Quebec Writers' Federation

Argo Zoom Reading Series : Verse, Prose & Song
2020-12-17 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Argo Bookshop, 1915 Ste. Catherine Ouest, Montreal, Quebec H3H 1M3, Montreal, Canada
Argo Zoom Reading Series : Verse, Prose & Song
Ilona Martonfi, Ian Ferrier, Matt Risk, Greg Santos, Carolyne Van Der Meer, Maria Caltabiano, Michael Mirolla, Mark Foss
Argo Bookshop 1915 Ste. Catherine St. West
https://www.argobookshop.ca/
Hosted by Adele-Elise Prevost & Moti Lieberman 514.931.3442
Curator Ilona Martonfi ilona.martonfi@sympatico.ca
Thursday, December 17, 2020 7 PM-9 PM
Please email events@argobookshop.ca for the Zoom link

Paul Muldoon, Nicole Brossard, Matthew James Weigel, Joe Neubert • Vallum Virtual Chapbook Launch
2020-12-09 18:30 - 20:00 | Virtual
Join us for the virtual launch of our latest titles in the Vallum Chapbook Series!
• 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 by Paul Muldoon
• 𝘼 𝙏𝙞𝙡𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 by Nicole Brossard (re-release)
• 𝙄𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙨 𝙏𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙮 / 𝙄𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙨 𝙈𝙚 by Matthew James Weigel (1st Place in the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award)
• 𝘿𝘾 𝙋𝙤𝙚𝙢𝙨 by Joe Neubert (2nd Place in the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award)
This event will begin at 6:30, and feature live readings from the authors, followed by a brief Q&A session.
The launch will be held over Zoom. The login details will be posted the day before the event. If you run into any technical difficulties, a member of Vallum will be available to help you access the event.
This is a free event. However, Vallum is a federally incorporated charity and welcomes your support. Donate here:
http://www.vallummag.com/donate.html

D+Q Cook Book Club - Maenam + Bravetart
2020-12-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Online via Zoom
Join our D+Q Cooks Book Club as we meet every month virtually to discuss and and eat from new cookbooks!
Food lovers take note!
To attend this club we ask that you cook something from the cookbook and come ready to discuss and eat, virtually that is!
Super excited to test recipes from the book beforehand?! Tag us at #DandQCooks on Instagram or post your work here on the Facebook page.
You can also join our group Drawn & Quarterly Cook Book Club where we keep the discussion rolling.
At our next meeting, Sunday November 1st, at 6 PM EST, we’ll discuss MAENAM: A Fresh Approach to Thai Cooking by Angus An and BRAVETART: Iconic American Desserts by Stella Parks and J. Kenji López-Alt.
Where and How Can I purchase the book? Our webstore is here:
http://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/posts/webstore-faq
Links to the books here:
https://bit.ly/3m8U2v9
and here:
https://bit.ly/37xJHov
We Ship Canada-wide!
By purchasing your book at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly you help support events like this one, independent publishing and retailing, our neighborhood, and authors both local and from around the world who depend on independent bookstores for their livelihood. Your support is appreciated.
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MAENAM: A Fresh Approach to Thai Cooking
More than 100 flavor-driven Thai recipes built on technique, balance, tradition, and innovation from award-winning chef Angus An.
In Maenam, chef Angus An takes you on his ongoing journey of discovering Thai cuisine and shows how to blend traditional Thai flavors and cooking techniques with local, seasonal inspirations from the west coast. With Angus’s foolproof instructions, Maenam offers the foundation to modern Thai cuisine for adventurous cooks of all skill levels. Filled with over 100 of his signature recipes, each meal balances robust, intense ingredients with his approach to Thai food’s clear, sharp flavours. Transform your kitchen with snacks inspired by Thai street vendors, quick to prepare noodles and one-bowl meals, light- and full-bodied soups to have all year-round, flavorful and protein-filled salads, seasoned stir fries, killer curries, and refreshing desserts.
Named after Angus’s first award-winning Vancouver Thai restaurant Maenam, the Thai word for “river,” this cookbook is a celebration of Angus’s inventive approach to Thai cuisine that is in many ways representative of a river’s constant ever-replenishing flow. Just as a river continues its course around boulders and obstacles, Angus’s ongoing evolution and path to becoming one of the most significant Thai chefs in North America is an unlikely one.
Angus grew up in Taiwan, moved to Canada when he was young, and trained at the French Culinary Institute. He fell in love with Thai cuisine when studying at Nahm under renowned chef and award-winning author, of Thai Food and Thai Street Food, David Thompson. He continues to travel to Thailand to eat, research, and learn. He takes his knowledge home, and finds innovative ways to root a traditional dish to the Pacific Northwest while accentuating each ingredient’s flavor, aroma, and texture–all of which you will learn in this cookbook. With its beautiful design, incredible photography, and seasonal menus, Maenam offers a Thai culinary experience like no other.
BRAVETART: Iconic American Desserts by Stella Parks and J. Kenji López-Alt.
From One-Bowl Devil’s Food Layer Cake to a flawless Cherry Pie that’s crisp even on the very bottom, BraveTart is a celebration of classic American desserts. Whether down-home delights like Blueberry Muffins and Glossy Fudge Brownies or supermarket mainstays such as Vanilla Wafers and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, your favorites are all here. These meticulously tested recipes bring an award-winning pastry chef’s expertise into your kitchen, along with advice on how to “mix it up” with over 200 customizable variations—in short, exactly what you’d expect from a cookbook penned by a senior editor at Serious Eats. Yet BraveTart is much more than a cookbook, as Stella Parks delves into the surprising stories of how our favorite desserts came to be, from chocolate chip cookies that predate the Tollhouse Inn to the prohibition-era origins of ice cream sodas and floats. With a foreword by The Food Lab’s J. Kenji López-Alt, vintage advertisements for these historical desserts, and breathtaking photography from Penny De Los Santos, BraveTart is sure to become an American classic.

