The first Fanny Bay Fat Oyster Reading for 2019 will take place on Saturday, Jan. 26. Doors at 6:30 p.m., reading starts at 7, at the Fanny Bay Community Hall.
The three accomplished featured readers spread their writing talent across fiction and poetry.
Kelly Shepherd’s new book, Insomnia Bird, is topping the sales charts in Edmonton. It is also listed as one of the “top 18 books of 2018” by the literary omnivore Lindy Pratch. With Insomnia Bird, Kelly Shepherd establishes himself as Edmonton’s chief bricoleur, honouring and copying the bird of the title, the magpie Edmontonians know so well, with its huge nests built out of the detritus it finds everywhere in the city. As his epigraph to the whole book (stolen in magpie fashion) puts it: ‘And of these one and all, I weave the song of myself.’ Insomnia Bird builds its own nest of observations, insights, memories bad & good, & old-fashioned boosterism turned awry. Shepherd is a nuanced observer.
Amanda Hale’s Angela of the Stones is a wonderfully evocative book of linked stories set in Baracoa, Cuba. Hale’s intimate knowledge of Cuba presents Cubans through their dreams and frustrations, their daily challenges, and the manner in which they stay afloat in a sea of constant change. Ángela sleeps rough in Parque Central, dreaming her life into order, waking to another difficult day; Godofredo, the peanut vendor, limps the streets, greeting locals and tourists alike, in the small town where he has lived since his birth on the eve of the Revolution; Gertrudis ponders the testimony she must give on yet another anniversary of the 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks; Aurelia idolizes an Italian priest who is banished from Cuba in disgrace; and Daniela flies from her roof in a moment of divine spontaneity.
The series also welcomes Ecko Aleck, a sound poet with energy and grounding, to the Jan. 26 event. Aleck was born into the Nlaka’pamux Nation and adopted into the shíshálh Nation. Her traditional name Kawaya, or Blue Jay, represents laughter. She is a spoken word artist with a vision to be a voice for her people. She is trained in both Interior Salish and Coast Salish protocols. Since the age of 13 she has travelled with her father, Terry Aleck, to discuss the intergenerational traumas of residential schools as well as perform and teach Indigenous songs and dances to elementary and secondary students. Ecko Aleck was recently selected to go to the Indigenous Women’s Leadership Summit in Ottawa.
Angela of the Stones and Insomnia Bird are both new publications by Thistledown Press. The publisher, Al Forrie, will introduce Amanda and speak briefly about his role as publisher.
The Fanny Bay Community Hall is approximately six kilometres past the Buckley Bay Ferry Terminal (heading south from Courtenay) at 7793 Island Hwy S.