NOW HEAR THIS! (Descant‘s community outreach program) will be hosting the second installment of their new reading series, HEAR/HEAR, on Tuesday, June 23rd at 7:30 pm. This FREE 19+ event will be taking place at the Smiling Buddha Bar (961 College street, just west of Dovercourt).
This month’s featured readers (all 2009 S.W.A.T. writers-in-residence for Descant) will be Jenny Sampirisi, Aaron Tucker, and Paul Vermeersch.
We hope you will come out to support Now Hear This! and our amazing writers-in-residence.
Descant congratulates Mariko Tamaki, a resident writer in our literary outreach program, for the launch of her new graphic novel, Skim, on Wednesday, March 26th at the Gladstone Hotel. Mariko has been participating in the S.W.A.T. (Students, Writers, and Teachers) project for two years. Descant relies on resident writers like Mariko to lead curriculum-oriented workshops in schools around Toronto. We are grateful for Mariko’s participation and wish her success with her new book.
Mariko describes Skim as a “gothic Lolita lesbian story” told from the perspective of the Lolita. Illustrations are provided by Jillian Tamaki, an award winning artist who has been published in The Walrus, The New York Times, and The New Yorker.
S.W.A.T. (Students, Writers and Teachers), a student outreach program of NowHearThis! has been profiled in the January/February issue of Quill & Quire! Descant Arts & Letters Foundation’s ongoing literacy program has had a very successful response in its inaugural year; S.W.A.T. places writers in Toronto area classrooms for 12 week writing workshops, where they have the chance to engage and inspire students. Read about writer and S.W.A.T. participant Emily Pohl-Weary’s experience in Q&Q’s new issue, out now.
All of us here at the Descant office would like to extend a fashionably-late congrats to Now Hear This! Program Coordinator Pasha Malla, whose short story “Respite” was nominated for the 2007 Writer’s Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.
“Respite” was originally published in Issue #156 of The Malahat Review.
Wow. I’ve been MIA in so many areas of my life, and certainly the areas relating to Descant – my apologies! I started a new full-time gig working as Promotions and Marketing Manager for Between the Lines Press ,so my off-time has been limited. If you think I’ve ignored you, you should see my kitchen. But here are some things to report:
* I launched my first novel called Bottle Rocket Hearts this week in Toronto as part of This is Not a Reading Series. If I can figure out how to, I’ll include my video trailer below. I also recieved a favourable reviewed in the Toronto Star (“lively & winsome” + “coupland-esque” even:), and Now gave me four Ns and a rave. I’ve made a hundred photocopies of it, which I’ll be using to wallpaper my kitchen.
* I’ve attended some great literary events, namely the launch of Thea Lim’s first novel (with the new and exciting literary press Invisible Publishing) titled The Same Woman. It explores women’s relationships and how they can be affected by our culture, whether for better or for worse. Thea was a charming and delightful reader, and the Toronto Women’s Bookstore sold out of copies in no time. I can’t wait to have the time to read it.
* I’m rounding up my “stage” ( a Quebec-ism, too tired to remember the english word – short-term job? contract?) at Notre Dame Academy, where I’ve been teaching creative writing to three high school classes every Monday since February as part of Descant‘s Writers in the Schools Program. They’re a really bright bunch of girls, and I’m encouraging them to submit work to SWAT’s anthology of student work. I certainly hope they do.
* As usual I’ve received my fair share of review copies this spring and am very excited to read both Nairne Holtz’s lesbian mystery novel and Anne Stone’s new novel. I’ve already skimmed Emily Holton’s graphic novel and thought, once again, about wallpapering my house with it.
Julie Wilson, of SeenReading fame, is starting an ambitious new project that has to do with barns, story-telling, touring and literature. She’s a real idea machine, and I wonder if she’s an aquarius. That would explain a lot.
Descant Arts & Letters Foundation’s Students, Writers and Teachers (S.W.A.T.), will be featured on Rogers Daytime tomorrow at 11:00am, 5:00pm and 11:00pm. The segment is approximately a six-minute long interview with Pasha Malla, Program Coordinator for Now Hear This! and Mariko Tamaki, Writer-in-Residence at Blessed Mother Theresa, who says her “biggest hope is that someone I talk to will start writing. Writing for writing’s sake.”
S.W.A.T., a project that brings professional authors into classrooms to build students’ writing skills, self-esteem and critical thinking, is the result of a partnership between Descant Arts & Letters Foundation’s outreach initiative, Now Hear This! and The Toronto Catholic District School Board. The program encourages students to direct their own learning by making connections between personal experience and course material.
S.W.A.T. has been financially supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, JP Bickell Foundation and the TCDSB.
IV Lounge Reading Series
Mar 9 – 8:00pm, free admission.
Zoe Whittall (The Emily Valentine Poems)
Tara-Michelle Ziniuk (Emergency Contact, poems)
Mary Lou Zeitoun (The Safest Place in the World, fiction)
326 Dundas St W, across from the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Please join us!
The Now Hear This! Project is in full swing. Click here for more information.
Believe it or not, the Descant crew can be a humble bunch. Many of them have some fantastic things going on in the rest of their lives that they never talk about, and Now Hear This! Program Co-ordinator Pasha Malla is no exception.
So imagine my surprise this morning, while getting my daily dose of Quill Blog, and I ran across this posting.
Congratulations to always-deserving-of-praise Pasha Malla, for both his book deal and his humility.
Click Here to read about who is taking part in the S.W.A.T./Descant’s Writers in the Schools program, now in full swing!!