Launch of Zee by Su J Sokol, English version
2020-12-06 17:00 - 19:00 | Zoom: get info from FB event page
Mouton noir Acadie is proud to present its first English novel for young adults, by Montreal-based author Su J. Sokol. Join us on December 6th at 7pm (Montreal) / 8pm (Maritimes) for a talk hosted by Anaïs Van Vliet, followed by a Q&A.
Please join Su J. Sokol and Anaïs Van Vliet on Thursday evening, December 6th, at 7pm for the launch of Zee in English:

Zoom Invitation Link
Facebook Event Page

Launch of ZEE by Su J Sokol, version française
2020-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom: get info from FB event page
Mouton noir Acadie vous convie au lancement de Zee, un roman jeune adulte de Su J. Sokol, traduit par Sylvie Nicolas. La rencontre sera animée par l’artiste queer acadien.ne Xavier Gould, et sera suivie d’une séance de Questions/Réponses.
Mouton Noir Acadie invites you to the launch of Zee, a young adult novel by Su J. Sokol, translated by Sylvie Nicolas. The event will be animated by queer Acadian artist Xavier Gould, and followed by a question and answer period.
Please join Su J. Sokol and Xavier Gould at 19h on December 3rd for the launch of the young adult novel, Zee, in French:

Zoom Invitation Link
Facebook Event Page

Remembering: The Art and Craft of Memoir
2020-11-30 20:00 - 22:00, 2020-11-23 20:00 - 22:00 | Online via Zoom
Workshop description TBA!

Writing About Controversial Topics: Nonfiction
2020-11-30 18:00 - 20:00, 2020-11-23 18:00 - 20:00 | Online via Zoom

Storytime /L'heure du conte
2020-11-29 10:00 - 10:30 | Crowdcast
Story hour comes to your house — c’est l’heure du conte chez vous! Sit your young ones down to hear the story of Little Girl Gazelle, who learned to run before she could walk, as told by author Stéphane Martelly and translator Katia Grubisic.
For kids aged 4-8, in French and English.
Sponsored by Livres Babar Books.
Register here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/storytime_heureconte
Sponsored by Livres Babar Books.

