Monday, December 4, 2017

Getting Published the Hard Way: A Tongue-in-Cheek Journey from Kinkos Copies to Guernica Editions

TUES JAN 9
7.30p.m.-9p.m.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
Rocco de Giacomo is a widely published poet whose work has appeared in literary journals in Canada, Australia, England, Hong Kong and the US. His work has recently been accepted for publication in The Windsor Review and Canlit, and has most recently been published in Prairie Fire. Rocco’s poetry has also been featured on the CBC. He is the author of numerous chapbooks including, in 2008, Catching Dawn’s Breath. In 2009, his first full-length poetry collection, Ten Thousand Miles Between Us, was launched through Quattro Books. In 2010, Ten Thousand Miles Between Us was longlisted for the ReLit Poetry Award. In 2011, it was selected for Poetry NOW’s 3rd Annual Battle of the Bards. His latest collection, Every Night of Our Lives, was published with Guernica Editions in the fall of 2016. His third poetry collection, entitled Brace Yourselves, is coming out in the fall of 2017, through Quattro Books. From 2008 to 2014, Rocco volunteered on the committee for the Art Bar Poetry Series, Canada’s longest running weekly series. Rocco lives in Toronto with his wife, Lisa Keophila, a fabric artist, and his daughters, Ava and Matilda

Monday, November 20, 2017

OUR STORIES IN DECEMBER


TUESDAY DEC 12
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Everyone is welcome to join us with a story on a wintry evening as it is our custom to gather together telling stories in the month of December. It will be a festive time for socialising and celebrating at the end of the year. At LitChat, this is how we do it.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

IMAGINING THE REAL: WRITING HISTORICAL CHARACTERS INTO FICTION

TUES NOV 14
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m., LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

 SALLY COOPER is the author of the linked story collection, Smells Like Heaven (ARP Books, 2017) and the acclaimed novels Tell Everything (Dundurn, 2007) and Love Object (Dundurn, 2002). Her writing has appeared in CNQ, Canadian Notes & QueriesEvent, The Globe and Mail, Grain, and The White Wall Review, among others, and been longlisted for the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and the Vancouver Women in Film and Television From Our Dark Side Contest. She lives in Hamilton and is a Senior Editor of Hamilton Review of Books.  


    

                                                       

                                                             

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

THE INTIMACY OF EDITING with AMANDA JERNIGAN

TUES OCT 10
7.30p.m.- 9.00p.m.
LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Scholarly editing can look from the outside like the dryest of disciplines: all those hours spent leafing through archives and collating versions. In this discussion, Amanda Jernigan will show how the work of scholarly editing can actually bring us marvellously close to writers’ lives and minds. With examples drawn from her work on poets Richard Outram and Steven Heighton.

Amanda Jernigan is a poet, librettist, essayist, and editor who lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She is the author of two books of poems, Groundworkand All the Daylight Hours. A third book — Years, Months, and Days — is forthcoming from Biblioasis in Spring, 2018.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

HOW YOU CAN DISCOVER YOUR CANADA

TUES SEPT 12
7.30p.m. -9.00p.m.
LINC Classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

We shall explore how our appreciation of landscape relates to life and leads to writing.
Joanna Lawson is a retired educator. She became a poet when she dealt with the grief of losing her husband in 1987.  With the help of her uncle Vincent Francis, who died in 1989, and the ongoing assistance of the Tower Poetry Society members, the writing group to which she belongs, she continues to hone her writing skills.  My Canada is her most recent book of poetry published in 2017. Joanna’s books are available through thebookband.com
She can be reached at jlawson12@cogeco.ca


Sunday, May 28, 2017

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN READING FROM A PAGE OF PAPER AND READING FROM A SCREEN

TUES JUNE 13
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, 1st floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
Our guest for the evening is Jeff Mahoney, a columnist for the Hamilton Spectator.

Monday, April 17, 2017

SPEAKING WITH MANY TONGUES

TUES MAY 9
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m.
Hamilton Room, 1st floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

What does it mean to write in more than one language? 
What does it mean to include other languages in your English writing? 
An invitation to discuss and share work.

GARY BARWIN is the author of 21 books of poetry and fiction. His bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates was a Governor General’s Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist and his latest poetry collection No TV for Woodpeckers was just published by Wolsak & Wynn. He will be Writer-in Residence at HPL/McMaster University in 2017-2018. Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com

Sunday, March 19, 2017

SPRING AND LITERARY LIFE

TUES APR 11
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m., LINC CLASSROOM, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library

Open discussion on literary events, writing life and more. Updates on what's next with LitChat.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

GETTING TO KNOW DIFFERENT LITERARY PUBLISHERS

TUES MARCH 14
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m. Hamilton Room, 1st floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library 

Our guest, NOELLE ALLEN, is the publisher of Wolsak and Wynn, the past chair of the Literary Press Group and a current member of the Hamilton Arts Council’s Literary Advisory Committee.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

IMAGINATION IS TRUTH: autobiographical fiction and when it is more true to invent than report

TUES FEB 14
7.30p.m.-9.00p.m. LINC classroom, 4th floor, Central Branch, Hamilton Public Library
      
CHRISTINE POUNTNEY is a mother, writer, teacher and editor whose work has been published to great acclaim in Canada and the UK. Pountney studied English Literature at McGill University and University College Dublin and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. She published her first novel, Last Chance Texaco, with Faber and Faber and was long listed for the Orange Prize in 2000.
She has since published two more novels – The Best Way You Know How and Sweet Jesus – which both Irvine Walsh and Barbara Gowdy chose as one of their Best Books of 2012. Pountney has written for The Erotic Review, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail , Elle, Flair, Nuvo, The New Quarterly, Brick and Hazlitt Magazine.