If you’re not a poet, and you’re feeling left out from the Winston Collins poetry contest, don’t worry — the Writers’ Trust of Canada is accepting submissions for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. This year, the prize is for the fiction category. Entrants must be under 35 years of age, Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and unpublished in book form. One winner will be awarded $5000, and two honourable mentions will be awarded $1000.
The Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers alternates annually between poetry and short fiction entries. Some previous winners include: Michael Crummey, Stephanie Bolster, Sonnet L’Abbe, Gillian Best, and Jeramy Dodds.
We’ve been getting a flood of submissions in the last few weeks for the 2009/2010 Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem in anticipation of our October 9th, 2009 deadline. The winner will receive $1000 and two runners-up will receive $250 each. All three finalists will also be published in an upcoming issue of Descant. If you are interested in submitting to the Collins Prize, start getting your poems ready!
 Italian Authors Night
at Festitalia in Hamitlon
The Pearl Company
16 Steven Street @ King William
Hamilton
905-524-0606
Tuesday September 29, 2009
7:00pm
Novelist Michelle Alfano (Made Up Arias)
Poet Alvaro Tortora (Paradise Marshes)
Novelist Lina Medaglia (Demons of Aquilonia)
Organized by Bryan Prince Bookseller
A number of Descant‘s former contributors are continuing to make a splash in the arts world.
Arnaud Maggs, who provided the cover image and a portfolio of images of Paris hotel signs for Descant 142: Hotels, has a number of photographs from the same project on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) as part of the “Beautiful Fictions: Photography” collection. His work will be on display until January 17th, 2010.
In addition, Balint Zsako, who provided the cover image and a portfolio of artwork for Descant 136: A Trompe L’Oeil Calendar, has a new exhibition called Old Master Paintings on at the Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects gallery (1082 Queen Street West). The exhibition, which is a series of collages assembled from reproductions of old master paintings, is showing until October 18th, 2009.
One of Descant‘s contributing editors, Mark Kingwell, is releasing a new book, Glenn Gould, with Penguin Group Canada as part of their Extraordinary Canadians series. Kingwell discusses Gould, one of Canada’s most talent artists and renowned classical musicians of the 20th Century, from the perspective of a philosopher.
Descant will be present in full force at two prominent book fairs on the next two Sundays — the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival and Toronto’s Word On The Street festival. The Eden Mills Writer’s Festival is this weekend on September 20th, from noon to 6 p.m., and the Word On The Street festival is the following Sunday, September the 27th, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Descant will be present at the publisher’s way at Eden Mills and the exhibitor marketplace at Word On The Street.
While you’re there, check out the amazing authors participating in Eden Mills and Word On The Street. We hope to see you there.
On Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 7:30pm at the Olga Korper Gallery (17 Morrow Ave, Toronto), we will be launching Descant 146: Immanence/Transcendence with a celebration of art and song. The issue invites festivity, with a slate of new poets and captivating artist portfolios by Kent Monkman and Robert Fones. Descant Contributing Editor, Mark Kingwell, considers the basis of this issue’s larger themes and, as always, artfully plays out their meaning. Calvin White provides an interview with Beat generation poet and editor, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In the pages between these wresting contributions, the fall issue presents an homage to poetry’s venerable form at the hands of its newest transcending practitioners.
The Olga Korper Gallery, one of Toronto’s top exhibition spaces, will host this special event in tandem with a show of work by renowned sculptor John McEwen, a three-time Descant cover artist. The inimitable cellist Anna Jarvis is performing with pianist Jonah Humphrey, and some of our favourite poets (Mark Kingwell, Michael Lista, Jim Johnstone and Helen Guri) will read from their most recent work.
Copies of Descant 146 will be available for purchase at this free event, as well as assorted back issues featuring artwork by Olga Korper Gallery artists.
The evening promises the supreme themes of art and song, and good company to shut out unfriendly night. Please join us for our fall issue launch and celebration!
Descant 146: Immanence/Transcendence is on newsstands now!
Preview the issue here
On Wednesday, September 16th This Ain’t The Rosedale Library, Toronto’s bastion of indie bookselling (voted one of the top ten independent bookstores in the world by the Guardian), is celebrating three decades of peddling poetry and prose and everyone’s invited!
From 7:30-9:00 p.m. at the York Quay Centre: Brigantine Room (235 Queens Quay West) they will be celebrating this milestone anniversary with readings by bill bissett, Lee Ann Brown, Eileen Myles, Stuart Ross; the Six String Nation guitar will be on display with Jowi Taylor; and all this will be followed by an after party at Supermarket (268 Augusta Avenue) in the store’s new home neighbourhood of Kensington Market.
Tickets to this fantastic event are $8, and can be purchased through the box office (call 416.973.4000 or visit the website).
For more information about the event and the readers, visit This Ain’t The Rosedale Library’s website, and we’ll see you there!
Descant will be one of the many presses, publishers, and magazines participating in the Publishers’ Way at this year’s Eden Mills Writers’ Festival. Issues of Descant — including the new Fall 2009 edition, #146, Immanence/Transcendence — will be available for purchase from noon – 6 pm on Sunday, September 20th. This is the same time a variety of authors will be reading their work.
The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival was founded in 1989, and has been an annual event since then. The first installment was created by Governor-General Award Winner and former Descant contributor Leon Rooke.
We hope to see you there.
Pages Books & Magazines, an independent Toronto bookstore established in 1979, closed its doors for the final time yesterday. The Queen Street West store spent 30 years as a major participant in Toronto’s cultural and arts communities, and as a big supporter of small press literature.
Although Pages is now shut down, one of its offspring, This Is Not A Reading Series, will continue to run. Please check their website for updates.
Everyone here at Descant wishes Pages a fond farewell.