Writer, painter and scholar, Stéphane Martelly was born in Port-au-Prince and now lives in Montreal. Through a profoundly transdisciplinary approach, she confronts theory, critical reflection and art in her work. She is a professor of creative writing and Research-Creation at Université de Sherbrooke. She is writing a series of fables to think and imagine. Her latest book is L’enfant-gazelle (Remue-Ménage, 2018), Little Girl Gazelle, translation by Katia Grubisic (LLP, 2020).
Katia Grubisic writes poems, made-up stories, and a bunch of boring stuff for grownups. She also translates books, like L’enfant gazelle, from French to English. // Katia Grubisic écrit des poèmes, des histoires qu’elle invente dans sa tête, et plein de choses plates pour les grandes personnes, et elle traduit aussi des livres, comme L’enfant gazelle, du français vers l’anglais.

The Favourite Game: Quebec Literary Trivia
2020-11-28 20:00 - 21:00 | Online via Zoom
How book-savvy are you? Test your knowledge of all things Quebec lit in this virtual pub quiz (you’ll have to BYOB). Hosted by poet and quizmaster extraordinaire Larissa Andrusyshyn. You can play in teams or on your own, and there are prizes to be won — books, of course!
Register here: https://bit.ly/35akIGi

This event is part of the Read Quebec: Holiday Book Fest, presented by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec and the Quebec Writers’ Federation. Learn more at readquebec.ca
How to participate:

Draft a team of up to 3 people and register for the event (you can also play solo or with one other person). You’ll receive a link to join the Zoom event on Saturday the 28th.
Choose a team name.
Be ready with a pen and paper, and remember NO googling! You can have smart friends not smart phones! We will work with the honour system, honorable as we are.
Make sure you don’t post answers in the event’s Zoom chat. You’ll need to organize a group chat on the platform of your choice (i.e. text, Messenger, Whatapp, Google Hangouts, or just pick up the phone!) for the event so you can communicate with your team, if you don’t live in the same place.
Each team will elect a captain who records ‘final answers’ for each round on paper.
The quiz will be divided into several rounds with breaks between for teams to discuss.
Answers will be given after each round and team captains will report scores to the quizmaster.

Top scores will win prizes from our generous donors: Pow Pow Press, Véhicule Press, Metonymy Press, and Drawn & Quarterly.
Got it? Got it. See you there!
About your host:
Larissa Andrusyshyn is a writer, teacher and local quizmaster. Her trivia nights have drawn crowds at many pubs and fundraising events in Montreal and she is the longstanding host of the weekly pub quiz at Ye Olde Orchard Pub in NDG where over the years they’ve collected upwards of $10, 000 in support of the NDG Food Depot. She is also an avid quiz participant and hopes one day to make an appearance on Jeopardy! where she can carry on the spirit of her inspiration Alex Trebek.

rushes from the river disappointment Book Launch
2020-11-28 19:30 - 20:30 | Quebec
Join us on Saturday, November 28 @ 7:30 p.m. (EST), via Zoom, for a virtual book launch and readings with stephanie roberts, Annick MacAskill, David O’Meara, and Zoe Imani Sharpe.

Registration is required.
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwkcuGtrjgpH9OYwWEJGqoxbgBMPYJcMdFW?fbclid=IwAR1PNETT8Dp0-96fEerIOEIFhBYlZRegYNoRyvoid_TWf_9-BE-l6d4xDh8
Sponsored by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

A Vehicule Poetry Workshop with Endre Farkas & Carmine Starnino
2020-11-28 10:00 - 13:00 | Online via Zoom
Hosted by:
Yolk in collaboration with the Quebec Writers’ Federation
Facilitated by:
Endre Farkas, founding member of the Vehicule Poets
Carmine Starnino, Poetry Editor at Véhicule Press

Cost:$29.95 CAD (scroll down to sign up)
Limited to thirty participants.‍

In this one-time, three-hour workshop, poets will be divided into two smaller groups (with a maximum of 15). Each group will have a 75-minute workshop with either Endre or Carmine, then swap and have another 75-minute workshop with the other facilitator. We will then conclude with a brief open mic. All participants will additionally be offered the student-discount rate of $15 to become a member of the QWF.

