Canadian Authors for Indies Day, April 30: Monty Reid, Pearl Pirie etc

Authors for Indies Day (Saturday, April 30, 2016) is a day when authors show their appreciation for Canadian independent bookstores (indies). We do this by volunteering as guest booksellers for the day. When you visit an indie bookstore on AFI Day, you'll have the opportunity to meet local authors, chat with us booklover to booklover, and get book recommendations from us. Perhaps share your recommendations with us. You may buy a book or two, or just get to know your local bookstore better.

Authors are doing this to raise awareness of indie bookstores and how important they are to our communities, our reading lives, and our cultural well-being. It's a day to give some love to your local neighbourhood bookstore. 

Chaudiere authors participate in this year's Authors for Indies Day over at Perfect Books (258A Elgin Street, Ottawa)! Pearl Pirie and Monty Reid join a whole slew of Ottawa writers at Perfect Books this Saturday. Check out the list of authors and schedule below:

Rhonda Douglas (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Frances Boyle (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Pearl Pirie (12:00 pm to 1:00 pm)
Mark Frutkin (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Katherine Leyton (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Colin Morton (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
David O'Meara (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Monty Reid (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Mark Bourrie (2:00 pm to 4:00 pm)
Valerie Knowles (2:00 pm to 4:00 pm)
Charlotte Gray (2:00 pm to 4:00 pm)

Love an independent bookstore! Visit yours on Saturday, April 30, 2016!

For more information on Authors for Indies Day (including other participating bookstores and authors across Canada), check here.

National Poetry Month 2014: Rhonda Douglas,

Letter Home to My Sister, March 8th

A woman coddled in a gold collar 

necklace with matching earrings tried to sell

me a story today at a four-star

Senegalese hotel. Polite, Canadian,

I thought of you when refusing,

as she shook her gorgeous head:

“So, this is the solidarity of sisters now.”

Now, the girl bringing me drinks

at the pool is not my sister, and on

such a technicality, neither are you

so I want to know what is this state of

sisterhood now?  I think of you and me

at twenty, trading our stories, turning them

over like polished stones, your hands holding

mine through the clinics and the cramping,

your hands on the head of my baby girl

as I practiced my football hold and the goal

of connecting infant mouth and breast.

Here in Senegal, storytellers – les griots –

are buried under the Baobab tree; its hollow

mouth speaks for them when they are silent.

I think for two no-commitment girls

we’ve done quite well with this long-haul love

and I’ve meant to tell you, Sister:

I have planted a tree for you in my backyard,

and when you die you can visit yourself there

at the small opening, the mouth of the tree,

which I will cover in a thousand, tiny, shining stones.

Rhonda Douglas is the author of Some Days I Think I Know Things: The Cassandra Poems (Signature Editions, 2008 www.signature-editions.com) and the forthcoming short fiction collection Welcome to the Circus (Freehand Books, 2015 www.freehand-books.com). She is currently finishing her second poetry collection “For” and a selection of those poems were featured in The New Quarterly’s Spring 2013 issue (www.tnq.ca/magazine/126-all-sea). You can find her on Twitter: @shallicompare.

ottawa public library: a poetry reading & a workshop,

Chaudiere Books authors rob mclennan and Monty Reid will be reading as part of a group reading (along with Chris Jennings, David Groulx, Rhonda Douglas and Deanna Young) at the Main Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (120 Metcalfe Street) on Monday, October 7, 2013 at 7pm. In partnership with Versefest.

Also, rob mclennan will be running a poetry workshop at the Rosemount Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (18 Rosemount, at Wellington Street West) on Saturday, October 19, 2013 from 1-3pm. Pre-registration required.

Check here for information on either/both.