February 10: Martha Baillie, Jacob McArthur Mooney and Damian Rogers

Pivot LOVES February, and February loves Pivot. There’s plenty more to love in this lineup:

Martha Baillie is the author of four novels. Her most recent, The Incident Report, published by Pedlar Press, was longlisted for the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize, selected by the Globe and Mail for its Best Books of 2009,  and longlisted by the National Post for Canada Also Reads. Her previous novel The Shape I Gave You was named a bestseller by Maclean’s magazine and included in the Toronto Public Library’s Good Reads: Best of 2006-2008. Martha has been published in Germany and Hungary, her non- fiction has appeared in Brick: a literary journal, and her poetry in journals across the country. Martha was born in Toronto.

Jacob McArthur Mooney is here with a new chapbook called Vox Populism, put out by The Emergency Response Unit. He lives in Parkdale and is hard at work on his second full-length collection, which will be out in 2011 from McClelland and Stewart, Ltd and will probably be called Folk. He maintains a blog with the same name as his chapbook. He is surprised that it’s taken him this long to read at Pivot, and feels apologetic towards Carey for his past scheduling failures. [Aw, shucks Jake. You've made it up to me with some great press, though. So you're forgiven. -Ed.]

Damian Rogers was born and raised in suburban Detroit and now lives in Toronto, Canada. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. In addition to performing the roles of assistant editor at Poetry Magazine in Chicago, copy chief at CosmoGIRL! in New York, and arts editor at Eye Weekly in Toronto, she has sung back-up as a member of a cheerleader chorus and has delivered a line in a John Cusack movie. Though her music and film careers seem to have stalled out, her poems have appeared in Brick, The Walrus, MoonLit, Maisonneuve, Salt Hill, This Magazine, and Matrix. Her first book, Paper Radio, was published by ECW Press in the fall of 2009.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
Hosted by Carey Toane
PWYC.

Jan 27: Chris Eaton, Lynn McClory and Lindsay Zier-Vogel

Pivot is loving this new decade, so far at least. Come on down Jan. 27 for an earful from Chris Eaton, Lynn McClory and Lindsay Zier-Vogel.

Chris Eaton is the author of two previous novels, The Grammar Architect (2005) and The Inactivist (2003), both published by Insomniac Press, and performs music with the band Rock Plaza Central. His fiction and music have both been studied on several university courses in Canada and the U.S., and he is currently working on a third novel about people like himself, called Chris Eaton: a Biography.

Lynn McClory has been immersed in poetry since passing along her university publishers’ sales agency in 2007. She has performed her poems at Art Walk and the Lexiconjury Reading series. Her poems have appeared in B after C Magazine, Garden Variety, an anthology from Quarry Press, Psychic Rotunda, Industrial Sabotage and Blissfultimes.ca.

Lindsay Zier-Vogel is a Toronto-based writer and arts educator. She is a graduate of U of T’s Creative Writing Masters program where she was mentored by poet and novelist Anne Michaels, and has recently completed her first novel. She is the founding editor of Puddle Press, an independent book-arts press.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
Hosted by Carey Toane
PWYC.

January 13: Michael Bryson, Faye Guenther and Bill Kennedy

Welcome the new year with a new set of three marvelous readers:

Michael Bryson is the author of three short story collections, the most recent of which is The Lizard and Other Stories (Chaudiere, 2009). From 1999-2009, he was the publisher and editor of the online literary magazine, the Danforth Review. His stories have appeared in Best Canadian Stories, the Fiddlehead, the Antigonish Review, and many other journals. He blogs at http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.com

Faye Guenther has written for Broken Pencil and the Danforth Review, and works as Joyland.ca’s editorial assistant. She has performed her poetry at reading series in Toronto and Montreal.  Her short story “Bicycle Dreams” was published in Dandelion Magazine in 2009.

Bill Kennedy is the co-author of apostrophe with Darren Wershler-Henry (ECW, 2006). He has been the artistic director of the Scream Literary Festival since 2002, as well as a poetry editor for Coach House Books and a co-organizer of the Lexiconjury Reading Series.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
Hosted by Carey Toane
PWYC.

Pivot is off for the holidays

We’ll be back January 13 with Michael Bryson, Faye Guenther and Bill Kennedy.

Till then, happy holidays!

Dec. 16: Claudia Dey, Edward Nixon and Moez Surani

The last Pivot of the year is gonna be a goodie. Join us for Claudia Dey, Edward Nixon and Moez Surani:

Claudia Dey is a novelist, playwright and columnist. For two years, she wrote the weekly ‘Group Therapy’ column for the Globe and Mail, and the sex column for Toro magazine under the pseudonym Bebe O’Shea. Her plays have been translated into French and German and produced internationally. They include Beaver, Trout Stanley and The Gwendolyn Poems, which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award. Her debut novel, Stunt, was released by Coach House Press earlier this year.

