I’m excited to be part of this new speaker series at The Confluence. You can find event information here: https://www.theconfluence.ca/events/hdht-april
Winnifred at Bow View Ranch, circa 1920s (Photo: Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary)
I look forward to speaking about the life of a fascinating Calgary writer at CALL Café — the Calgary Association of Lifelong Learners speaker series. Members of the public may attend without registering and at no cost.
The event takes place at Varsity Acres Presbyterian Church, 4612 Varsity Drive, NW.
You can find more information here: https://calgarylifelonglearners.ca/CALL-Cafe
Coming up for Historic Calgary Week:
W. O. Mitchell watering orchids in his Calgary greenhouse (Photo: Courtesy of the Mitchell family)
The celebrated author W. O. Mitchell (1914-1998) spent the last three decades of his life in Roxboro, writing seven novels and leading a lively literary life. Join me and special guest speakers in the park across from Mitchell’s house to share stories about his life, work, and the neighbourhood he put on the page.
Program runs on Thursday, August 1, 7:00 to 8:30 pm.
Meet at Roxboro Park (opposite 3031 Roxboro Glen Road, SW).
No registration required but lawn chairs highly recommended and Mitchell memories warmly welcomed.
You can find the full program for Historic Calgary Week here: https://chinookhistory.ca/historic-calgary-week
Join Calgary-born, Montreal-based writer Norman Ravvin and me for a guided walk as we explore forgotten Jewish footprints in the streets of Downtown West.
Part of Historic Calgary Week, organized by Chinook Country Historical Society and in partnership with the Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta. Free to attend but spaces are limited. To register, contact: the Jewish Historical Society, jhssa@shaw.ca or call 403-444-3171.
The charismatic bestselling novelist known as Onoto Watanna was a literary luminary in 1920s Calgary. Join me for a guided walk to two of Winnifred Eaton Reeve’s many city addresses and a window into her storied life in the city she came to call home.
Part of Historic Calgary Week. To register, email: hcw2@chinookhistory.ca
I’m excited to be part of Dale Lee Kwong’s meet-and-greet during her residency at cSpace Eau Claire. Pop in on your lunch break for an informal conversation between Dale and me about writing Calgary’s literary history, my research into Chinese-Canadian Winnifred Eaton Reeve and her life in Calgary during the era of Chinese exclusion, and more.
Free to attend in the reimagined Eau Claire & Bow River Lumber Co. building. More information at the cSpace Eau Claire website.
Far from publishing centres in the east, two Calgary writers competed for local, national and international attention. Join storyteller Karen Gummo and me for a lively conversation about researching the lives of two compelling women intent on literary success. Part of Chinook Country Historical Society’s monthly lecture series at Calgary’s Central Library.
Register at the Calgary Public Library.
Meet a few of the novelists, poets, journalists and publishers who have called this historic neighbourhood home. Join me for this Jane’s Walk and a glimpse of the fascinating fabric of Calgary’s early literary world. This walk is free to attend but registration is required. You can find details here: https://janeswalk.calgarycommunities.com/walks/a-literary-walk-of-elbow-park/
Eveline Kolijn and I are thrilled to be launching City of Romance: The Literary World of 1920s Calgary — the seventh map in the Calgary Atlas Project’s brilliant series featuring the city’s hidden histories. The celebration happens on February 7 at 7 pm at a 1920s literary landmark, the Memorial Park Library.
Tickets are free. Reserve your spot here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/art-map-launch-city-of-romance-the-literary-world-of-1920s-calgary-tickets-506678367637
You can find out more about City of Romance on the Calgary Atlas Project website: https://arts.ucalgary.ca/calgary-institute-humanities/events-and-community/calgary-atlas-project/city-romance-literary-world-1920s-calgary
Join me at Calgary’s Alexandra Writers Centre Society for a wide-ranging lunch-hour conversation about digital and analog sources, searching tips, and the fine art of file management. Bring your own research discoveries (and dead ends) to share with the group. This is an in-person event open to all. You can find registration details here.
As part of Historic Calgary Week, join me for a walk through Calgary’s little-known literary past. We’ll take a leisurely stroll through this historic neighbourhood that novelists, poets, journalists and publishers have called home. Spaces are limited. You can reserve a spot starting July 1 at https://chinookhistory.ca/historic-calgary-week
Join me for National Trust of Canada’s Historic Places Days with a guided walk in Beltline. We’ll visit three landmark national heritage sites that teem with literary history. Free admission but reserve your spot by emailing historicplacesdays@nationaltrustcanada.ca. More details at: https://historicplacesdays.ca/events/a-literary-history-walk-in-calgarys-beltline/
How do you map a city’s unknown histories? Join me, Kevin Allen (A Queer Map of Calgary) , Jim Ellis (Calgary Atlas Project), and Asia Walker (Heritage Calgary) for a conversation about charting Calgary’s cultural landscape and using maps to pin down the past.
This virtual panel is part of Historic Calgary Week, presented by Chinook Country Historical Society and the Calgary Public Library. Registration details here.
If truth is stranger than fiction, can fiction be stronger than truth? Join three Resident writers, Shaun Hunter and Lori Hahnel from Calgary Public Library and Meg Braem from the University of Calgary, as they explore the benefits and perils of melding fact and fiction in writing.
