Miriam Toews

Scott Onak hosts authors Brock Clarke and Miriam Toews in literary conversation as they discuss their newest books, The happiest people in the world and All My Puny Sorrows.

Scott Onak received his MFA in Fiction from the University of Idaho. His stories have been published in Mid-American Review and Willow Springs, and his book reviews appear on The Rumpus. He teaches creative writing at StoryStudio Chicago and the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Studies.

A master of sharp, insightful satire, Brock Clarke's new novel takes a decidedly subversive look at American culture while pushing the limits of the absurd and hilarious. Take the format of a spy thriller, shape it around real-life incidents involving international terrorism, leaven it with dark, dry humor, toss in a love rectangle, give everybody a gun, and let everything play out in the outer reaches of upstate New York – there you have an idea of The happiest people in the world.

Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer of Mennonite descent. She grew up in Steinbach, Manitoba and has lived in Montreal and London, before settling in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2007 she made her screen debut in the Mexican film "Luz silenciosa" directed by Carlos Reygadas, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival. The book, Irma Voth, was released in April 2011. Her latest book, All My Puny Sorrows, comes out in the US on Nov 18 (so get it early, tonight!).

Location: Street: 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave City: Chicago, Province: Illinois Postal Code: 60625 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Four celebrated Canadian authors reflect on life, death and the human struggle, and the challenges of capturing these accurately and compassionately in their fiction. Farzana Doctor hosts and moderates.

Caroline Adderson is the acclaimed author of three novels, two collections of short stories and a number of books for young readers. She is the winner of two Ethel Wilson Fiction Prizes and three CBC Literary Awards. She was also the recipient of the 2006 Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement. Adderson presents her fourth novel, Ellen in Pieces, a genre-bending story of a woman who, in the last year of her life, begins to explore love and the possibility of recovery from regret.

Martha Baillie is the author of four novels. Her most recent, The Incident Report, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was included in The Globe and Mail’s list of Best Books for 2009. She has written about contemporary visual art for the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Koffler Gallery and Brick magazine. Her poetry has appeared in several Canadian journals. Baillie presents The Search for Heinrich Schlögel. Her hypnotic new novel follows the titular character from Germany to Canada, where he sets out on a two-week hike into the isolated interior of Baffin Island.

Farzana Doctor’s first novel, Stealing Nasreen, received critical acclaim and was nominated for Masala!Mehndi!Masti! People’s Choice Award. She has also written on social work and diversity-related topics, and in her spare time she provides private practice consulting and psychotherapy services. Doctor's most recent novel, Six Metres of Pavement, is about a man who struggles to continue living after his daughter’s tragic death. Things begin to change, however, when he befriends two very different women: a young queer activist and his grieving Portuguese-Canadian neighbour.

Miriam Toews is the author of five previous novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness (winner of the 2004 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction), The Flying Troutmans (winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize) and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She presents All My Puny Sorrows, the riveting story of two sisters, Elf and Yoli. This at once tender and unquiet novel offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities.

Rudy Wiebe is a novelist, short story writer and essayist. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction for both The Temptations of Big Bear and for A Discovery of Strangers, as well as the RBC Taylor Prize for his memoir, Of This Earth. Weibe is also an Officer of the Order of Canada. He presents his first novel in 11 years, the lyrical masterwork Come Back. Inspired by his life, it is a rare and beautiful novel about the humanity of living and dying.

Saturday, November 1, 2014 - 3:00 PM
Studio Theatre, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto M5J 2G8

Cost: $18/$15 supporters/FREE students & youth 25 and under (Jenni_Canuck)… (more)

Writers Lee Henderson, Eliza Robertson, Miriam Toews and Kathleen Winter read from their most recent works. This event will be hosted by Tanis Rideout.

Lee Henderson is the author of the award-winning short story collection The Broken Record Technique. He is a contributing editor to the arts magazines Border Crossings in Canada and Contemporary in the UK, and has published fiction and art criticism in numerous periodicals. His first novel, The Man Game, won the BC Book Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Henderson presents his latest novel, The Road Narrows as You Go, a bright, rollicking, unflinching portrait of the 1980s and of a young woman struggling to find her place.

Eliza Robertson studied creative writing at the University of Victoria, then pursued her MA in prose fiction at the University of East Anglia, where she received a Man Booker Scholarship and the Curtis Brown Prize for best writer. She was a finalist for the 2013 CBC Short Story Prize, won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for "We Walked on Water," and her short story "My Sister Sang" was shortlisted for the 2013 Journey Prize. Robertson presents her debut collection, Wallflowers, a quirky and masterful bouquet that smashes stereotypes and shows us remarkable new ways of experiencing the world.

Miriam Toews is the author of five previous novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness (winner of the 2004 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction), The Flying Troutmans (winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize) and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She presents All My Puny Sorrows, the riveting story of two sisters, Elf and Yoli. This at once tender and unquiet novel offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities.

