BWS 13.03.19: Jim Nason

Jim Nason is an author, teacher, publisher, and activist. His sixth poetry collection, Rooster, Dog, Crow was recently released with Frontenac House.  He has also published a short story collection The Girl on the Escalator and his third novel, Spirit of a Hundred Thousand Dead Animals, was recently published by Signature Editions. Jim is a Finalist for the 2018 ReLit Poetry Award.

Rooster, Dog, Crow – Jim Nason: A Few Thought-provoking Questions and a Friendly interview

The book depicts a world where upside-down politics dovetails with the carnivalesque, a love triangle unfolds between a belligerent Rooster, a happy-go-lucky meth-addicted Dog, and a gender-fluid Crow. This is my sixth poetry collection and I believe I have pushed myself to the extremes of the creative mind to depict a world that is real and surreal, a place where women, men, and animals shape-shift and trade places, intermingle within each other’s feathers, coats, and skin. Sometimes these characters are the masters of decadence and desire, other times they question the very worlds they’ve invented.  The opening poem, “Rooster Wears Stilts to the Pride Parade,” depicts a self-righteous, party-pooper bird shouting: Lower your banners, swallow your whistles! To hell with this stream of green, blue and youth.

Rooster, Dog, Crow follows the Trump campaign to an apocalyptic finale. In “Flame,” Rooster, high up on stilts, claims that he learned to swallow flames/ by watching Hillary Clinton in a bright red suit deflect Trump’s abuse and lies. Rooster says, Clinton leaned into the gap/ of the next question as if the floor were/ about to part, as if she were about to be/ swallowed – red and burning and whole.

This collection asks the reader to abandon fear and commit to a life that is ecstatic with risk. The poems in this book insist that the only wrong is an unexplored life. I invite one and all to join the parade with its full range of costumed marchers, banal banners, and erogenous, music-thumping floats.

In anticipation of the Brockton Reading Series on March 13th,  I send the following questions that will allow you to begin to understand and engage with me about my new, exciting and controversial, poetry book: Rooster, Dog, Crow.

How many dogs live on the streets of Toronto?

How many Roosters reside in a single Lethbridge Co-op?

On any given morning, just before dawn, how many crows can be seen landing on the moss-covered logs that line the English Bay shoreline?

Can Roosters speak French?

Are all teenage crows gender fluid and all city dogs at risk for opioid addiction?

I will do my best to answer these and the many questions you might have when I see you at the event. In the meantime, I wholeheartedly invite you to read the following interview about the book on rob mclennan’s blogspot.

 

Jim Nason visits Brockton Writers Series on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church Street, Toronto, starting at 6:30pm (PWYC) alongside Daniel Perry, Aparna Kaji Shah, Kim Moritsugu, and guest speaker Zoe Whittall who will  be “Talking TV and Prose.”

BWS 13.03.19: Kim Moritsugu

Kim Moritsugu‘s seven published novels to date include a Toronto Book Award finalist, an Arthur Ellis Award finalist, and her latest, The Showrunner, a Hollywood noir story that’s been optioned for TV. Kim also writes TV recaps online, and is a longtime faculty member of the Humber School for Writers.

In anticipation of her newest novel, The Shrowrunner, being optioned for TV, Kim shares the book trailer with us along with a short Q&A.

 

What genre of fiction is The Showrunner?

It’s darkly humorous, women-centric, Hollywood-noir suspense – and yes, I may have just invented that specific sub-genre.

What’s it about?

It’s a power struggle between an older TV producer and her younger producing partner that escalates after a third woman – with her own ambitions – is hired as an assistant at their production company. Those who know the classic 1950 film All About Eve will not be surprised to learn that it was, in part, an inspiration for this novel.

Why did you write this novel?

My principle objectives in writing have always been to amuse and entertain. Within a dramedy framework, I often explore relationships between women – as friends, family members, and work colleagues. This time around, I was interested in the tensions ­– and drama! – that arise when Olds are pitted against Youngs in a competitive creative industry. What’s the famous line from All About Eve? Oh yeah: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

 

Kim Moritsugu visits Brockton Writers Series on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church Street, Toronto, starting at 6:30pm (PWYC) alongside Daniel Perry, Aparna Kaji Shah, Jim Nason, and guest speaker Zoe Whittall who will  be “Talking TV and Prose.”