ENDRE FARKAS: Endre Farkas was born in Hungary and is a child of Holocaust survivors. He and his parents escaped during the 1956 uprising and settled in Montreal. His work has always had a political consciousness and has always pushed the boundaries of poetry. Since the 1970s, he has collaborated with dancers, musicians and actors to move the poem from page to stage. Still at the forefront of the Quebec English language literary scene – writing, editing, publishing and performing – Farkas is the author of eleven books, including Quotidian Fever: New and Selected Poems (1974-2007). He is the two-time regional winner of the CBC Poetry “Face Off” Competition. His play, Haunted House, based on the life and work of the poet A.M. Klein, was produced in Montreal in 2009. Farkas has given readings throughout Canada, USA, Europe and Latin America. His poems have been translated into French and Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenian and Turkish.

Endre’s “Playshop”: A creative bent poetry playshop with Vehicule poet Endre Farkas. A playshop for those with a creative bent who want to get more bent. The playshop will focus on the creative process, content and form. It will consist of exercises – individual and collaborative – and the “playshopping” (critiquing) of participants’ poems. A week prior to the playshop participants are asked to:

Submit two poems (no more than one page each) to themail@yolkliterary.ca
Select a favourite line from five to ten of their favourite poems (not their own).

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CARMINE STARNINO: Carmine Starnino has published six collections of poetry, including This Way Out, which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award in 2009 and recently translated into French by Éditions Hashtag under the title Par Ici La Sortie. His most recent collection is Dirty Words: Selected Poems 1997-2016. His other books include The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry and Lazy Bastardism: Essays & Reviews on Contemporary Poetry. He has received numerous awards, including the Canadian Author’s Association Prize for Poetry, the F.G. Bressani Prize, and the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry, in addition to being shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Prize for the best first book of poetry.

Carmine’s Workshop: Poems can’t exist without some gratuitous delight in words. And when it comes to generating surprising turns of phrase, good poets are high-stakes gamblers. Poetry is rehabilitative. It’s an art where words, muffled by monotony of use, are given a noisier life. If you want your poems to sound like nothing else people have read, you need to want to uninhibit your language, to write against the grain of its everyday usage—the ready-made phrases and the serviceable expressions that threaten to flatline your voice. In this workshop, we’ll be talking about an aspect of poetry that gets too little consideration: its showmanship, its capacity to grab the reader’s attention. Participants are asked to come to the workshop with a poem that you believe handles language in a distinctive way. The poem should have a voice of its own, one can’t be confused with anyone else’s. It should have an authority of style that, even in a few lines, would allow us to identify it immediately.
Workshop facilitators: Endre Farkas (left), Carmine Starnino (right)

Registered participants may cancel their registration and receive a 100% refund, provided that they do so within 72 hours of the workshop (before November 25th, 10:00am).

SIGN UP>>

Black Writers Out Loud at the Read Quebec Holiday Book Fest
2020-11-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Black Writers Out Loud is a series of QWF events celebrating Black literary arts in Quebec.
This fourth event in the series is co-produced with the AELAQ, and features Kaie Kellough in conversation with Canisia Lubrin. These two award-winning authors from the worlds of poetry and prose come together to speak on their craft and all matters human.
The conversation will take place on November 27, 2020 at 7 p.m. EST via Zoom.

