Pivot Readings at the Press Club

Come greet  fictioneer Eric Foley, Windsor’s Nicole Markotić, and local hero Natalie Zina Walschots Something tells me that the Press Club back patio will be in full effect this coming Pivot, so be sure to come early and stay late to save a seat inside – and outside!

Eric Foley has been a finalist for the Random House Creative Writing Award and the Hart House Literary Contest, and the winner of Geist Magazine and the White Wall Review’s postcard story contests. Some of his work can be found online at Numero Cinq and InluencySalon.ca. Eric has traveled to over thirty countries on six continents, and currently attends the University of Guelph’s MFA Program in Creative Writing, where he is at work on his first novel, and a memoir about living in Morocco.

Nicole Markotić is a fiction writer and poet. Her latest book, Bent at the Spine Her first novel, Yellow Pages: a Catalogue of Intentions, was a prose narrative about Alexander Graham Bell. She has also published two books of poetry, Connect the Dots and Minotaurs and Other Alphabets and a chapbook, more excess, which won the bpNichol Poetry Chapbook Award. A former resident of Calgary, she now teaches English Literature and creative writing at the University of Windsor. Dr. Markotić specializes in the subjects of Canadian Literature, Poetry, Children’s Literature, Disability in Film and Disability in Literature and she wrote a critical book on disability in film. She is also the Managing Editor of the chapbook series, Wrinkle Press.

Natalie Zina Walschots is a poet and music journalist. Her first book of poetry, Thumbscrews (2007), won the inaugural Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her second, Doom: Love Poems for Supervillains, is just out with Insomniac Press. She holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Calgary and her poetry has appeared widely in literary magazines. She currently serves as the managing editor for Canada Arts Connect and the reviews editor for This Magazine. Her secret lair is located in Toronto. Visit her at www.nataliezed.ca.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring Eric Foley, Nicole Markotic, and Natalie Zina Walschots
Wednesday, May 16
8 PM
The Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.

Three poets and a novelist walk into a bar…

Punchline to follow on May 2, as Pivot welcomes Gabe Foreman, Catherine Owen, Steven Price, and Claire Tacon to the Press Club for a night of spring revelry and literary madness. Or literary goodness. Anyway, there’ll be some revelry, and some literature, and it’s a bar. You’re coming, right?

Gabe Foreman was born in Thunder Bay. He has worked as a tree planter in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, and is the author of one collection of poetry, A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People (Coach House Books, 2011). He’s a co-founder of littlefishcartpress, and his writing has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Grain, Fiddlehead and Event. His work placed second in CV2’s two-day poem contest and a selection was shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards. Currently, he lives in Montreal, where he manages the soup kitchen at a long-established mission.

Catherine Owen is from Vancouver. She’s published nine collections of poetry as well as the new Catalysts (Wolsak and Wynn, 2012), a collection of prose, essays, and memoirs. Her work has won the Alberta Book Prize and been nominated for the BC Book Prize, the CBC Award and the Re-lit. She plays metal bass and collaborates with multimedia artists, including Sydney Lancaster who created the cover of Catalysts, the book she will be reading from at Pivot. P.S. Her website is www.catherineowen.org.

Steven Price‘s newest collection of poetry is Omens in the Year of the Ox (Brick Books, 2012). His first collection, Anatomy of Keys (Brick Books, 2006), won the Gerald Lampert Award and was named a Globe & Mail Book of the Year. His first novel, Into that Darkness (Thomas Allen, 2011), has recently been nominated for the Ethel Wilson Award. His work has been translated into several languages, including German, French, and Hungarian. He teaches writing at the University of Victoria.

Claire Tacon is the winner of the 2010 Metcalf-Rooke award for her first novel, In the Field (Biblioasis, 2010). Her fiction has been short-listed for the Bronwen Wallace Award and the Playboy College Fiction Contest, and has appeared in journals such as The New Quarterly and sub-TERRAIN. She is a past fiction editor of the magazine PRISM international and is a lecturer at St. Jerome’s University.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring Gabe Foreman, Catherine Owen, Steven Price, and Claire Tacon
Wednesday, May 2
8 PM
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC
Hosted by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

When we read we begin with A B C – When we read at Pivot we begin with Marianne Apostolides, Gregory Betts, and Margaret Christakos (see what we did there?)! What else do our readers have in common besides their place in the alphabet, you might be wondering? All three have recent books with one of Pivot’s favourite small presses, BookThug. Come smack literature around with our Thugs and your host, Sachiko Murakami.

Marianne Apostolides is the author of four books, including Voluptuous Pleasure: The Truth about the Writing Life (BookThug 2012) and The Lucky Child: A Novel (Mansfield Press 2010), which was long-listed for a ReLit Award.  She is a recipient of the 2011 Chalmers Arts Fellowship.

Gregory Betts is the author of five books of poetry, including The Obvious Flap (BookThug 2011), co-written by Gary Barwin, and The Others Raisd in Me (Pedlar 2009), a finalist for the Re-Lit Award. His writing has appeared in hundreds of magazines, journals, anthologies, and chapbooks, and has been taught in schools and universities throughout Canada, the United States, and in many European nations. His history of early Canadian avant-garde activity will be published by the University of Toronto Press in fall 2012. He lives in St. Catharines and teaches at Brock University.

Margaret Christakos is the author of a Trillium-nominated novel and 8 collections of innovative poetry, most recently Welling (Your Scrivener, 2010, a Globe 100 Book) and What Stirs (Coach House Books, 2008, shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award). Some of her other books include Sooner (Coach House, 2005, also nominated for the Lowther) and Excessive Love Prostheses (Coach House, 2002, winner of the ReLit Award). Her work is widely anthologized and she has supported many emerging writers and given seminars and readings across Canada and in the United States since the publication of her first book in 1989. Born and raised in Sudbury, ON, she has three teenaged children and lives in Toronto. She’ll read from her new BookThug chapbook, The Chips & Ties Study, from Tumultetudes.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring Marianne Apostolides, Gregory Betts, and Stephen Cain
Wednesday, April 18
8 PM
The Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
Hosted by Sachiko Murakami
PWYC.