Nov. 24 & 25, 12-6 PM
Atrium of the McConnell Building at Concordia
1400 de Maisonneuve West
Free admission
This free, two-day celebration of Quebec English-language books is back! The Book Fair encourages book-lovers of all ages and interests to browse, buy and get books signed, just in time for holiday gift-giving. With Quebec publishers and authors on hand, expect hundreds of new titles for sale, along with readings and other events happening throughout the Fair. You can’t buy more local than this.
Highlights:
Wine and cheese reception & book signing with special guest Ann-Marie MacDonald, Nov. 24, 4-6 PM in the Atrium.
Raise a glass to local lit with actor, TV host, and bestselling author Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Ann-Marie MacDonald is an author, actor and playwright. She attended Carleton University before moving to Montreal to train as an actor at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduating in 1980. The next move brought Ann-Marie to Toronto where she immersed herself in the vibrant alternative theatre scene, and simultaneously pursued a career in television and film. From the outset, her work was politically informed, funny, and highly narrative. Ann-Marie came of age during “second wave” feminism and post-Stonewall LGBT liberation struggles, and both reaped the benefits of, and contributed to, the energy that fuelled these movements.
In 1996 Ann-Marie’s first novel, Fall on Your Knees, was published by Knopf Canada as part of their inaugural “New Face of Fiction”. A critically acclaimed international best seller, it was short-listed for the Giller Prize, and won the People’s Choice Award and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year. In 2002 it became an Oprah’s Book Club selection. Fall on Your Knees has been translated into 19 languages.
Ann-Marie’s second novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was published in 2003. An international bestseller and finalist for the Giller Prize, it was also a Good Morning America Book Club pick. It has been translated into 13 languages.
Her new novel, Adult Onset, was released in the fall of 2014. It was a Number 1 Bestseller in Canada and is so far translated into five languages.
Ann-Marie was the inaugural Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence at Concordia University, and she continues to coach students in the Acting and Playwriting Programs at the National Theatre School.
Four events featuring local authors, in LB 646 (sixth floor):
Tell It Slant: Memoir at an Angle, sponsored by Maisonneuve Magazine, Saturday, Nov. 24, 1-2 p.m.
Moderator: Jacob Wren, Authenticity is a Feeling
Will Aitken, Antigone Undone
Erín Moure, Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots
Lindsay Nixon, nîtisânak
How I Got Published: Children’s Authors Tell Their Own Tales, sponsored by Livres Babar Books, Saturday, Nov. 24, 3-4 p.m.
Moderator: David Gutnick, Mr. Mergler, Beethoven, and Me
Monica Arnaldo, Little Brothers and Little Sisters
Judith Henderson, Big Words, Small Stories: the Missing Donut
Anne Renaud, Fania’s Heart and The True Tale of a Giantess
Stories Speak: Writers on Fiction, Sunday, Nov. 25, 1-2 p.m.
Moderator: H. Nigel Thomas, Fate’s Instruments
Licia Canton, The Pink House and Other Stories
Paige Cooper, Zolitude
Kenneth Radu, Net Worth
Perforating the Screen of Language: Poets Out Loud, Sunday, Nov. 25, 3-4 p.m.
Moderator: Harold Hoefle, The Night Chorus
Klara du Plessis, Ekke
Susan Elmslie, Museum of Kindness
John Emil Vincent, Excitement Tax
Elevated Poetry
While taking the elevator to the 6th floor to catch one of the panels, take in a poetry reading too! Elevated Poetry features poetry the way it was meant to be heard: intimate; uplifting; in an elevator!
Schedule (readings take place in the designated Elevated Poetry elevator):
Saturday Nov. 24
12:30-1 Ehab Lotayef To Love a Palestinian Woman
2-2:30 Steve Luxton The Dying Meteorologist
2:30-3 Susan Gillis Yellow Crane
4-4:30 Jason Camlot What the World Said
Sunday Nov. 25
12:30-1 Blossom Thom #HashtagRelief
2-2:30 Mark Abley The Tongues of Earth
2:30-3 Louise Carson A Clearing
4-4:30 Greg Santos Blackbirds
Tours of the Richler Library Collection
As part of the Holiday Pop-up Book Fair programming, we are pleased to offer tours of the Richler Library Collection. The tour will include an explanation of the contents of the collection, presentation of unique items of interest, and discussion of some of the present uses of the collection for teaching and research. Tours will be run by graduate research assistants from Concordia’s department of English. Tours are free, but registration is required as spots are limited. Click here to sign up.
Meet Writers and Get Books Signed!
Participating writers and translators include Paige Cooper (longlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and two QWF Award nominations), Catherine Leroux (shortlisted for the 2016 Giller Prize), Lazer Lederhendler (winner of multiple GG awards for translation), Melissa Bull, Donald Winkler, Jacob Wren, Susan Gillis, Darren Bifford, Andrew Katz, Juliana Léveillé-Trudel, Gilles Gratton, Caroline Pignat, François Thisdale, Rae Congdon, Pan Bouyoucas, Veena Gokhale, Robin Blackburn McBride, Mary Melfi, H. Nigel Thomas, Clementine Morrigan, Lise Weil, Anne Renaud, Erin Moure, Monique Polak, Monica Arnaldo, Klara du Plessis, Alan Silberberg, Erin Shields, David Gutnick, Anne Renaud, Louise Carson, Mark Abley, David Homel, Andrew Piper, Dr. Victoria Slonosky, Will Aitken, Gail Cuthbert Brandt, Licia Canton, Mary Ann Lichacz-Karwatsky, Keith Henderson, Ken Radu, Harold Hoefle, Jason Camlot, Tom Abray, Greg Santos, Peter Kirby, Katia Grubisic, Judith W. Woodsworth , Lindsay Nixon, John Emil Vincent, Mathieu Poulin, Aleshia Jensen, Carolyn Marie Souaid, Susan Elmslie, Judith Henderson, and more.
Participating publishers include McGill-Queen’s University Press, Baraka Books/QC Fiction, Véhicule Press, The Secret Mountain, Howard Gontovnick, Bunim & Bannigan, DC Books, Longbridge Books, Linda Leith Publishing, Pow Pow Press, Black Rose Books, Metatron Press, and Metonymy Press.
Thanks to our supporters: Penguin-Random House Canada, the English-language Arts Network (ELAN), Paragraphe Bookstore, Maisonneuve Magazine, Babar Books, and the Montreal Gazette, and our sponsoring publishers: McGill-Queen’s University Press, Baraka Books, Véhicule Press, DC Books, Linda Leith Publishing, and Pow Pow Press. And thanks to the Canada Book Fund and the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Presented by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec and the Quebec Writers’ Federation.