Please CLICK HERE to RSVP and receive the Zoom link via email.
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FEATURED ARTIST
Kaie Kellough is a novelist, poet, and sound performer. His work emerges at a crossroads of social engagement and formal experiment. From western Canada, he lives in Montréal and has roots in Guyana, South America.
His books include Dominoes at the Crossroads (short fiction, Véhicule 2020), longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and recent winner of the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize, and Magnetic Equator (poetry, McClelland and Stewart 2019) winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize. His novel Accordéon (ARP, 2016) was a finalist for the Amazon/Walrus Foundation First Novel Award.
Kaie’s vocal performance, recorded audio, and electronic narrative explore migration and the suspension of arrival. Since 2011 he has created mixed media compositions with saxophonist and synthesist Jason Sharp.
Kaie’s work has traveled internationally, notably to festivals in the UK, Australia, Asia, the Caribbean, and continental Europe. He continues to craft new passages.
Photo credit: Kevin Calixte

HOST
Canisia Lubrin is a writer, critic, editor, and teacher whose most recent book is The Dyzgrapxst (McClelland & Stewart, 2020) as seen in The New York Times, Quill & Quire, Jewish Currents, Humber Literary Review, and elsewhere. Lubrin’s international publications include translations of her work into Spanish, Italian, French, and German. Her writing has been recognized by, among others, the Toronto Book Award, Journey Prize, Gerald Lampert, Pat Lowther, and the Writers Trust. Her debut, Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, 2017), was named a CBC Best Book and her writing has appeared and is forthcoming in Room, Brick, Joyland, Poetry London, Poets.org, blackiris.co, and elsewhere. Lubrin’s debut collection of short fiction is forthcoming. She has an MFA from the University of Guelph.
Photo credit: Samuel Engelking

Teen Book Club: Felix Ever After
2020-11-27 18:00 - 20:00 | Online via Zoom
Join us at la Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly for our Teen book club! Our pick of October is FELIX EVER AFTER by Kacen Callender. No older participants, please.
This is a book club for teenagers, with a median age of 13-16 or grades sec 1-5 — all kids must be in secondary school. There will be a different book every meeting. The focus is to provide teenagers a safe space to learn to discuss and express thoughts and ideas about literature among their peers without parents or teachers.
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VIRTUAL MEETING – VIA ZOOM
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86315097836
Meeting ID: 863 1509 7836
Passcode to be posted at a later date.
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Where/how do I order this book? Via our online store of course!
http://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/posts/webstore-faq
We’re shipping Canada wide and delivering in certain area codes close to the bookstore!
*By purchasing your book at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly you help support events like this one, independent publishing and retailing, our neighborhood, and authors both local and from around the world who depend on independent bookstores for their livelihood. Your support is appreciated.
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FELIX EVER AFTER
Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.
When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle….
But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.
Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.

Crafty Poetry
2020-11-26 20:00 - 22:00, 2020-11-19 20:00 - 22:00 | Online via Zoom
Workshop details TBA!

SpeakUp
2020-11-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Online – Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link
GRATUITE
SpeakUp: L’Échange Interactif de Poésie de Montréal
Poètes : Sue Sinclair, Peter Richardson, Mirabel
AVEC SPEAKUP, LE PUBLIC EST ENGAGÉ
Toutes les personnes présentes reçoivent une copie du poème
La poète lit le poème, suivi de 15 à 20 minutes de discussion
Le poète lit le poème une dernière fois
Visitez notre page Facebook pour plus de détails.
Contactez-nous pour vous inscrire et recevoir le lien Zoom: MTLSpeakUp@gmail.com
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FREE EVENT
SpeakUp: The Montreal Inter-Active Poetry Exchange
Poets: Sue Sinclair, Peter Richardson, Mirabel
A POETRY READING WITH A DIFFERENCE: AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
Each audience member receives a copy of the poems
Poet reads poems, followed by 15 to 20-minute discussion on the poem
Poet reads poem a final time
Visit our Facebook page for more details.
Contact us to register and receive the Zoom link: MTLSpeakUp@gmail.com

mRb Fall Issue Launch
2020-11-26 19:00 - 20:00 | Crowdcast
Featuring Kama La Mackerel, Carmine Starnino, and Eva Crocker.
Live transcription available.