It is generally true that Edward Nixon was born and grew up in and around Victoria and the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, with some childhood years spent in West Vancouver, the Cariboo, and exotic Kamloops. Since since 1984 he has lived in Toronto.  He’s published three chapbooks: Nights in the City of the Dead (Aeolus House 2006), Arguments for Breath (lyricalmyrical 2007) and Free Translation (Cactus Press 2009), and despite his inexplicable recalcitrance to submit to magazines he’s been published in Jones Av, Rampike and Misunderstandings. Edward produces and hosts the monthly Toronto reading series livewords. He is a principal of EN Consulting, a public outreach consulting practice located at the Centre for Social Innovation; and he is currently a Senior Advisor to Ontario’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.

Moez Surani’s poetry and short fiction has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Carousel, Prairie Fire, Vallum, Arc and 100 Poets Against the War. He has served as a writer-in-residence for the Toronto Catholic District School Board and curator for the Strong Words Reading Series in Toronto. Among his awards is a 2008 Chalmers Arts Fellowship which supported a research stint in India and East Africa. Reticent Bodies is his first collection of poems.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
Hosted by Carey Toane
PWYC.

Dec 2: Lauren Kirshner, Bill Howell and Jeff Parker

Pivot begins the last month of ‘09 with readings by Lauren Kirshner, Bill Howell and Jeff Parker. Come listen, be charmed and alarmed, leave with new autographed books for yourself and (!!) for those you love, a propos the impending holiday season.

Lauren Kirshner is a graduate of the University of Toronto’s M.A. program in English in the field of Creative Writing. Her fiction, poetry, and journalism have appeared in publications such as Exile, NOW, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Chatelaine, and The Hart House Review. Her first novel Where We Have to Go is forthcoming in German and Dutch translation. In 2009, she was named “best emerging author” by Now Magazine.

One of the original ‘Storm Warning’ poets, Bill Howell is now at the height of an award-winning literary career spanning four decades. He has published four poetry collections, including Porcupine Archery earlier this year with Insomniac Press, as well as a recent chapbook, Ghost Test Flights. His writing has appeared in literary journals and magazines across the country, in the United Kingdom, and in the United States. Bill was a network producer-director for CBC Radio Drama for almost three decades; his plays have garnered multiple ACTRA and international awards. He lives in Toronto.

Jeff Parker is the author of the novel Ovenman and the story collection The Taste of Penny. He’s co-edited two collections of contemporary Russian writing: Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States and Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia. He is currently the Acting Director of the MA in field of Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.

Nov. 18: Amy Jones, Alexandra Leggat and Priscila Uppal

Come Pivot with us November 18 – and by “us” I mean Metcalf-Rooke winner Amy Jones, Alexandra Leggat and Priscila Uppal. Natch.

Originally from Halifax, Amy Jones is a graduate of the Optional Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at UBC. Her short fiction has appeared or in several Canadian publications, including The New Quarterly, Grain, Prairie Fire, Event, The Antigonish Review, maisonneuve, and 08: Best Canadian Stories. In 2006, she was the winner of the CBC Literary Award for Short Story in English. Her first short fiction collection, What Boys Like, is the winner of the 2008-2009 Metcalf-Rooke Award and was published by Biblioasis in September, 2009. Amy currently lives in Toronto.

Alexandra Leggat is the author of the short story collections Animal (Anvil Press, 2009), Meet Me in the Parking Lot (Insomniac Press 2004), Pull Gently, Tear Here (Insomniac Press, 2001) which was nominated for the Danuta Gleed First Fiction Award and a collection of poetry entitled This is me since yesterday (Coach House Books, 2000) She is a graduate of Ryerson University’s Journalism program. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Toro, Shift, The Globe and Mail and Niagara Life Magazine and her poetry and fiction has been published in journals across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. She teaches creative writing classes at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.

Priscila Uppal is a Toronto poet, fiction and non-fiction writer, and academic born in Ottawa in 1974. Among her publications are five collections of poetry: How to Draw Blood From a Stone (1998), Confessions of a Fertility Expert (1999), Pretending to Die (2001), Live Coverage (2003) and Ontological Necessities (2006); all with Exile Editions; the critically-acclaimed novels The Divine Economy of Salvation (2002) and To Whom It May Concern (2009); both with Doubleday Canada; and the academic study, We Are What We Mourn: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy (2009) with McGill-Queen’s University Press. Her work has been published internationally and has been translated into Croatian, Dutch, Greek, Korean, Latvian, and Italian. Ontological Necessities was shortlisted for the prestigious $50,000 Griffin Prize for Excellence in Poetry. She has an MA (University of Toronto) and a PhD in English Literature (York University) and is a professor of English at York University in Toronto. Forthcoming in 2009, as editor, are the books The Exile Book of Poetry in Translation: Twenty Canadian Poets Take On the World, and The Exile Book of Sports Stories. Forthcoming in 2010 are a selected poetry collection, Successful Tragedies, from Bloodaxe Books (U.K.), and a new poetry collection, Traumatology, from Exile Editions. She is an active participant in several arts committees and organizations, and is on the Board of Directors at the Toronto Arts Council. For more information please visit priscilauppal.ca

Wednesday, November 18, 2009
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.