Free with a Calgary Public Library card. Register here.
Join Historian in Residence Shaun Hunter to find out about her project to map Calgary’s literary landmarks. Shaun will share her motivation behind the project, and a few of the treasures she’s found in the city’s storied landscape. Presented in partnership with Chinook Country Historical Society and Heritage Calgary. Register for this free program at Calgary Public Library.
Explore a few blocks of the Beltline’s literary landscape. Shaun Hunter, Calgary author and co-curator of “Storied City: Early Calgary through the Eyes of Writers,” will lead us on a walk teeming with tales and trivia.
Choose one of two walk times: 12:00 to 1:00, or 2:00-3:00
$10; maximum 25 people per walk
Reserve your spot here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/guided-walk-the-lougheeds-their-literary-neighbourhood-tickets-98021251201?fbclid=IwAR2JQ0LSIHvlOMK5Tbk5ZESGDDCTmSgk6u4pTG_WGQ8iAYu7r_-nkozUWqw
Excited to be part of this live show with host Russell Bowers, author Aritha van Herk and musician Justine Tyrell at the Central Library. Reserve your free seats here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/daybreak-at-night-at-the-calgary-public-library-tickets-93538681715
Join me for the opening of “Storied City: Early Calgary through the Eyes of Writers,” a literary exhibit at Calgary’s historic Lougheed House. The exhibit runs January 30 to April 26, 2020. Details to come!
The literary event of the season! Please join me for Calgary’s 10th anniversary Giller LIght Bash — an evening in support of Frontier College and in celebration of Canadian books. I’m thrilled to be one of five book defenders at this Calgary book party hosted by CBC’s Russell Bowers. Come enjoy the live broadcast of the Giller Prize announcement, an animated panel discussion with my fellow book defenders — authors Taylor Lambert and Naomi K. Lewis, book reviewer Anne Logan and interdisciplinary artist Malcolm Mooney. As always, there will be a generous array of raffle and silent auction prizes. All proceeds go to literacy education in Alberta’s high-needs communities.
Festivities start at 5 pm at Wurst in Calgary’s Mission district (doors open @ 4:30 pm)
Tickets are $20 in advance ($25 at the door) and can be purchased here.
Hat tip to the organizers: Writers’ Guild of Alberta, Shelf Life Books and Freehand Books.
Please come to the unveiling of the Calgary/Rosemary Griebel Bookmark at Loft 112 in East Village and help celebrate Alberta joining Project Bookmark Canada’s national literary trail.
The unveiling is a free, public event being held during Alberta Culture Days.
A literary walk through Calgary’s storied Beltline neighbourhood.
Details coming soon!
I’ll be leading a mini-literary walk of Stephen Avenue for folks attending the TEDxYYC festival. Check out festival details here.
Calgary’s Beltline has been a literary hub since Annie Davidson’s book club met here in 1906. Since then, the neighbourhood has been home to several prominent writers, welcomed famous literary visitors, and found its way onto the page. Join me on this Jane’s Walk and experience Beltline through the eyes of writers.
Details here!
Join Edmonton’s Carissa Halton, author of Little Yellow House and me as we talk about mapping our respective cities through literary snapshots, introducing readers to Alberta’s two major cities in ways many have never seen before. Carissa and I will share tales from our books and consider the impact of our cities on our writing and our lives.
Shelf Life Books, Calgary
All are welcome!
Details here!
You are invited to eat, drink and be literary at this unique fundraiser in support of the installation of the Calgary Bookmark in East Village in Fall 2019.
This celebration of Calgary's rich literary heritage will be hosted at the historic Deane House -- the original home of author Captain R. Burton Deane, and later the place where legendary Dandelion Magazine was born. The event includes a fabulous three-course meal with wine pairings, and a reading by special guest author Rosemary Griebel.
Spaces are limited! To purchase tickets, please visit Canada Helps.
Calgary’s living history museum has many connections with fiction, poetry and nonfiction set in in the city during its first decades. Join me as I present a virtual walk through the Park and its literary links.
Speaking of the Past lecture series
Gasoline Alley, Heritage Park, Calgary
Free for annual pass holders; included with admission to Gasoline Alley
“Who lives in such an impossible city, brash, arrogant, indelibly new?”
– Aritha van Herk, Restlessness
Join me at Loft 112’s Tent Peg series for an afternoon of writing the city we call home. Crack open the clichés, plumb the city’s depths, and savour its particularities.
Cost: $5
Find details here.
Join me and Carissa Halton (author of Little Yellow House) for a lively evening of conversation hosted by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta
Edmonton
Calgary is once again wrestling with the question of what kind of city we want to become. What do we want Calgary to be in 2024? I'’m excited to participate in what promises to be a lively conversation with Sprawl founder/editor Jeremy Klaszus, urban planner Francisco Alaniz Uribe (assistant professor and co-director of The Urban Lab at U of C’s Faculty of Environmental Design) and Jyoti Gondek (Calgary City Councillor).
Central Library Performance Hall
Event details here
More about The Sprawl’s pop-up newsroom at the Central Library here
Calgary Association of Lifelong Learners Arts & Humanities Lecture Series
cSpace Room 310
1721 - 39th Ave SW, Calgary
Free for CALL members; $5 for non-members
Book sales: Owl’s Nest Books