welcome to
common readings
2013
December 16th, 2013 - 8pm
A wintery session, with three special readers, two of whom hail from Kingston!
Sadiqa de Meijer,
Sarah Tsiang
Larissa Diakiw.
Sadiqa de Meijer was born in Amsterdam and moved to Canada as a child. Her poetry, short stories and essays have been published in a range of journals and anthologies, including The Malahat Review, Geist, Riddle Fence and Poetry Magazine. Her first book of poems is Leaving Howe Island (Oolichan Books). A selection from the manuscript won the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012.
Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang is the author of the poetry books Status Update (2013) and Gerald Lampert award winning Sweet Devilry (2011). She is also the author of several children’s books, including A Flock of Shoes and Warriors and Wailers. Sarah’s work been published and translated internationally, as well as named to the OLA Best Bets for Children 2010, Best Books for Kids & Teens 2011 & 2012, and the Toronto Public Library’s First and Best Book List (2012). She is also the editor of the anthology Desperately Seeking Susans, and the forthcoming Tag: Canadian Poets at Play.
Larissa Diakiw is a writer and installation artist. She studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, has been published on Joyland: Hub for Fiction and various independent literary publications. She passed the winter cycling from Rome to Istanbul and is working on a play.
(photo cred: Elisa Julia Gilmour)
November 18th, 2013 - 8pm
Jess Taylor
Marc Di Saverio
Allison LaSorda
Jess Taylor is the host and founder of the Emerging Writers Reading Series (www.ewreading.com). She writes poems, stories, novels, and songs. Sometimes she draws and paints. She co-edited Echolocation Magazine and blogs for The Puritan’s Town Crier. Most recently, her work was published in Little Fiction, Great Lakes Review, and Emerge Literary Journal. Jess just graduated from The University of Toronto’s English in the Field of Creative Writing Master’s Program. For more information, check out www.jesstaywriter.com.
Marc di Saverio hails from Hamilton, Ontario. His poetry and translations have appeared in such outfits as The Dalhousie Review, Misunderstandings, Modern Haiku, Haiku Scotland and Maisonneuve Magazine. Recently, Simply Haiku named him one of “the top ten world’s finest living English haiku poets for 2011”. In September of this year, he published his debut collection, Sanatorium Songs, with Palimpsest Press.
Allison LaSorda currently lives in Peterborough. Her poetry has appeared in Canadian journals like the Riddle Fence, Literary Review of Canada, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, PRISM international, and Grain. Her first collection is forthcoming in 2014 with Guernica Editions.
September 23rd, 2013 - 8pm
Nyla Matuk
Mike Sauve
Caitlin Laura Galway
Nyla Matuk is the author of Sumptuary Laws, a first book of poems, published in 2012, and Oneiric, a chapbook which appeared in 2009. Her poems have appeared in a number of Canadian literary journals as well as The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2012. Poems were shortlisted for the 2012 Walrus Poetry Prize and Sumptuary Laws was nominated for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for a best first book of poetry.
Mike Sauve has written non-fiction for The National Post, The Toronto International Film Festival Group, Exclaim Magazine and other publications. His online fiction has appeared everywhere from Feathertale, Frost Writing, and McSweeney’s to university journals of moderate renown. Stories have also appeared in print in M-Brane, Criminal Class Review, Filling Station, and elsewhere.
He is the owner of three Dobermans, and, as of last month, six horses.
Caitlin Galway is a Toronto-based fiction writer. She is the recipient of numerous grants (including the 2012 Canada Council for the Arts Grant), and prizes (including Riddle Fence’s 2011 Short Fiction Contest and CBC’s 2011 Stranger than Fiction Contest). She was also shortlisted for Glimmer Train ’s 2010 Fiction Open Contest and Matrix Magazine’s 2011 Litpop Award, and was a finalist for the 2012 Gloria Vanderbilt Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous journals (including the Broken Social Scene anthology), and her first novel, Blackbird, is available from Aqueous Books. She has just signed with the Bukowski Agency for her second novel.
July 3rd, 2013 - 8pm
Leigh Kotsilidis
Jacob McArthur Mooney
Matthew Tierney
Guest host: Daniel Kincade Renton
Leigh Kotsilidis grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Her poems have appeared in several literary journals and Canadian anthologies, including the Best Canadian Poetry 2012. In 2009 and 2010 she was selected as a Finalist for the CBC Literary Awards. She is also co-founder of littlefishcartpress and Fish Quill Poetry Boat. Hypotheticals, her first full length poetry collection, was published by Coach House books in the Fall of 2011. She currently makes ends meet as a freelance graphic designer.
Jacob McArthur Mooney is the author of The New Layman's Almanac (McClelland & Stewart, 2008) and Folk (same, 2011), which was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award in Poetry and Dylan Thomas Prize. He hosts the Pivot Reading Series biweekly at The Press Club on Dundas West.
Matthew Tierney is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent is Probably Inevitable. His previous book, The Hayflick Limit, was shortlisted for a Trillium Book Award. He is a former recipient of the K.M. Hunter Award, and has placed his poems in numerous journals and magazines across Canada. He lives in Toronto.