Nov. 4: Marcus McCann, Shane Neilson and Lisa Pasold

Join us November 4 for a steamy November eve of readings by Marcus McCann, Shane Nielsen and Lisa Pasold.

Marcus McCann is the author of one trade collection, Soft Where (2009, Chaudiere Books), as well as six chapbooks: The Tech/tonic Suite (2008, Rubicon), Force Quit (2008, Emergency Response Unit), petty illness leaflet (2008, Onion Union), Basement Tapes (2007, with Nicholas Lea and Andrew Faulkner) Heteroskeptical (2007, above/ground) and So Long, Derrida (2006, UESA). His work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Matrix, dANDelion, and other fine Canadian literary periodicals. He’s a host of CKCU’s Literary Landscapes and organizer of the Transgress Festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club. He lives in Ottawa, where he a member of the Ampers& Writing Group.

Shane Neilson published his first trade book of poems with Biblioasis this year, titled Meniscus. He has been anthologized in Braid and Shreve’s In Fine Form and Carmine Starnino’s The New Canon. He has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for poetry. He won the New Brunswick leg of the most recent CBC Poetry Face Off.

Lisa Pasold’s writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Chicago Tribune and Vancouver’s Georgia Straight. Her first book of poetry, Weave, appeared in 2004; Stephen Osborne in Geist magazine called the book “quite simply a masterpiece: there is more in these eighty odd pages than in most novels.” Her second book of poetry, A Bad Year for Journalists, appeared in 2006; The Globe and Mail called this “critical, darkly funny and painstakingly lyrical.” Rats of Las Vegas is Lisa’s first novel; please let me know if you would like a review copy. For more info about Lisa, you can visit her blog .

Wednesday, November 4, 2009
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.

October 21: Nathaniel G Moore, Johanna Skibsrud and Lindsay Tipping

Join us October 21 for a book launch, an out-of-towner and a short short story performatrix. Yeah!

Nathaniel G. Moore is the author of two new books this fall: Pastels Are Pretty Much The Polar Opposite of Chalk (DC Books) and Wrong Bar (Tightrope Books).

Johanna Skibsrud recently published a novel, The Sentimentalists, with Gaspereau Press.  Her debut poetry collection, Late Nights With Wild Cowboys (Gaspereau), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award.  A second poetry collection is forthcoming in Spring 2010. Originally from Meadowville, Nova Scotia, Johanna currently lives in Montreal.

Lindsay Tipping’s work has appeared in Dandelion, Matrix, Utne Reader, Filling Station and Misunderstandings Magazine. She lives in Toronto.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.

Pivot one-year anniversary: Babstock, Schultz, Strimas and Gordon

We’ve made it this far: Pivot is officially a year old on October 15, but we’re celebrating at the October 7 event with four readers for the price of one! Poets Ken Babstock and Meaghan Strimas will be joined by prose stylists Emily Schultz and Spencer Gordon. Arrive early and plan to stay late – it’s a party, after all.

Ken Babstock is the author, most recently, of Airstream Land Yacht (Anansi, 2006) winner of The Trillium Prize for Poetry, finalist for the Governor General’s Award, The Griffin Prize for Poetry, and The Winterset Award. Earlier collections include Mean, winner of The Atlantic Poetry Prize and The Milton Acorn Award, and Days into Flatspin, winner of a K.M. Hunter Award and finalist for the Winterset Prize. All three books were listed in the Globe and Mail’s Books of the Year. His poems have won Gold at the National Magazine Awards, appeared widely in anthologies in Canada, the US, and Ireland, and have been translated into French, German, Dutch, Serbo-Croatian and Czech.

Spencer Gordon is a grad student at the U of T. His fiction chapbook, coming out in October, is called Lonely Planet and Other Stories (Ferno House 2009). His writing has appeared in periodicals like Broken Pencil, The Danforth Review, echolocation, zaum, Bywords Quarterly Journal, The Puritan, and The Frequent and Vigorous Quarterly, and in anthologies like experiment-o (AngelHousePress 2008), Departures (above/ground 2008), Gulch: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose (Tightrope Books 2009), and For Crying Out Loud: An Anthology of Poetry & Fiction (Ferno House 2009). Upcoming projects include the extremely serious anthology Dinosaur Porn (Emergency Response Unit/Ferno House 2009). He was the co-editor/creator of The Puritan and he’s currently the editor of Ferno House (fernohouse.com). He blogs at dangerousliterature.blogspot.com, and operates in the third person. QED.

Emily Schultz recently published the novel Heaven Is Small with House of Anansi Press. Her debut poetry collection, Songs for the Dancing Chicken (ECW Press), was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. She co-founded and helps run the short fiction hub, Joyland.ca.

Meaghan Strimas was born in Chatham, ON, and raised in Owen Sound, ON. She is the author of one book of poems, Junkman’s Daughter, and her second poetry collection, A Good Time Had By All, will publish in Fall 2010. She is also the editor of The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen. She lives in Toronto with her cat, Bates.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.