Johanna Skibsrud & Karen Houle Book Launch, hosted by Erín Moure
Join these two fab writers for readings and conversation! Johanna and Karen descend on D&Q to launch new books in Montreal for the first time since they co-launched their first books here, way back when! Johanna Skibsrud is back with a new novel, Island, and a book of amazing essays, The Nothing that Is. Karen Houle from Guelph brings her third book of poetry, The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology, finalist for this year’s GG in Poetry! Two amazing women thinkers and word-makers, together in a unique evening! Hosted by Erín Moure, who loves their work!
ABOUT THE BOOKS
THE GRAND RIVER WATERSHED: A FOLK ECOLOGY by Karen Houle: “In her new book, philosopher and poet Karen Houle employs the wiliest tool she knows—poetry—to contemplate the Grand River watershed in southern Ontario, stretching our notions of what can be known about a river. Houle’s poems strain against settled rules, agitating for a more complex, robust portrayal of the Grand River watershed by fusing disparate narratives and methodologies—scientific and anecdotal, personal and collective, emotion and information, the organic and the manufactured.” published by Gaspereau Press, 2019
THE ISLAND by Johanna Skibsrud: “On an imaginary island where socio-economic divides run deep, an insurrection brews. Over the course of a day, the lives of two women–one a rebel, one a diplomat–will forever change. Part fantasy, part parable, Island deftly explores vital questions of history and responsibility, demanding we consider our legacies of cultural imperialism and the veiled costs of our wireless world.” published by Penguin Random House, 2019
THE NOTHING THAT IS: ESSAYS ON ART, LITERATURE, AND BEING by Johanna Skibsrud, explores the concept of “nothing” and the ways in which poetic language can activate possibilities within every moment. Traversing a broad range of topics—including false atrocity tales, fake news, high-wire acts, and telepathy, as well responding to works by John Ashbery, Virginia Woolf, Anne Carson, and more—Skibsrud seeks to question how history is “given” to us. Within every encounter between a speaking “I” and what exceeds that “I” subjectivity, she finds a listening “Other.” Published by Book*hug, 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JOHANNA SKIBSRUD is the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists as well as the novel Quartet for the End of Time, and the short story collections Tiger, Tiger and This Will Be Difficult to Explain and Other Stories. She is also the author of three poetry collections, including The Description of the World, which won the 2017 Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry and the Fred Cogswell Award. Originally from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, she currently divides her time between Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and Tucson, Arizona. Tonight we are launching her third novel, Island (2019) and a marvellous book of essays, The Nothing That Is, on literature, art, and being!
KAREN HOULE is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections, Ballast (1995) and During (2000). She teaches Philosophy at the University of Guelph and works as well with the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming, where her interest in putting environmental ethics into practice has shifted her toward land-based approaches to learning. She lives in Guelph, Ontario and we are thrilled to have her in Montreal for an evening to launch her Grand River: A Folk Ecology!