Hold on to Your Hats!

The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling's new novel and her first novel for adults will be released on September 27.  Martin Levin describes it in the Globe: "Rowling’s first novel for adults strips the idyllic veneer from the village-green idyll of the town of Pagford."  Mmmm, very interesting.

NOWW is proud to host the annual Literary Awards Party, Saturday, May 12, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at the Current River Community Center, 450 Dewe Street, Thunder Bay.

Celebrate Literature and Writing in Northwestern Ontario!

Come celebrate the winner of the Elizabeth Kouhi award for excellence in writing, the winner of the Sheila Burnford award for building writing and literature in the region, the winners of NOWW’s 14th Annual Writing Contest, and the achievements of NOWW members in 2011 and 2012.

This is YOUR CHANCE to say a hearty “Thank you!” to NOWW’s partners in the community

• Join NOWW or renew your membership
• Learn of upcoming opportunities for writers
• Connect with writers – others who know the sting of rejection and the sweet thrill of a well-crafted sentence

Hot and cold appetizers will be served and a cash bar will be available.Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Tickets are available at Northern Woman's Bookstore, online at www.nowwwriters.org, or by contacting Amy at admin@nowwwriters.org or 708-5652.

Leilah Nadir, Judge of Fiction stories.  Winner will be announced at annual NOWW dinner.

Overflow, Reading at Northern Woman's Bookstore, three talented writers!

Please join us for "Overflow," an evening of readings about the vulnerable, with three Thunder Bay writers:

Susan Goldberg;Rachel Mishenene; Meghan Eddy

Sunday, April 22

7:00 PM

Northern Woman's Bookstore

65 S. Court Street, Thunder Bay

Coffee, tea and light refreshments will be served.

 The evening will also serve as the launch of the anthology Here Come the Brides: Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage (Seal Press, 2012), edited by Audrey Bilger and Michele Kort. Copies of the anthology — which includes an essay by Susan Goldberg, excerpted in the current issue of Ms. magazine — will be available for sale and signing.

Susan Goldberg is a writer, editor, essayist and blogger, and coeditor of the award-winning anthology And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents, and Our Unexpected Families (Insomniac Press, 2009). Her work has been featured in Ms. magazine, Lilith magazine, Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales, Here Come the Brides, McGraw-Hill Ryerson's iLit textbook series, Xtra!, weareGoodkin.com, interfaithfamily.com and The Globe & Mail, among others. Her CBC radio documentary, Finding Out, aired in 2006. She blogs about, among other things, cancer, (queer) motherhood, sleep deprivation and toe jam at www.mamanongrata.com. She's currently working on a novel, called Step on a Crack. Susan lives with her partner and children in Thunder Bay.

 Rachel Mishenene, a resident of Thunder Bay, is also a member of the Eabametoong First Nation and relative of the Mishkeegogamang First Nation community. With her heart in education and curriculum development, particularly focusing on Aboriginal and inclusive education, Rachel was one of two education advisors for McGraw-Hill's textbook, Strength and Struggle: Perspectives from First Nation, Inuit and Metis Peoples in Canada. As the curriculum developer for five adult literacy resources published through Ningwakwe Learning Press for CBC Radio’s ReVision Quest, Rachel has also developed curriculum and adult education programming materials for Matawa Education. Her passion in social justice and equity are also demonstrated through her dedication in participating in local and provincial teacher’s union initiatives, and through active involvement with Thunder Pride, which she is the founder and current Chair of. Rachel finds peace and solitude in writing, painting, and spending quality time with her son, Jade. Rachel has just completed her Masters of Education, and will be pursuing her PhD in education beginning this summer.

Rachel Mishenene

Meghan Eddy

Meghan Eddy, born and raised in Northern Ontario, has been desperately trying to write as a hobby while completing her undergrad in French at Lakehead University. Once, she placed just shy of winning some money for The Stephen Leacock’s Student Humour Contest with her essay Third Wheel Syndrome. Despite coming in fourth place, it is available to read online at http://literarythunderbay.blogspot.ca. When not writing her thesis, or cramming for exams, she works as a waitress at a local restaurant. You can read about her experiences at http://meghaneddy.blogspot.ca/

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Northern Woman's Bookstore
65 South Court Street
Thunder Bay, Ontario P7B 2X2
Phone (807) 344-7979
Store hours: Wednesdays - Saturdays, 11 am - 6 pm

Visit us online! www.northernwomansbookstore.ca

Haiku Summer Ahead starts with the Second Annual Contest

Once again the local haiku contest which attracts international attention.

The Thunder Bay International Fine Arts
Association and the Lakehead Japanese Cultural Association take great
pride in presenting a second HAIKU contest

$300 in Prizes! Anyone other than people involved in the administration of the
contest or judging may enter. Entries must be the sole, original, unpublished
work of the contestant in English.

Attend the launch April 16th, 8 pm.

Thunder Bay International Fine Arts Association

97 Algoma Street South

Thunder Bay, Ontario

Canada, P7B 3B7

Parking at the rear and on the adjacent lot on Wilson Street.

