I am helping to set up this reading in the Department of English at UofO on November 10. It should be great!
Please join The Department of English, The Institute of Canadian and Aboriginal Studies, and Kegedonce Press to celebrate the publication of Halfling Spring: an internet romance with readings by:
Joanne Arnott (Gerald Lampert Award Winner)
Leo Yerxa (Governor General’s Award Winner)
Rachael Fernandes (Undergraduate, University of Ottawa)
Monday November 10, 2014, 2:30-3:30pm
Café Nostalgica (601 Cumberland Street)
Joanne Arnott is a Métis/mixed-blood writer, born in Manitoba and based in Coast Salish territories on the west coast. A publishing and performing poet since the 80s, a blogger in more recent years, Joanne is mother to six young people, all born at home. Active participant in many online and inworld collaborating groups of writers, she is a mentor and piecework editor, an essayist, as well as a poet and activist. Halfling Spring: an internet romance is Joanne’s eighth book, and her sixth book of poetry.
Arnott’s works are intimate with an activist slant, exploring the issues faced by a mixed-race girl and woman in poverty, the family, danger, love and childbirth. She writes about these topics from personal experience, as a Métis and a mother of six. She has conducted workshops across much of Canada, and in Australia, including a series at the Carnegie Centre, sponsored by SFU.
She received the Gerald Lampert Award for her 1991 collection of poetry Wiles of Girlhood.
Leo Yerxa was born on the Little Eagle Reserve in northern Ontario. Yerxa is an award-winning writer, illustrator and artist. His first book, Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Illustration and his most recent book, Ancient Thunder, won the Governor General’s Award. Leo lives in Ottawa. He studied graphic arts at Algonquin College in Ottawa, fine arts at the University of Waterloo, and has worked with Tom Hill, a respected figure in aboriginal art in Canada. A set of his murals can be seen at the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre on the Rainy River First Nations National Historic Site in Ontario. He currently lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Rachel Fernandes is a fourth year student at the University of Ottawa, pursuing her undergraduate degree in English. She also serves on the Undergraduate English Student Association as the Vice President of Literary Affairs and Publications, overseeing the literary journal The Ottawa Arts Review. Her poetry has appeared in bywords, The Quilliad and Deep Water Literary Journal. A series of her poems will be published in Joypuke‘s second edition this November.
Cameron Anstee 