 

BWS 13.03.19: Daniel Perry

Daniel Perry is the author of the short story collections Nobody Looks That Young Here (Guernica, 2018), and Hamburger (Thistledown, 2016). His fiction has been short-listed for the Carter V. Cooper Prize and has appeared in more than 30 publications in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and the Czech Republic. Dan lives in Toronto, and from 2013 to 2017 was the co-host and blog co-ordinator for Brockton Writers Series. You can follow him on Twitter @danielperrysays.

 

What a pleasure it is to come back to Brockton Writers Series! A lot’s happened since the first time I read here, way back in November 2013–for one, the short story I read that night, “Comets”, found its way into my second collection, Nobody Looks That Young Here, which at the time I thought was my first book and I thought was finished, too… It was finally published last year.

Volunteering with BWS for four years changed me as a person and as a writer, and mostly because of the diverse group of talented, passionate writers and volunteers I got to know during this time. I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar faces, but also some new ones; if I don’t know you yet, then let me introduce myself by way of the interview below, from December of last year.

See you on March 13!

Ahead of his appearance, Dan shares his interview with Storylines about the inspiration behind his collection of short stories, Nobody Looks That Young Here. Click here to listen.

 

Daniel Perry visits Brockton Writers Series on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church Street, Toronto, starting at 6:30pm (PWYC) alongside Kim Moritsugu, Aparna Kaji Shah, Jim Nason, and guest speaker Zoe Whittall who will  be “Talking TV and Prose.”

 

Brockton Writers Series 13.03.19

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 – 6:30pm

Brockton Writers Series presents readings by

Daniel Perry
Kim Moritsugu
Jim Nason
Aparna Kaji Shah

with special guest speaker

Zoe Whittall

—

Glad Day Bookshop

499 Church Street, Toronto

The reading is PWYC (suggested $3-$5) and features a Q&A with the writers afterward. Books and refreshments are available for sale.

ACCESSIBILITY INFO
The venue is accessible. Please refrain from wearing scents.

This event will have ASL interpretation.

Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for their support.

And to the Canada Council for the Arts for travel funding!

 —

GUEST SPEAKER

“Talking TV and Prose”

Zoe Whittall is the author of the several novels and poetry books, most recently the Giller shortlisted The Best Kind of People, soon to be a film by Sarah Polley, which was Indigo Books Best Book of the Year. Her second novel Holding Still for as Long as Possible won a LAMDA literary award and was a Stonewall Honor Book, and her first novel Bottle Rocket Hearts is currently being adapted for TV. In 2018, she won a Canadian Screen Award for best comedy writing for The Baroness Von Sketch Show, and has worked on Degrassi, Schitt’s Creek and more.

 —

READERS

 

Daniel Perry is the author of the short story collections Nobody Looks That Young Here (Guernica, 2018), and Hamburger (Thistledown, 2016). His fiction has been short-listed for the Carter V. Cooper Prize and has appeared in more than 30 publications in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and the Czech Republic. Dan lives in Toronto, and from 2013 to 2017 was the co-host and blog co-ordinator for Brockton Writers Series. You can follow him on Twitter @danielperrysays.

 

 

 

Kim Moritsugu‘s seven published novels to date include a Toronto Book Award finalist, an Arthur Ellis Award finalist, and her latest, The Showrunner, a Hollywood noir story that’s been optioned for TV. Kim also writes TV recaps online, and is a longtime faculty member of the Humber School for Writers.

 

 

 

 

Jim Nason is an author, teacher, publisher, and activist. His sixth poetry collection, Rooster, Dog, Crow was recently released with Frontenac House.  He has also published a short story collection The Girl on the Escalator and his third novel, Spirit of a Hundred Thousand Dead Animals, was recently published by Signature Editions. Jim is a Finalist for the 2018 ReLit Poetry Award.

 

 

Aparna Kaji Shah’s debut collection, The Scent of Mogra and Other Stories, was published in September 2018. Her fiction and poetry have been published in anthologies. Aparna has written a novel called, Across Boundaries (unpublished). At present, she is working on another about the impact of dislocation on people’s lives.