June 5th, 2013 - 8pm
Deena Kara Shaffer
Blaise Moritz
Helen Guri
Deena Kara Shaffer’s debut poetry collection, The Grey Tote, published by the Signal Editions imprint of Véhicule Press, was short-listed for the Marina Nemat Award and long-listed for Simon Fraser’s first book competition. Currently on maternity leave from her position as Learning Specialist at Ryerson University, Deena lives in Toronto with her husband and baby girl Evelyn.
Blaise Moritz lives in East Toronto. His new book is Zeppelin (Nightwood Editions, 2013). He is the author of one previous collection, Crown and Ribs (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2007). http://blaisemoritz.com/
Helen Guri's book of poetry, Match, published by Coach House in 2011, was shortlisted for the Trillium Award. She writes an intermittent column on poetry for Hazlitt (a website run by Random House of Canada) and, to pay for all of this, works as an editor (books, public policy reports, and, once, a men's clothing catalogue).
May 1st, 2013 - 8pm
David Seymour, Adrienne Barrett, and Jeff Latosik
David Seymour's first book, Inter Alia (Brick Books, 2005) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award. His Second, For Display Purposes Only, was released this spring from Coach House Books. He lives in Toronto, where he works in the film industry.
Adrienne Barrett is a writer and freelance bricklayer living in Woodstock, Ontario. Her first poetry collection, The house is still standing, entered bookhood the other day, courtesy of Gooselane Editions. It contains a number of poems written from the points of view of well-known figures - Jackie Chan, Susan Sontag, Barack Obama among them - remembering their childhoods.
Jeff Latosik has had recent poems in the Walrus and the Malahat Review. He lives in Toronto where he teaches english at Humber College. His first book Tiny, Frantic, Stronger received the Trillium award for poetry. He is at work on a new book.
Come for the words and the wine!
April 3rd, 2013 at 8pm
::featuring::
Alayna Munce
Molly Lynch
Nadia Bozak
prepare yourselves early for these first three readers of spring!
Alayna Munce’s poetry and prose have appeared in magazines and literary journals across the county. In 2003 she won a prize in the CBC Literary Awards, and in 2004 she was featured in the anthology Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets. Her first novel, When I Was Young and in My Prime (Nightwood Editions, 2005) appeared on the national bestseller list for Canadian fiction, on CBC Radio’s Between the Covers, and was nominated for a Trillium Book Award. Alayna grew up in Huntsville, Ontario, and has spent many years in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto. She is currently working as an editor and the production manager for Brick Books, while wrestling a new novel.
Nadia Bozak teaches creative writing at Carleton University in Ottawa. Publications include a novel, Orphan Love, and a work of film theory, The Cinematic Footprint: Lights, Camera, Natural Resources. Nadia's second novel, El Niño, is forthcoming with House of Anansi Press in spring 2014. A story from an as-yet unpublished collection called Thirteen Shells will appear in the November issue of The Walrus magazine.
Molly Lynch grew up in BC and went to high school in Dublin, Ireland. She traveled through Syria and Lebanon and further east, without a guidebook, in a time before the internet. She worked and wrote in Spain for a couple of years. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies and she has non-fiction forthcoming in summer and fall issues of both The Walrus and Maisonneuve. She currently writes and teaches in Toronto, but will soon be moving to Baltimore to attend the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. She has recently finished her first novel.
March 6th, 2013 - 8pm
::featuring::
Irene Marques
Angel Beyde
last guest TBA
February 6th, 2013
Wednesday readings by:
Jesse Huisken,
Simon Rogers,
+ 1
Jesse Huisken is a writer, artist and bookseller based in Toronto. He is currently working on an experimental prose exploration of Toronto's urban geography, as well as a variety of art and sound works involving painting, photography and electronics.
Simon Patrick Rogers is a Toronto based writer and archivist. His fiction and non-fiction works have appeared in various magazines and websites. He is currently developing a collection of modern fables somewhat in the tradition of early twentieth century popular magazine and newspaper writing.
January 9th, 2013
David Goldstein & Jonathan Pappo & Malcolm Sutton
David B. Goldstein’s poems regularly appear in journals across North America, including The Malahat Review, filling Station, CV2, Jubilat, Octopus, and The Paris Review. His first chapbook, Been Raw Diction, came out with Dusie Press in 2006. His first full-length collection, Laws of Rest, will be published by BookThug next fall, and a second chapbook, Object Permanence, is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse. He holds grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and Social Science and Humanities Research Council. He is also an active literary critic, whose first scholarly book, Eating and Ethics in Early Modern England, will be published this summer. He’s written articles on Shakespeare, Emmanuel Levinas, Robert Duncan, and Martha Stewart, among others, and was a former editor at Saveur Magazine. He is currently Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at York University.
Jonathan Pappo is an emerging writer based in Toronto, compiling a short graphic fiction collection in collaboration with illustrator Andrei Anghelescu. In his spare time, he is sleeping and looking for full time work.
Malcolm Sutton is the temporary host of Readings at the Common. He is fiction editor at BookThug Press, and the founding editor of The Coming Envelope, BookThug's semi-annual journal of experimental prose. His writing has appeared most recently in Le Merle, Gone Lawn, and Drunken Boat.
