Summer Literary Seminars Montreal is hosting a mini-program this fall, and we are happy to be hosting two faculty reading nights as part of the line-up! Join us at the Librairie on
Saturday, October 4 and Sunday, October 5 at 7 p.m. for two evenings of literary inspiration! You don't have to be an SLS participant to attend! These events are free and open to all.
These SLS faculty readings boast a veritable star-studded cast of writers from Montreal and elsewhere!
On
Saturday, October 4, expect to hear from Brenda Shaughnessy, Jeff Parker, Jon Paul Fiorentino and John Goldbach!
Brenda Shaughnessy is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently
Our Andromeda—one of
The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2013. Her other books are
Human Dark with Sugar, winner of the James Laughlin Award, and
Interior with Sudden Joy. Her poems have appeared in
Best American Poetry, Harpers, McSweeney’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review
and elsewhere. She is a 2013 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and Assistant
Professor of English and in the M.F.A. Program at Rutgers University at
Newark. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, son, and
daughter.
Jeff Parker is the author of the novel
Ovenman and the story collection
The Taste of Penny.
He worked with the SLS St. Petersburg, Russia, program from 1999-2008,
serving many years as the Russia Program Director. With Mikhail Iossel
he co-edited two collections of contemporary Russian writing, and his
new nonfiction book about Russia,
Where Bears Roam The Streets,
was published by Harper Collins Canada this summer. He previously
taught and the University of Toronto and currently teaches in the MFA
Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst.
Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of
Needs Improvement (Coach House Books), and the novel
Stripmalling, which was short-listed for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and five poetry collections, including
The Theory of the Loser Class, which was short-listed for the A.M. Klein Prize, and
Indexical Elegies which won the 2009 CBC Book Club “Bookie” Award for Best Book of Poetry. He has written for
The National Post, Walrus, Maisonneuve, subTerrain, The Huffington Post,
and numerous other publications. He lives in Montreal, where he
teaches Creative Writing at Concordia University and is the
editor-in-chief of
Matrix magazine.
John Goldbach is the author of
Selected Blackouts, a collection of stories, and the acclaimed novel
The Devil and the Detective. He lives in Montreal.
On
Sunday, October 5, come listen to Mireille Silcoff, Arjun Basu, Anna Leventhal and Sean Michaels!
Mireille Silcoff's debut short story collection,
Chez l'Arabe,
was published in August by House of Anansi Press. Her three previous
books are cultural studies of drug and youth culture. The founding
editor of the Jewish literary quarterly
Guilt & Pleasure, her writing frequently appears in
The New York Times Magazine. She also writes a long-running weekly memoir column in the
National Post. The recipient of many awards, including National Magazine Awards, she lives in Montreal.
Arjun Basu is a writer and editor. In 2008 he published a collection of short stories,
Squishy, and he published his first novel,
Waiting for the Man,
last spring. He also writes ridiculously stupid short stories on
Twitter that he calls Twisters. He's even won awards for them. He has
no idea why. He lives in Montreal.
Anna Leventhal is a Journey Prize-nominated author living and writing in Montreal. Her work has been published in
Geist,
Matrix,
Maisonneuve, and
The Montreal Review of Books. She was contributing editor for the collection
The Art of Trespassing (Invisible Publishing).
Sweet Affliction is her first book.
Sean Michaels is the author of the theremin novel
Us Conductors (Random House/Tin House 2014). The recipient of two National Magazine Awards, Sean has written about music for
The Guardian, McSweeney's, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and at his mp3blog Said the Gramophone. He lives in Montreal.
We have hosted book launches for nearly all of these writers, and are delighted to welcome them to the store again!