Monday, February 19, 2007

Loser shortlisted again!

Announcing the 2nd Expozine Alternative Press Awards Gala!

Join us for the presentation of the 2nd Expozine Alternative Press Awards! Featuring as master of ceremonies perennial favourite Jean Giscagne, who will share the stage with musical/ lyrical entertainment by Montreal's Les Abdigradationnistes, plus special guests and surprises! You'll also have the chance to purchase copies of the nominated books, zines and comics!

Wednesday March 7, 2007
Mainline Theatre
3997 Boul. St-Laurent,
9:00 pm, FREE admission.

  • Best English Book:
  • The Feast: A Collection of Art in Black and White by Permanent Marker Art Society / Shawn O’Keefe and Harley Smart
  • In Search of Divine Styler by Ryan Somers, a.k.a. Fritz tha Cat (MudScout Press)
  • Jugsaw Youth: Two New Stories by J.B. Staniforth
  • Monsters for Real (Loveletters #1 through 11) by Jim Holyoak
  • Tattoo This Madness In by Daniel Allen Cox, Dusty Owl Press
  • The Theory of the Loser Class by Jon Paul Fiorentino, Coach House Press

Sunday, February 04, 2007

A spring workshop at the qwf!

MEMORY TRICKS: WRITING THE PERSONAL ESSAY
Eight Wednesdays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. (March 7–April 25)

1200 Atwater Avenue, Suite 3
Workshop leader: Jon Paul Fiorentino

This course will address the genre of the personal essay with a focus on humour and confessional writing. We will look at examples of successful personal essays by writers like Mark Twain, Timothy Findley, Jonathan Ames, David McGimpsey, Stuart Ross, Sarah Vowell, and David Sedaris. We will also look at some confessional poems in order to place emphasis on the artful transcription of memory.

Most of the course will be devoted to developing the skills required to write effective literary personal essays. Students will be asked to participate in a classic workshop environment and to bring energy and enthusiasm to the class. There will be a few fun in-class writing exercises as well.

We will look at how rhetorical and poetic strategies are used in personal writing. We will explore the different models of the genre. And most importantly, we will discover how we as writers can make memory work by achieving that fine balance between true documentation of memory and strategic deployment of fiction.

Some Suggested Reading:

* Ames, Jonathan. My Less Than Secret Life
* Ames, Jonathan, What's Not to Love?
* McGimpsey, David. Certifiable
* Ross, Stuart. Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer
* Sedaris, David. Barrel Fever
* Sedaris, David. Naked
* Vowell, Sarah. The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Jon Paul Fiorentino is a writer, editor and teacher. His personal essays have recently appeared in Word, Geist, sub-Terrain, and on CBC Radio One's All in a Weekend. He is the author of The Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books, 2006), Asthmatica (Insomniac Press, 2005), and Hello Serotonin (Coach House Books, 2004). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologies Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (DC Books, 2003) and Post-Prairie—a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch (Talonbooks, 2005). He lives in Montreal where he teaches writing at Concordia University and is the editor of Matrix magazine.