culture
What’s On at IFOA 2011
Readings, interviews, and round tables that will set your literary heart a-flutter throughout the festival's 12-day run.
Writers & Company 20th Anniversary Celebration at IFOA 2010, featuring Deborah Eisenberg, Andrew O'Hagan, Eleanor Wachtel, Margaret Drabble, and Dionne Brand. Photo from the IFOA Facebook page.
Bookworms, start your engines. The International Festival of Authors kicked off today, and to help you see the best of the fest, we’ve previewed eight events from this year’s calendar that caught our eye.
McLUHAN 100 READING/INTERVIEW: Clay Shirky
Clay Shirky is, in many ways, an obvious candidate for the McLuhan 100 reading and interview series, a part of this year’s International Festival of Authors set to commemorate the 100th birthday of hometown hero Marshall McLuhan (perhaps you’ve heard of him?), whose groundbreaking theories on the way we communicate still influence our understanding of mass media and its role in society. Shirky, a professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, researches the messy, increasingly inextricable relationship between social and technological networks. He’ll be reading from his latest book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, which essentially argues that the digital age has made us better and more creative. Attendees are advised to bring smelling salts for the ink-on-paper diehard set. (Kelli Korducki)
Catch renowned alternative comic artist Daniel Clowes, in conversation with cartoonist Seth, in an event hosted by Mariko Tamaki, co-creator of the graphic novel Skim. If that sentence alone isn’t enough to get the comic nerd in you excited, then maybe this isn’t the event for you, because fanboys and fangirls will be all over this one. From the snarky, coming-of-age Ghost World to his most recent graphic novel, Wilson, plus the recent hardcover reprint of fan favourite The Death-Ray, Clowes will—well, we don’t know exactly what he’ll discuss, but we’re sure it will be subversive yet relatable, an insight into what makes this iconic artist so respected in the international literary and artistic community. (Laura Godfrey)
READING/INTERVIEW: Joe Dunthorne and Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead and Joe Dunthorne are two fairly young authors currently seated at the cool kids’ table of the literary cafeteria, both having achieved early success with ambitious, humour-laced prose. Following Whitehead’s 1999 debut novel, The Intuitionist, John Updike remarked: “The young African-American writer to watch may well be a thirty-one-year-old Harvard graduate with the vivid name of Colson Whitehead.” Dunthorne’s debut, 2008’s Submarine, was showered with praise by virtually everyone before promptly being made into a film. The two present from their newest works, Whitehead from his post-apocalyptic horror novel, Zone One, and Dunthorne his latest, Wild Abandon, with interviews by CBC Radio One’s Day 6 host Brent Bambury. (Kelli Korducki)
READING/INTERVIEW: Gary Shteyngart
Jian Ghomeshi interviews novelist Gary Shteyngart, who, in addition to starring in a series of hilarious, self-mocking online book trailers alongside the likes of Paul Giamatti and James Franco, was included in the New Yorker‘s 2010 list of the top “20 under 40” fiction writers for his latest novel, the acclaimed Super Sad True Love Story. The political satire skews a dystopic future America where books are reviled and people wear digital apparati (appropriately called “äppäräts” by the functionally illiterate society) that list their net worth and “fuckability” rating, among other overshare-y details that read only slightly stranger than reality. Shteyngart is quick on his feet in interviews, so this should be good.(Kelli Korducki)
ROUND TABLE: Magic, Myth, and Forces Beyond Reason
Seedy underground magicians, a mysterious black and white circus, an ancient conspiracy in the oldest inhabited place on Earth—this is the stuff of fantasy and myth. In this round table, up-and-coming authors Lev Grossman (The Magician King, the sequel to The Magicians), Erin Morgenstern (with her debut novel The Night Circus), and Simon Toyne (Sanctus) will discuss “the imagined world and its boundless possibilities,” in a conversation moderated by author Lesley Livingston (the Wondrous Strange trilogy).
“Boundless possibilities,” they say! Having recently rewatched Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, we’re hoping that an on-stage re-enactment of a bitter magicians’ rivalry results in dozens and dozens of Hugh Jackman clones. But either way, we’re looking forward to hearing where inspiration comes from for these promising writer—surely not thin air. (Laura Godfrey)
READING/INTERVIEW: Gloria Vanderbilt
Gloria Vanderbilt is known for a lot of things: she’s a member of the American Vanderbilt railroad dynasty, designed jeans that everyone really liked in the ’70s, and is CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s mother. What many may not realize is that Vanderbilt is also a writer, having published four memoirs, a trio of novels, and a collection of poetry. She comes to the festival of authors with The Things We Fear Most, a collection of stories, with interviewers Seamus O’Regan (of CTV’s Canada AM, and Bravo’s The O’Regan Files and Arts & Minds) and Meaghan Strimas (editor of The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen) behind the wheel. (Kelli Korducki) CANCELLED
Gender roles are a hot-button issue, and we’re curious to see what will come of this round table discussion about “women and the personal and political choices their characters have made for love and marriage.” The event, moderated by Globe and Mail columnist Katrina Onstad, brings together authors Linda Grant (We Had It So Good), Tessa McWatt (Vital Signs), and Gayla Reid (Come From Afar), and gives these literary ladies the chance to talk about the choices and motivations—good or bad—of their female characters. Bring on the debates! (Laura Godfrey)
Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalists
As Canada’s biggest literary prize financially, and one of the most respected, the Giller Prize is kind of a big deal. And when else are you going to get a chance to see all six shortlisted authors in one place, reading from their books? This year’s winner will be announced on November 8, but at this event, you could end up rubbing elbows with David Bezmorgis (The Free World), Lynn Coady (The Antagonist), Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers), Esi Edugyan (Half Blood Blues), Zsuzsi Gartner (Better Living Through Explosives), and IFOA poster boy Michael Ondaatje (The Cat’s Table). This reading, hosted by the CBC’s Carol Off, could be your chance to say you saw them before they hit it big (though in some cases, it’s already much too late for that). (Laura Godfrey)
Author images courtesy of IFOA.