Writers Reading

24 September 2016  –  1-5:30pm  – Westport United Church

Featuring Peter Behrens, Iain Reid, Andrew Westoll, Zoe Whittall 

Tickets available at Seasons of Westport, The Cove, The Westport Village IDA Pharmacy and via PayPal below:

$15 Adults

$12 Students/Seniors

  MEDIA RELEASE

August 29, 2016

— FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE —

9^th Annual Westport Writers Reading Lineup announced

The Westport Arts Council’s 9th annual Writers Reading at the Westport United Church, 1:00 – 5:30 p.m., Saturday, September 24, 2016, features award-winning Canadian authors Peter Behrens, Iain Reid, Andrew Westoll, and Zoe Whittall.

Ireland and the Irish play a big part in Peter Behrens’ novels. Born in Montreal, he is descended from mid-19^th century immigrants who, like so many others, sought a new life in Canada – not unlike those who settled Westport and elsewhere in Eastern Ontario. His first two novels, The Law of Dreams (winner of the 2006 Governor General’s Literary Award, and published in nine languages), and The O’Briens (2011), draw in part on his own family’s struggle to adapt and flourish in a new world. Peter’s latest novel, Carry Me, published earlier this year, bridges the decades between the two World Wars amid the growing anti-Semitism that blights multi-generational relationships between two families, one Irish, one German. His short stories, published in two volumes, Travelling Light and Night Driving, and his essays, have appeared in anthologies and the Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, Brick, and elsewhere. Peter is currently a Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. An avid sailor, he lives with his family in Brooklin, Maine. For more information: peterbehrens.org.

Iain Reid’s first two books, One Bird’s Choice (A Year in the Life of an Over-educated, Underemployed Twentysomething Who Moves Back Home) – winner of a CBC Bookie Award – and The Truth About Luck (What I Learned on my Road Trip with Grandma), were non-fiction, mostly positive, funny, personal family memoirs, that earned high critical praise and a selection as one of The Globe and Mail’s best books of 2013 for The Truth About Luck. His journalism has appeared in the National Post, The New Yorker, the Globe and Mail, and elsewhere. Iain received the Royal Bank of Canada Taylor Emerging Writer Award in 2015. His debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, released in June, is a major departure for Ian. His memoirs were, he says, “comfortable,” this new novel is anything but, for both him and his audience. Labeled a “thriller,” “seductive,” “creepy,” and “mysterious,” readers are left surprised at how the story unfolds, and how the writer accomplished it. Iain knows the rural villages and communities of Eastern Ontario. He lives in Kingston. For more information: @reid_iain.

Andrew Westoll, a primatologist by training, has been known to tell funny stories about his friend Jane Goodall while explaining his fascination with chimpanzees, the subjects of his non-fiction book, The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, for which he won the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. It is also the subject of his popular 2014 Ted Talk, Can Chimpanzees Forgive Us? His first book, the travel memoir The Riverbones followed a year of researching capuchin monkeys in Surinam. He published his first novel, The Jungle South of the Mountain, in August. A psychological mystery it stems in part from his time in the Surinam jungle. He has published his journalism in The Walrus, Outpost, and The Globe and Mail, among other publications, winning a 2007 Canadian National Magazine Award for his Explore article “Somewhere up a Jungle River.” His writing appears frequently in foreign publications, and his books have been published in the United States, the UK, Poland, and Australia. An assistant professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Toronto, Andrew lives in Toronto with his wife and son. For more information: andrewwestoll.com.

The Globe and Mail described novelist, poet, journalist, and TV writer Zoe Whittall as possibly “…the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler…” Her much anticipated new novel, The Best Kind of People, was released in August. Two previous novels, Bottle Rocket Hearts (2007) and Holding Still for as Long as Possible (2010), won a variety of literary awards. The former won The Writer’s Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie grant, and was named one of CBC’s Canada Reads Top 10 Most Important Books of the Decade, and a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year. The second was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Trans Fiction, named a Stonewall Book Award Honor Book, and shortlisted for the ReLit Award. Zoe has published three volumes of poetry: The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life, The Emily Valentine Poems, and Precordial Thump. Her journalism has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, and Fashion Magazine. Her TV credits include: Degrassi, and the CBC sitcom Schitt’s Creek. She lives in Toronto and teaches Creative Writing at the Universities of Toronto and Guelph. For more information: zoewhittall.com.

The writers will read between 1:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., with a half-time break for complimentary refreshments, book purchases and signing. (Books provided courtesy of Novel Idea Bookstore, Kingston.) The audience is invited/encouraged to engage in an open Q&A with the writers. Tickets are $15 general admission and $12 seniors and students, available at Seasons of Westport, 17 Church St. (613-273-8792); The Cove Country Inn, 2 Bedford St. (613-273-3636); Westport Village Pharmacy, 3 Church St, (613-273-2922); with PayPal at www.westportartscouncil; and at the door, if available. Come out for the afternoon and meet four great Canadian writers.

The ninth annual Writers Reading is sponsored by Seasons of Westport. 2016 Patron.