As we all wait in breathless anticipation of Shameless publisher Stacey May Fowles‘ new book, Be Good (launching tomorrow, details in the post below this one), I though I’d tip you off about another kick-ass book I’ve been reading.
Bottle Rocket Hearts, by Shameless contributor Zoe Whittall, was released in the spring, but it took autumn’s chill to remind me that it was time to start snuggling up with good books again.
I just reviewed Zoe’s book for eyeweekly.com, but because it’s so shamelessly awesome, I wanted to post my review here too. And so, without further ado…
Zoe Whittall knows what it’s like to get kicked in the lip ring by love. Her first novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts (Cormorant Books, 189 pages, $19.95), is a queer coming-of-age story that captures the rush of falling in love and subsequent crash of realizing your lover is more fucked-up than you are.
Shameless publisher and tireless blogger Stacey May Fowles is about to launch her very first novel, Be Good.
Be Good, the debut novel by Stacey May Fowles
Here’s a description of Be Good:
Be Good interweaves competing accounts in the first person of the same series of events: love affairs, failed relationships, obsessions, and moving from familiarity. The faulty nature of memory and recollection are revealed as each voice speaks only from personal experience and therefore ultimately contradicts the other. The experiences of these twenty something characters are often their first taste of departure from the familiar, from home, revealing their ongoing alienation and isolation where the only reliable narrator is the future.
And here are the details about the party. Hope to see you there!
Wednesday, November 14th, 7:30 PM
Revival
783 College Street West @ Shaw
Toronto, Ontario
Featuring a performance by Tomboyfriend and DJ Ashley Olsen, and a reading by Dayle Furlong.
Congratulations, Stacey May!
Now Hear This!, an outreach program that sends professional writers into schools to conduct writing workshops with students, is launching their first anthology of student and teacher writing:
“Descant Arts & Letters Foundation‘s Now Hear This! literacy program is in the mood to celebrate.
Between February and May 2007, over seven hundred students, ten writers and ten teachers took part in twelve weeks of innovative writing workshops in Toronto high school classrooms as part of Students, Writers and Teachers (S.W.A.T), a Now Hear This! initiative. After a smashingly successful inaugural year, S.W.A.T. is proud to present The Armadillo, an anthology of creative writing by student participants of the program. The Armadillo showcases the greatest hits of the S.W.A.T. program: student-written stories, poems, personal essays, reviews and screenplays documenting the success of Toronto’s first-ever ongoing writers-in-schools program.
Join us at the Now Hear This! celebration, Monday, November 19 from 7-9pm at the Gardiner Museum (Terrace Room, 3rd Floor, 111 Queen’s Park). This evening is a chance to recognize everyone’s enthusiastic participation in the program, hear from writers-in-residence and students about their experiences, give kudos to those who helped make the program possible, enjoy some nibbles and generally celebrate Now Hear This!’s success. Everyone is welcome, so tell your friends and fans.
The details:
WHEN: Monday, November 19, 2007, 7:00-9:00 pm
WHERE: The Gardiner Museum, Terrace Room (3rd Floor)
Subway Station: Museum
WHO: Everyone is welcome at this free event”
In a past life, before Amélie, I passionately hated the movies. For a while I thought it was a sign of ADD: I couldn’t sit still for a 2-hour film without chipping the concrete floor with my impatiently tapping toe. More recently I’ve realized my aversion to movies was one of the many bruises I suffered at the hands of the stifling jockocracy in which I was raised. The road to recovery is long. Even last weekend, when the opening credits of a wonderful, low-budget, gardening documentary came up, I had a flashback of helicopter blades, machine gun fire, plastic cleavage and fart jokes.
When I was growing up, going to the movies was in the same category as watching the guys play sports - it was the only thing to do. It was also an activity where my girl friends and I were expected to be passive, but still flirty, spectators. Sure, it was more fun than hanging out alone, but it was far from fulfillment and far from fair.
I’m always trying to work my crushes into the Shameless Blog, so here’s Douglas Coupland‘s take on Halloween via a trailer for his new book, The Gum Thief. (By the way, I can vouch for the idea that people use “talking to a stranger’s dog” as a method of social interaction.)