Kathleen Winter's debut novel, Annabel, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the three biggest fiction prizes in Canada. It won the Thomas Head Raddall Fiction Award and an Independent Literary Award, and was a 2014 Canada Reads selection. Her first story collection, boYs, also won numerous Canadian awards. At our Biblioasis anniversary event, she presents The Freedom in American Songs, her new story collection about modern loneliness, small-town gay teenagers, catastrophic love, inappropriate laughter and the holiness of ordinary life. At the Festival, Winter presents both the story collection and her first work of non-fiction, Boundless, which was recently shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. It is a powerful homage to the ever-evolving and magnetic power of the North.

Friday, October 31, 2014 - 7:30 PM
Brigantine Room, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto M5J 2G8

Cost: $18/$15 supporters/FREE students & youth 25 and under (Jenni_Canuck)… (more)

Location: Board Room, 3rd Floor

Join fellow readers the last Friday of every month, 12 noon, for our lively discussion about books, movies, culture, current events and anything else that pops up for discussion. Lots of fun and everyone welcome.

For the September 26th meeting, things take a turn for the odd with our first book about an eccentric family coming together, Miriam Toews' The Flying Troutmans. We'll keep the strangeness going with a Victorian true crime account, Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.

For free reading copies and more information, please call Diego at 780-496-7000 or send an e-mail to: dibarra@epl.ca (DiegoIbarra)… (more)

Birding With Yeats by Lynn Thomson
Blood Always Tells by Hilary Davidson
Tragedy in the Commons by Michael MacMillan and Alison Loat
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Brunch takes place in the Vanity Fair Ballroom on the 2nd floor of the King Edward Hotel. Tickets are $50.00 each (taxes included).

Please call us at (416) 361-0032 with your credit card information to reserve a ticket. (Jenni_Canuck)… (more)

Authors Ondjaki, Miriam Toews and Evie Wyld take the stage to read from their most recent works.

General admission $10. All sales are final. Tickets are subject to a per ticket service charge, unless ordered in person at the Box Office. Need help? Contact us at 416-973-4000 or websales@harbourfrontcentre.com

York Quay Centre - Lakeside Terrace
Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to get here due to the ongoing construction on Queens Quay West. (Jenni_Canuck)… (more)

The purpose of Literary Women: The Long Beach Festival of Authors is to celebrate women authors, to encourage new writers and to expose the works of contemporary women authors to an audience of readers with a wide range of literary interests. Details to follow. For more information, please visit their website.

Featuring Lan Samantha Chang, Zoe Ferraris, Gillian Gill, Shilpi Somaya Gowda, Haley Tanner, Miriam Toews, and Isabel Wilkerson.

Location: Street: 300 E. Ocean Blvd. City: Long Beach, Province: California Postal Code: 90802 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Christian McPherson discusses The Cube People.; Miriam Toews discusses Irma Voth.

As anyone who has ever endured an open-mic set at a comedy club can tell you, it’s not easy to make people laugh. From setup to punchline, Peter Simpson turns to Christian McPerson and Miriam Toews to find out what it takes to get humour just right on the page. Miriam Toews, winner of the Governor General's Award, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, a National Magazine Award for Humour and finalist for the Giller Prize and the Stephan Leacock Medal for Humour and the author of A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans and Irma Voth, shares the stage with Ottawa writer Christian McPherson, whose first novel, The Cube People, is a hilarious and slightly surreal tale of discontented bureaucrats in the federal civil service in Ottawa. Peter Simpson, the Ottawa Citizen's arts editor at large and writer of the Citizen's Big Beat blog on the city's arts scene hosts the conversation on how to be funny and still be taken seriously. Tickets: $10 ($5 reduced). Free for members. (thebookpile)… (more)

Johanna Skibsrud discusses This Will Be Difficult to Explain: And Other Stories.; Helen Oyeyemi discusses The Icarus Girl.; Miriam Toews discusses Irma Voth.

Join us in welcoming three acclaimed authors whose work explores the tension, promise and difficulty inherent in interpersonal relationships. Even if Sartre was right when he announced that hell is other people, the opposite may prove to be just as true. With This Will Be Difficult to Explain and Other Stories , Giller Prize winner Johanna Skibsrud introduces us to an astonishing array of characters, showing us through their eyes what even they cannot see and uncorking minor epiphanies in the middle of the most unremarkable days. Helen Oyeyemi completed her first novel, The Icarus Girl , just before her 19th birthday. Her fourth novel, Mr. Fox , is magical, inventive and profound in its truths about how we learn to be with one another. Full of delicious period detail, this is a love story like no other. Miriam Toews’ new novel, Irma Voth , brings us back to the beloved voice of her Governor General’s Literary Award winning #1 bestseller A Complicated Kindness , and to a Mennonite community in the Mexican desert. The stifling, reclusive Mennonite life of nineteen-year-old Irma Voth—newly married and newly deserted—is irrevocably changed when a film crew moves in to make a movie about the community. Tickets: $15 ($10 reduced). Free for members. (thebookpile)… (more)