The Brockton Writers Series (BWS) is a bi-monthly literary reading series founded in in the west-end Toronto neighbourhood of Brockton in November 2009 and now held at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church St. Our vision for the series is to host writers who reflect Canadian literature and Canadian diversity. Our definition of diversity includes: established and emerging writers, writers of colour, queer writers, younger and older writers, aboriginal writers and other writers who might not always have the platform to showcase their work.
XTRA! wrote in February, 2011: “What do you get when you put together a two-spirit poet who slams the church, a senior citizen reading bloody stories about nuns and a playwright of colour cussing like a sailor? A night at the Brockton Writers Series.”
It’s this emphasis on diversity that makes BWS unique. The co-curators and volunteers of BWS manage this easily, perhaps because our own social, activist, academic and literary networks are large and include established, emerging, queer, and writers of colour. Each event includes a mix of emerging and established writers, as well as a mix of genre. For example, at our March 2013 event, we hosted a multi-media playwright, a spoken word poet (unpublished in Canada), a novelist reading from her second book, and a reviewer/journalist/first novelist.
When curating each event, we pay attention to what our line-up looks and sounds like; we’re interested in offering our audiences readings that entertain and are of high literary quality. We’re excited to showcase the writers we invite and to offer them opportunities to share their work, perhaps with a new audience.
Besides offering a literary event with high quality readings, our second mandate is to build a sense of community amongst our audience. We do this by creating a warm, welcoming environment, encouraging audience members to read at subsequent events, to volunteer, and to participate in the writers’ networking session and the event Q&A. We hope that new audience members feel comfortable enough at our events to participate in all aspects of BWS. We listen to community feedback and have adjusted BWS accordingly. This has included the addition of the writers’ networking session, the Q&A, an earlier end time and the move to a fully accessible venue.
Our audience is made up of members of the local Brockton communities as well as readers and writers from the rest of Toronto. We’ve received positive feedback about the quality and diversity of the writers and have become known as a community event worth attending.
VOLUNTEERS
Farzana Doctor, Founder
Nancy Kay Clark, Newsletter co-ordinator, curator, and host
Sonia Pathare, photographer and videographer
Emily Sanford, Grant writer, treasurer, curator, and host
Hannah Amdemichael, Blog co-ordinator, treasurer, curator, and host
Dorianne Emmerton, Twitter co-ordinator, curator, and host
WANTED: Facebook co-ordinator
VOLUNTEER ALUMNI
Melanie Janisse (co-founder)
Benjamin Hackman
May Lui
Sheila Toller
Lori Nytko
Michael Erickson (Glad Day Bookshop), book seller
Cathy Bennett
Do you still have open mic? The March description doesn’t say.
Hi Lily,
We don’t have an open mic these days. We’ve replaced the time with Q&A.
Farzana
not clear when the events take place! how do i find out?
Hi Michael,
We’re in the process of revamping this “About Us” page. Our events take place every other month, on the first or second Wednesdays. Our next event dates are May 7, July 9, Sept 10, Nov 5. We start each event at 6:30 with a writers’ networking session and the readings begin at 7:05.
Thanks for asking!
Farzana
Hi Farzana! How are you? I met Terence Go the other night, he told me about BWS and readings at Glad Day. I’d like to promote my first poetry e-book, which Glad Day’s online store carries. What’s the procedure for submitting my work to BWS for consideration? Thanks!
– Chang
How dies one get invited to be on the itinerary?
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