Enjoy.
If you’re in Toronto, make sure to come by Canzine on Sunday and support independent publishing!
If you haven’t been before, Canzine is an independent press extravaganza with more than 150 zines from across Canada. The event runs from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Gladstone Hotel (here are directions to the event). Admission is only $5.
And besides stocking up on zines, comics (and, of course, issues of Shameless), there are great events happening all day throughout the building. Here are some details from the Broken Pencil website:
Featuring Ghost Stories at the Canzine Camp Fire, all day Indie Horror Videos, and our Cheap Thrills Special Effects exhibit. Also: Canzine Gorefest! Take the Canzine workshop on do-it-yourself gore, then ham up your fake black eye, bloody lip and severed hand at our “Cheap Thrills Special Effects Exhibit”. Plus: All day indie horror movies in the Canzine screening room.
(more inside…)
Film Friday isn’t until tomorrow, but a girl has to plan!
If you find yourself in Toronto this weekend, head down to the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film and Video festival. The films are a fantastic mix of genre and style that explore a wide range of issues. Festival Director Candida Paltiel suggests that “The festival transcends class, gender and other boundaries because of its broad definition of environment.”
It’s so good.
Documentary filmmaker, writer and environmentalist Mark Haslam founded PIF as a one day film screening in 1999. Since then, it has grown into five-day event with year round programming including a growing archive of environmental films. Between movies, check out the eco-fair, Activist Cinema Roundtable, Green Pitch competition, panel sessions, programs for children and opportunities to chat with the filmmakers.
(more inside…)
This weekend I had the wonderful chance to see an exhibit here in London, England of the art of Lee Miller (1907 - 1977), feminist icon and one of the twentieth century’s greatest photographers.
Born in upstate New York, she actually began her career at 19 as a model for American Vogue - she made history when she appeared in the first advertisement for menstrual products that featured an actual woman in the picture. She was captured on film by some of the world’s greatest photographers, and was considered one of the greatest beauties of her day - her breasts were thought so perfect, champagne glasses were modeled after them.
But so much more than just a pretty face, she was much more passionate about working behind the camera than in front of it.
stef lenk and Shannon Gerard‘s “Playing Doctor” exhibition has been pulled from the York University Bookstore window only 7 days after it was installed. The reason? Some higher-ups at the University demanded it’s removal. Apparently a nameless professor who lives on the campus found it offensive and was afraid his son might see it.
The exhibit actually happily hung in Toronto’s Pages Bookstore’s front window for a while, celebrating the dual launch of lenk and Gerrard’s books at a This is Not a Reading Series event back in August.
Richelle at BlogTO reports:
I asked the gallery’s Assistant Curator, Emelie Chhangur to describe what was in the window of the bookstore: “Playing Doctor was comprised of lenk’s operating table and Gerard’s cut out figures of a man and a woman with crocheted boobs and dinks, (the parts of the male/female body affected by cancer). Gerard’s books, and video + small “kits” contain DIY instructions on how to check yourself for testicular and breast cancer. lenk’s operating table brings it home with reference to the children’s game, this time with hand drawn body parts and a hand painted figure on the table. The art work is fantastic, fun, accessible, and educational.”
How a giant board game and information about cancer could taint a child is beyond me.
I was at the TINARS launch in August and was particularily moved by what Gerard was aiming to accomplish with her detection kits. Her honesty regarding her and her partner’s own experiences with “finding a lump” and her bravery in expressing it through her work was inspiring. In my view, the “kits” she had on offer at the event were a real step in the right direction; they opened up an early detection dialogue, and aimed to make people comfortable and aware of their bodies in order to save their lives. Her entire performance (which included a an informative yet hilarious video) humanized and inspired.
Both lenk and Gerard’s work is specific to the female body in an uncommonly non-sexualized way; with their images they point to an empowered awareness and self-ownership, which I would argue is very feminist.
This kind of ridiculous censorship is a disgrace.
Plus: How to get published, pay for school, and bind your own books.
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