Writing What We Don’t (Yet) Know: Fiction
2020-11-25 20:00 - 22:00 | Online via Zoom

Graphic Novel Book Club: Paying the Land
2020-11-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
Join our Graphic Novel Book Club as we meet online every month to discuss contemporary Graphic Novels!
At our next meeting, Wednesday November 25th, at 7 PM EST, we’ll discuss PAYING THE LAND by Joe Sacco.
By purchasing your book from our online store — mtl.drawnandquarterly.com — you help support community events like this one, independent publishing and retailing, our neighborhood, and authors both local and from around the world who depend on independent bookstores for their livelihood. Your support is appreciated.
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PAYING THE LAND
The Dene have lived in the vast Mackenzie River Valley since time immemorial, by their account. To the Dene, the land owns them, not the other way around, and it is central to their livelihood and very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are home to valuable resources, including oil, gas, and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment, but also road-building, pipelines, and toxic waste, which scarred the landscape, and alcohol, drugs, and debt, which deformed a way of life.
In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. The mining boom is only the latest assault on indigenous culture: Sacco recounts the shattering impact of a residential school system that aimed to “remove the Indian from the child”; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage laborers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture.
Against a vast and gorgeous landscape that dwarfs all human scale, Paying the Land lends an ear to trappers and chiefs, activists and priests, to tell a sweeping story about money, dependency, loss, and culture—recounted in stunning visual detail by one of the greatest cartoonists alive.

Rapid-Fire Reading, Ricochet Writing: Holiday Book Fest Edition
2020-11-25 19:00 - 20:00 | Crowdcast
Join us as we kick off the Read Quebec: Holiday Book Fest with an online version of this much-loved, fast-paced literary variety show.
Fifteen writers from a range of genres will keep things hopping by reading from their new work—for only two minutes each! After each writer reads, they will contribute to a collaborative text that will be read aloud at the end of the show—with élan!—by host Nisha Coleman.
With: Breezy, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, April Ford, Nathan Caro Frechette, Dani Jansen, Andreas Kessaris, Richard King, Justin Ling, Rachel McCrum, Saleema Nawaz, Hazel Jane Plante, stephanie roberts, Greg Santos, Lauren Turner.
Sponsored by Penguin Random House Canada.
Live transcription available.

Silver Pins: Novel Writing Workshop
2020-11-25 18:00 - 20:00 | Online via Zoom

Review, Refine, Submit: Strategies for Writing Short Prose
2020-11-24 20:00 - 22:00 | Online via Zoom

New Reads Book Club: Talking Animals
2020-11-24 19:00 - 20:30 | Online via Zoom
The New Reads Book Club focuses on contemporary literature and is hosted by Drawn & Quarterly staff members. The book club meetings take place every few weeks on ZOOM, and are open to all.
For our November 24th meeting, we will meet virtually at 7 pm to discuss Talking Animals by Joni Murphy.
‘Where can I purchase the book?’ – From our online store of course!
mtl.drawnandquarterly.com
By purchasing your book from Librairie Drawn & Quarterly you help support free events like this one, independent publishing and retailing, our neighborhood, and authors both local and from around the world who depend on independent bookstores for their livelihood. Your support is appreciated.
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TALKING ANIMALS
A fable for our times, Joni Murphy’s Talking Animals takes place in an all-animal world where creatures rather like us are forced to deal with an all-too-familiar landscape of soul-crushing jobs, polluted oceans, and a creeping sense of doom. It’s New York City, nowish. Lemurs brew espresso. Birds tend bar. There are bears on Wall Street, and a billionaire racehorse is mayor. Sea creatures are viewed with fear and disgust and there’s chatter about building a wall to keep them out. Alfonzo is a moody alpaca. His friend Mitchell is a sociable llama. They both work at City Hall, but their true passions are noise music and underground politics. Partly to meet girls, partly because the world might be ending, these lowly bureaucrats embark on an unlikely mission to expose the corrupt system that’s destroying the city from within. Their project takes them from the city’s bowels to its extremities, where they encounter the Sea Equality Revolutionary Front, who are either a group of dangerous radicals or an inspiring liberation movement. In this novel, at last, nature kvetches and grieves, while talking animals offer us a kind of solace in the guise of dumb jokes. This is mass extinction as told by BoJack Horseman. This is The Fantastic Mr. Fox journeying through Kafka’s Amerika. This is dogs and cats, living together. Talking Animals is an urgent allegory about friendship, art, and the elemental struggle to change one’s life under the low ceiling of capitalism.”Joni Murphy’s inventive and beautiful allegory depicts a city enmeshed in climate collapse, blinded to the signs of its imminent destruction by petty hatreds and monstrous greed: that is, the world we are living in now. Talking Animals is an Orwellian tale of totalitarianism in action, but the animals on this farm are much cuter, and they make better puns.” —Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick and After Kathy Acke

