Join us October 5, 2011 as we launch Descant 154: Sicily in style. Come hear Sicily contributors Valentino Assenza, Gil Fagiani, Darlene Madott and Gianna Patriarca read from their texts in an authentic Italian atmosphere. The event will take place at grano restaurant on Yonge, with doors opening at 7 p.m. Arrive early to partake in the cash bar and antipasto.
The Descant 154: Sicily launch is the perfect place to chat up our Guest Editors Michelle Alfano and Venera Fazio while touring Sicilia through the words of our contributors, as their poetry and prose explore and probe this geographically and historically impressive island.
Don’t miss this exciting evening celebrating Descant 154: Sicily! (In stores September 20, 2011)
To all DESCANT subscribers, friends and well-wishers in Toronto: our charity garage sale is just around the corner. We’ve been hard at work collecting and pricing items for the sale this weekend. It’s all happening at 245 Markham St., which is one block west of Bathurst between Dundas and College, this Saturday August 13th between 10am and 4pm. The weather forecast for Saturday is looking potentially rainy, so if it rains the sale will be pushed back to Sunday the 14th.
What, you might be asking, do we have for offer at the garage sale? A plethora of antiquities and curios including clothes, housewares, DVDs (including a few from the Criterion Collection), jewellery, pottery, china, antique dollhouse furnishings, Canadian Opera Company props, collectors items like a complete Teddy Bear Orchestra, and of course books!
And finally, if you feel like riding in style this August, we have for sale a CHARIOT from the Canadian Opera Company’s performance of Xerxes. The bidding starts at $50. Here’s a picture of this featured item:
So come on down to enjoy the weather, pick up some great finds, and support Descant’s efforts to promote Canadian writers and literacy.
… an evening of poetry and prose with some (not so) Nice Italian Girls and Friends
On Tuesday, October 27th, please join members of the Descant community for an evening of poetry and short fiction in the heart of Kensington Market. The neighbourhood’s renowned Supermarket Restaurant & Bar will host live readings by Descant‘s editor-in-chief Karen Mulhallen, co-editor Michelle Alfano and authors Valentino Assenza, Diane Bracuk, Sonia di Placido, Giovanna Riccio and Paul Zemokhol.
Come early, eat well from Supermarket’s Asian fusion menu, and settle in to enjoy the literary musings of these (not so) Nice Italian Girls and their Friends.
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 / 7:30pm
Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave, ph: 416.840.0501)
Wednesday, October 21st
Free Times Cafe
Doors open @ 6pm, readings @ 7pm
FREE!
Join NOW HEAR THIS! at the Free Times Cafe for another set of readings by our Writers-in-Residence. This time, Desi Di Nardo, Larry Frolick, and Mary-Lou Zeitoun will share their new work with an audience of all ages. Check out a sampling of Hear/Hear#3 on the NHT! podcast. Continue reading →
On behalf of editor-in-chief KAREN MULHALLEN, we would like to invite you to the Toronto launch of ACQUAINTED WITH ABSENCE (Selected and Introduced by Douglas Glover, Published by Blaurock Press); this is Karen’s latest book of poetry.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 / 6-8pm
at Noce (875 Queen St W, 416-504-3463)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
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Karen Mulhallen is Editor-in-Chief of DESCANT. She has published numerous critical articles and twelve books of poetry, including ‘Sea Light’ (2003, Black Moss) and ‘Sea Horses’ (2007, Black Moss). She is a professor of English at Ryerson University and the University of Toronto.
Please visit: http://www.karenmulhallen.com
“Karen Mulhallen is a magnificent poet, prolific, protean and deeply, intensely, personal. She is a metaphysical poet, concerned with ends and existence, yet she grounds everything in the specific and the concrete. Reading and rereading her, one begins to notice, beyond the narratives of love and death and the concrete references to loved ones and beloved places, insistent recurrences – water, islands, plant lore, horses, seahorses – unfolding into myth, comedy, eros and personal anguish.”
Douglas Glover, from the Introduction to ‘Acquainted With Absence’
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!
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.
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.
