Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Michael Winter Reading in Toronto

Literary Event to Benefit Trans Canada Trail

from http://www.tctrail.ca/blog

Royal St. George’s College in Toronto is playing host to a trio of well-known Canadian writers tomorrow night - Tuesday, Dec. 11th - at 7:30 pm. The evening, billed as Great Canadian Roadtrips will feature three fascinating yet very different takes on the notion of journey.

Roy MacGregor, a passionate Canadian and gifted storyteller, will be on hand to share anecdotes and observations from his latest work, Canadians: A Portrait of a Country and Its People. A journalist and author for over thirty years, MacGregor’s investigation of the Canadian psyche tackles our obsession with hockey, our attachment to the land, our “highly exportable” sense of humour, who we are at home and how we behave when we’re not. He has traveled the country extensively and has achieved that most elusive of successes, a fiction series popular with tween boys - the Screech Owls mysteries.

Ray Robertson’s new novel What Happened Later tells the parallel stories of Jack Kerouac’s mid-seventies road trip to Rivière-du-Loup in search of his Québecois roots and a young man’s quest to own a copy of Kerouac’s classic On the Road. His journey leads him to discover the world beyond his small-town, working-class environment and his own French-Canadian heritage. Mr. Robertson is the author of several novels and a non-fiction collection entitled Mental Hygiene: Essays on Writers and Writing. His novel Moody Food won the 2007 Independent Publisher Regional Book Award for Eastern Canada.

In The Architects Are Here, acclaimed author Michael Winter sets his popular protagonist, Gabe English, on the road from Toronto to Corner Brook, Newfoundland with a childhood friend. The two friends, now grown men approaching middle age, head back home to investigate the disappearance of Gabe’s father. Along the way, they encounter their fair share of Canajun oddballs, and their own fears, failings, and hopes for the future. Mr. Winter is the author of two short-story collections and two novels and has served on the Giller Prize jury for 2006.

Tickets are still available so visit Royal St. George’s College to book. The event will be held in St. Alban’s Chapel, located on campus at 120 Howland Avenue. Please dial 416.533.9481 for more information.

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Rattling Books has just released an unabridged audio version of Michael Winter's prize-winning novel The Big Why, narrated by Robert Joy. Follow this link to have a look and listen to a preview.