung cancer, Paul gives a rare and insightful glimpse into the inner workings of an artist in the act of creating. We witness the artist, and the man, reaching for a resolution to the question we all contemplate in the face of a suddenly abbreviated life: “What would you do?”

This is a free event. For full author profiles please visit the Kingston WritersFest website.

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About Canadian Brass Masterclass

Members of the Canadian Brass will conduct a masterclass for brass players. Admission is free and is open to the public. For more information please contact Dan Tremblay of the Queen's Faculty of Music at trumpetplayerbach@yahoo.ca.

About 44. Tales from the Rock

Newfoundland comes to Kingston! Michael Winter, best known for his Trillium-nominated The Big Why, presents his fifth novel, The Death of Donna Whelan, a “documentary fiction” based on a real-life St. John’s murder. February, by Lisa Moore, takes as its starting point the sinking of the Ocean Ranger off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982. In conversation with fellow Newfoundlander, novelist, and recent Parliamentary Poet Laureate John Steffler.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 45. Poets: Stage vs. Page

Are performance poets just “air poets” or have they freed themselves of the shackles of the printed page? Are page-poets hide-bound or keepers of a valued tradition? Come hear the debate as spoken-word artists Regie Cabico and Todd Colby face off with page-poet Steven Heighton and crossover poet Jill Battson, who has built a reputation in both worlds. Moderated by poet Genni Gunn.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 46. The Age of Persuasion

How did marketing eat our culture? Terry O’Reilly tells us every week on his popular Saturday-morning CBC-Radio show, taking listeners on a wild, irreverent ride through the history and hallways of advertising. You’ve heard the show, now read the book and meet the author. Hosted by Christina Decarie.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About 47. LitDoc: In the Wake of the Flood

Hot from the Possible Worlds festival in Sydney, Australia, and the Edinburgh Book Festival, Scotland, Ron Mann’s documentary on Margaret Atwood’s world tour with her post-apocalyptic novel The Year of the Flood comes to Kingston for a free, pre-release screening. Featuring significant footage from the 2009 Kingston WritersFest opening-night production, In the Wake of the Flood traces the global book tour that left audiences gasping.

This is a free event.

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

You can also visit Kingston WritersFest's website.

About Opening Night with the Canadian Brass

Celebrating 40 years of making music, the country’s most acclaimed quintet will launch the new Grand Theatre season on a brash and brassy note. With more than 80 recordings to their credit, their repertoire ranges from Bach to the Beatles — all in meticulously crafted transcriptions that are setting new musical traditions in brass performance. Known for their sense of humour, musical excellence and fancy running shoes, this concert will be a must-see for audiences of all ages.

Visit the Canadian Brass online, follow them on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

“The enthralling sound of a brass choir…programs that feature virtuosic musicianship, masterful interpretations and flashes of humour… all these ingredients make the Canadian Brass the world’s leading brass ensemble.” – Washington Post

Performance Sponsor - Elaine & Michael Davies

About 48. Saturday Night SpeakEasy

CBC host and author Bill Richardson guides you through the final evening event of Kingston WritersFest, a free-flowing night of words and music with Michael Winter, Deborah Kimmett, Miguel Syjuco, John Steffler, Jill Battson, Trevor Cole, David Homel, Genni Gunn, Lisa Moore, and CR Avery, reading to the original jazz stylings of Bunny Stewart’s Trio Without Words. Cash bar. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

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.