Writing Memorable Characters for the Screen
2020-11-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Online via Zoom

Take a Second Look: Poetry Editing Workshop
2020-11-24 14:00 - 16:00 | Online – Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link
An early draft is often a diamond in the rough. Writers polish their writing through revision. Whether you’re writing for your personal archives or publication, taking a second look at your work will create tighter writing.
During the workshop, we will discuss three features of a poem—words, lines, and titles. We will look at poems by acclaimed poets for practical examples of our discussion. Participants will revise three poems. Before the start of the workshop, participants will be asked to send Blossom three poems they plan to edit during the workshop.
Blossom Thom is a poet and editor. She is the author of #HashtagRelief (Gaspereau Press, 2017) and her poetry has appeared during art collaborations and in literary magazines and anthologies including Poetic Notions: A Weaving of Poetry and Visual Arts, Kola: A Black Literary Magazine, and Montréal Serai. A mentorship with George Elliott Clarke set the groundwork for her work-in-progress and was supported by a Professional Development for Artists Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Please see event link for further details.

The Essentials of Starting Your Own Podcast
2020-11-21 13:00 - 16:00 | Online via Zoom

Young Readers Book Club - Keeper of the Lost Cities
2020-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Online via Zoom
Join us at la Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly for our Young Readers book club, hosted by Caleb! This month’s pick is the novel Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger.
This is a book club for young readers, with a median age of 10-12 or fifth, sixth and sec 1 grades. Younger kids are welcome if the book is appropriate, but not younger than 8-9, please. There will be a different book every meeting. The focus is to provide tweens a safe space to learn to discuss and express thoughts and ideas about literature among their peers without parents or teachers.
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VIRTUAL MEETING – VIA ZOOM
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89010540373
Meeting ID: 890 1054 0373
Password: [REDACTED] write librairie@drawnandquarterly.com to request
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Where/how do I order this book? Via our online store of course!
http://mtl.drawnandquarterly.com/webstore
We’re shipping Canada wide and delivering in certain area codes close to the bookstore!
*By purchasing your book at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly you help support events like this one, independent publishing and retailing, our neighborhood, and authors both local and from around the world who depend on independent bookstores for their livelihood. Your support is appreciated.
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KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES
In this riveting series opener, a telepathic girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world before the wrong person finds the answer first.
Twelve-year-old Sophie has never quite fit into her life. She’s skipped multiple grades and doesn’t really connect with the older kids at school, but she’s not comfortable with her family, either. The reason? Sophie’s a Telepath, someone who can read minds. No one knows her secret—at least, that’s what she thinks…
But the day Sophie meets Fitz, a mysterious (and adorable) boy, she learns she’s not alone. He’s a Telepath too, and it turns out the reason she has never felt at home is that, well…she isn’t. Fitz opens Sophie’s eyes to a shocking truth, and she is forced to leave behind her family for a new life in a place that is vastly different from what she has ever known.
But Sophie still has secrets, and they’re buried deep in her memory for good reason: The answers are dangerous and in high-demand. What is her true identity, and why was she hidden among humans? The truth could mean life or death—and time is running out.

Margaret Atwood and Lorna Crozier double launch
2020-11-19 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
Join us for a virtual launch for Margaret Atwood and Lorna Crozier!
Purchase a copy of Dearly or Through the Garden to receive access to this exclusive virtual event.
Please email events@drawnandquarterly.com if you have any questions.
Where and how can I purchase the books?
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