For a copy of the rules, submission form and web link

Poem by Jane Crossman at Marina Park

Go for a walk, view the lake and read a poem.  What a concept.  How nice to have some of Thunder Bay's best writers as part of the new works of art in the refurbished Marina Park.  Below is the poem by Thunder Bay writer Jane Crossman which can be found on a short stroll along the Sleeping Giant Parkway.

First Sighting
I’ve travelled on foot
from the west
days, weeks, months
over mountains
across plains
through forests
until this sea,
surely a sea
so vast, so extraordinary,
stalls my forward trek.

I shall rest here for a day, a season,
perhaps forever.

~Jane Crossman
Location: Sleeping Giant Parkway

Jane Crossman

Spring Has Sprung, the Grass is Riz,

NOWW is pleased to invite you to

Waiting for Spring - A readingThe days are getting longer! Come celebrate with readings from

Joan Baril
Dorothy Colby
E. J. Lavoie
and a poetry open mic!

February 21, 2012, 7pm

Brodie Fireside Room, Thunder Bay

For further information:

 

www.nowwwriters.org ~ admin@nowwwriters.org ~ Amy @ 708-5652

Vincent Lam's Three Rules for Writers.

1) Commit in the deepest possible way to the integrity of the project. This is the only starting point and the only end point that will give a writer any real satisfaction. Also, it is the only thing that will s...ustain the writer through the difficulties of actually getting the project done. There is nothing else.

2) Draft with exuberant and staggering hubris. Revise with obsessive and maniacal self-criticism. Know which to do when. (Yes, that's three in one, but they only work when practiced together.)

3) Write when you feel like it. Write when you don't feel like it. Write when you have something to say. Write when all you have is hope that working will help you know what to say. Write relentlessly. Make it your life... and here's the tricky bit: strive to write and live beautifully.
 

Thunder Bay Lit News

Submissions wanted. A note from Taslim Alani about the zine The Nexus.
Hey Joan! The Nexus is up and running! We're looking for submissions for our first edition, which will be about Take Back the Night.

Tell us what this event means to you, what you think about it, or anything else! You can submit your work in any form you would like--art, poetry, short stories, prose, or anything else! We're asking for submissions to be in by November 21st...this gives you an opportunity to attend the event and reflect on it. If you have any questions, feel free to message me here or email me at taslim.alani@gmail.com
We look forward to hearing from you!

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Just in time for Christmas.  Thunder Bay's Jackie D'Acre's latest novel Foreclosure is now available at Chapters.  Head for the back wall of local authors.  A fine mystery set in New Orleans.  Please note: The title of the novel "Foreclosure" was changed to "Hot Blooded Mystery" in 2018.

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A note from Amy Jones the admin assistant at NOWW.  Dear Joan, Just to let you  know, our e-Writer in Residence Elizabeth Ruth's novel, Ten Good Seconds of Silence, is now available for purchase at Northern Woman's Bookstore.   South Court Street. Definitely another Christmas idea.

Elizabeth providing critiques to local writers. 

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A call from Martin Hicks.  His delightful book of poetry In the Realm of Fantasy: Poems, Mainly Narrative is in a second printing.  Cost 20$ at The Book Shelf on May Street and Books, Sportscards, & Collectibles at 191 Wolseley St.   He also tells us a second book, The Good Bartender and Other Concoctions, also fully illustrated, will soon be available.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Looking for your True Winter Tales

Can you smell it in the air? Before long, winter will be here… As delighted – or dejected – as you may be by that statement, you must admit that Canadians feel passionately about the season. You either love it, or you hate it. And whether you were born in the snowy depths of a Manitoba blizzard, or immigrated to Toronto and saw your first snowfall only as an adult, everyone in this country has a personal story to share about winter.

And we want yours!

This November, Canada Writes is hosting a Winter Tales Writing Challenge (in association with the Canada Council for the Arts and The Massey Lectures). And we’ve got $1,000 to give away!

The Dream Comes True

Welcome Elizabeth Ruth to an e-Thunder Bay. At last, after almost a year of effort, the Northwestern Ontario Writers' Workshop, or NOWW, the largest writers' group in Thunder Bay has arranged for an e-writer in residence, Elizabeth Ruth. Their announcement follows:

Writer in Residence for Northwestern OntarioNOWW is pleased to announce our Writer in Residence with an E-twist.
From now until December, Northwestern Ontario-based writers and all NOWW members in good standing may submit their writing for an in-depth, critical review by Toronto’s Elizabeth Ruth.

Elizabeth Ruth
Interested? Here’s what you have to do:

The Lone Wolf Gets the Moon to Himself by Megan Findlay

Megan Findlay, an Ottawa writer, visited Thunder Bay for the writers festival and recently wrote me about it.
Dear Joan, I'm sorry to hear there is not Sleeping Giant Writers' Festival this year! Was it lack of interest? Being there meant so much to me at the time. And seeing you again. I still have fond memories of that whole weekend, and of watching The Last Station and eating a real Finnish breakfast. What fun.
 Her essay The Lone Wolf Gets the Moon to Himself was also published on her blog http://megfindlay.wordpress.com.

