TORONTO THE GRUESOME
Toronto the Gruesome
Six celebrated local writers present brand-new Gothic stories
Toronto the good? Not quite. In six brand-new deliciously dreadful
tales, some of our best local writers lead us into the darker corners
of our fair city. Come along – if you dare…
Diaspora Dialogues and Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity are pleased to present Cherie Dimaline, Nalo Hopkinson, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Andrew Pyper, Tasleem Thawar and Michelle Wan at the Music Gallery on Wednesday June 10 at 7:30 pm, reading the creepy stories they’ve created just for us. Hosted by Rue Morgue’s Liisa Ladouceur.
These tales have been collected in a very special limited-run chapbook, Gothic Toronto: Writing the City Macabre, available for purchase at the reading.
Seating is limited, so arrive early!
WHAT: Gothic Toronto: Writing the City Macabre at Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity
WHEN: Wednesday, June 10 at 7:30 pm
WHERE: The Music Gallery (St George-the-Martyr Church), 197 John Street (at Stephanie)
COST: Free
CONTACT: Julia Chan, 416-944-1101 x 277 or julia@diasporadialogues.com
Cherie Dimaline has held many jobs, including
magician’s assistant, museum curator and executive director. Her
creative work has been featured in national magazines and sought after
for diverse anthologies. Her first book, Red Rooms, debuted
in spring of 2007 and received positive accolades from both aboriginal
and mainstream audiences, culminating in its receiving the Fiction Book
of the Year Award at the Anskohk Aboriginal Literary Festival. Since
its release, Red Rooms continues to find its way into college
and university reading lists and into libraries and schools
internationally. Cherie has travelled across Canada and to Australia to
give readings and present lectures on her writing. Working on her
second book, she lives in Toronto with her partner and their three
children. She is the editor of SPIRIT, an indigenous arts and culture magazine. She was recently nominated for the 2009 K.M. Hunter Artists Award for Literature.
Nalo Hopkinson, born in Jamaica, has lived in Toronto for more than three decades. She is the author of the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (a finalist on CBC’s "Canada Reads" in 2008), Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, The New Moon’s Arms and Blackheart Man. Her short story collection, Skin Folk,
won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic and the
World Fantasy Award. She is a recipient of the Ontario Arts Council
Foundation Award, Canada’s Aurora Award and the John W. Campbell Award.
She edited the anthologies Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction and Mojo: Conjure Stories. Nalo co-edited the anthology So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy with Uppinder Mehan and the anthology Tesseracts Nine
with Geoff Ryman. She was a founding member of the Carl Brandon
Society, which exists to foster discussion on race and ethnicity in
science fiction and fantasy, and now sits on its advisory council. She
is a mentor in the Correspondence Program in Creative Writing at Humber
College in Toronto.
Ann-Marie MacDonald is a novelist, playwright and
actor who lives in Toronto. Her work has garnered numerous awards,
including the Governor General’s Award for Drama, the Chalmers Award,
the Commonwealth Prize, a Gemini and several Doras. Plays include Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) and Belle Moral: A Natural History. She is the author of the internationally bestselling novels Fall on Your Knees and The Way the Crow Flies.
Andrew Pyper is the author of four internationally
bestselling novels and a collection of stories and lives in Toronto.
His most recent novel, The Killing Circle, was selected as one of the Best Crime Novels of 2008 by the New York Times. Lost Girls was also a New York Times Notable Book, and winner of the Arthur Ellis Award. The Trade Mission was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the Toronto Star, and The Wildfire Season was a Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun and Calgary Herald Best Book of the Year. Lost Girls, The Wildfire Season and The Killing Circle are all currently in development for feature film.
Tasleem Thawar has lived and worked in Japan, India,
England and Tanzania. She is currently studying at the Humber School
for Writers and lives in Toronto.
Michelle Wan was born in China and grew up in India
and the United States. She has travelled extensively and has worked at
many professions. She loves all kinds of things – good food, good
books, hiking, dogs, orchids and people wherever and however they come
into her life. She and her tropical horticulturist husband, Tim, live
in Guelph, Ontario, and go regularly to the Dordogne, France, to
photograph and chart wild orchids. She is the author of three novels in
the Death in the Dordogne series: Deadly Slipper, The Orchid Shroud, and A Twist of Orchids.
The fourth in the series is on its way. Her books have been published
in the United States, Italy, Germany, Holland and Japan. More
information is available at Michelle’s website www.orchidsaremurder.com.
Liisa Ladouceur is a poet and arts journalist from
Toronto with a penchant for dead things and arcane words. You may have
agreed/disagreed with what she's said on CBC Radio or MuchMoreMusic or
written in the pages of Eye Weekly. She is the editor of Nuit Blanche: Poems for Late Nights, published by shadowy arts collective The Royal Sarcophagus Society. Her first poetry chapbook, On Tenterhooks, was published in 2008 by Burning Effigy Press. She is a regular contributor on all things macabre for Rue Morgue Magazine and can be heard weekly on the all-horror podcast Rue Morgue Radio. She is more afraid of roller coasters than monsters.
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