The Lone Wolf Gets the Moon to Himself.

by Megan Findlay

Lone Wolf Euphoria: I knew it most acutely in Dublin. I ate penne pasta under a blue awning in Temple Street. The waiter pitied me; I saw it in his eyes, but I didn’t mind. For the first time I was the one with an accent. I had just finished reading Edna O’Brien’s biography of Joyce, and the day behind me had been spent chasing the end of his rope around Dublin.

I was on the edge of a Joyce obsession. Ulysses weighed on me, though I only understood as much as my professor could explain to me across a classroom table from 5 to 8 on Wednesday nights. I had no business being in Dublin. The week before, I’d given a paper at a conference in Belgium. Montreal’s Centre for Irish Studies, where I worked, had bankrolled my trip. I felt that I owed them something more than a thank-you note dampened by the sweat of a Stella bottle (brewed in the Belgian conference’s host city). I owed them something absurd and precious, like a stone polished by the Irish sea. This is what Europe, or thinking about Europe, does to me: it stamps out reason and inflames romanticism.

So I took one of those mythologized one-dollar flights on an airline no one had heard of from Leuven to Dublin and found myself in a hotel with a view of the Liffey, all the conference jitters and self-fulfilling anxieties of everyday life blinking at me from far, far away.

Book Launch at Northern Woman's Bookstore

Strengh and Struggle: Perspectives from First Nations, Inuit and Metis Peoples in Canada.  What a title!  A timely title that says it all. 

Please join Rachel Mishenene and Jody Porter as they launch an excellent new book!


Rachel Mishenene is the co-editor of Strength and Struggle: Perspectives from First Nations, Inuit and Metis Peoples in Canada. The book will be launched on: Wednesday, June 22, 7:30 pm, at the Northern Woman’s Bookstore.

65 Court St. South (Across from Lot 66)

This book contains the writings of several authors from Northwestern Ontario; Thunder Bay's own Jody Porter has also played a very important role.

Here is a little more information from the publisher, McGraw-Hill Ryerson: "Strength and Struggle: Perspectives from First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples in Canada is part of McGraw-Hill Ryerson’s iLit Collection of supplementary student resources for high school English courses. This title is a 149-page, soft-cover book that includes a rich array of short stories, poetry, music lyrics, graphic art, articles, essays, and other pieces that will have students laughing, crying, talking, and thinking. It is a true celebration of First Nations, Inuit and Métis writing and art."

NOWW in Dryden!

NOWW writing workshops coming to DRYDEN

Attention NOWW members! If you are in or near Dryden, or feeling like a beautiful long drive through our gorgeous country, come to the Dryden Public Library on Saturday June 18th for two free writing workshops given by NOWW members Mike Laverty and Jenny Morrow. The workshops will focus on writing, with lots of prompts, with a discussion near the end about writing from Northwestern Ontario (specifically Sunset Country), resources and next steps.

Schedule:
Workshop 1: 10am-noon
Brown bag lunch with local author readings: noon-2pm
Workshop 2: 2-4pm

Please help us promote the workshop to your friends in the region! If you live in or near Dryden (/Kenora/Sioux Lookout/Vermillion Bay/Ignace, etc.) and are interested in reading from your work, please contact me. We are keen to celebrate the writers in our remote but beautiful part of NWO!

Many thanks to NOWW and the Dryden Public Library for sponsoring this event.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me through this message or at jmorrow123@gmail.com

Check us out and vote us in

The CBC's Cross Country Book Shelf is up and running with Thunder Bay's Daniel Klein carrying the torch for Northern Ontario.Follow the link( http://www.cbc.ca/books/crosscountrybookshelf )to Ontario and vote in one of Daniel's picks for the book which best exemplifies this region.  Daniel put forward the following three books: The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford, Walk to New York by Charles Wilkins and Straightlines by Mary Frost. 

Incredibly, The Incredible Journey is a front runner just behind Clara Callon a southern Ontario choice.Mary Frost's Straightlines, which is carrying the flag for poetry,  is right up there with the leaders.

It is interesting to check out the books put forth for other provinces and see what the rest of Canada has picked to be its iconic book.  These are the books to pack if you are travelling across the country this summer.

A side bar gives further links to information about each book, an interesing browse in itself.

CBC's Fresh Air is sponsoring the race and writes, "we have a great contest for you! Once you cast your vote, tell us why for a chance to win one of nine Kobo e-readers. We're giving away one Kobo e-reader per region. To enter, leave a comment letting us know which book you voted for and why. The Kobo contest closes on Tuesday, June 14, at midnight ET."

http://www.cbc.ca/books/crosscountrybookshelf  They may have brushed aside the Sleeping Giant (how does one do that?) but never our literature!