2020 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE*
Please note, all times listed in Atlantic Daylight Time (please adjust accordingly if taking part from from another timezone!)
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2020______________
7 p.m. Welcome In: Writers at Work
This video series will explore one of the interestingly intimate aspects of the often distancing technology we all have been using so much these past many months: a window into the homes and workspaces of those we connect with from across a screen. In this writerly Show & Tell, participating authors will show us around the place where they write, whether it's an antique desk or a kitchen table, and then tell us about their writing process.
•With guests Desmond Cole, Danny Ramadan, Anne Simpson, Amy Spurway & Marjorie Simmins
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2020______________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
5 p.m. Reading & Interview with Morgan Murray & Sheree Fitch | On CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Cape Breton
7 p.m. Festival Book Club
At this Zoom book club event, participants will have the opportunity to speak directly with local author Morgan Murray about his debut novel, Dirty Birds, asking questions, taking part in the discussion, and sharing some laughs over this wildly entertaining literary adventure.
• With guest Morgan Murray & host Frank Macdonald
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2020________________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
5 p.m. Reading & Interview with Rebecca Thomas & Andre Fenton | On CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Cape Breton
7 p.m. Writing as Resistance
This panel conversation will explore the relationships between writing, empathy, activism and anti-racism; the ways literature succeeds and fails as a tool for social change; and the role literary voices have played in 2020 in the widespread movement to confront and protest racism.
• With guests Desmond Cole, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson & host Afua Cooper
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2020____________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
5 p.m. Reading & Interview with Souvankham Thammavongsa & Mary Louise Bernard | On CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Cape Breton
7 p.m. The Joy of Reading
This panel conversation will explore the parallel art to writing—reading—and the books that influenced and inspire the panellists, discussing all that we go looking for when we open a book.
• With guests Marina Endicott, Marjorie Simmins, Souvankham Thammavongsa & host Rebecca Silver Slayter
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2020________________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
5 p.m. Reading & Interview with Danny Ramadan & Amy Spurway | On CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Cape Breton
7 p.m. Story as Medicine
This panel conversation will discuss how each of the authors’ most recent books explore solace, recovery, or redress in some sense, examining the power of words to heal...
• With guests Sheree Fitch, Anne Simpson, Rebecca Thomas & host Rebecca Silver Slayter
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020__________________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
5 p.m. Reading & Interview with Marina Endicott & Ian Williams | On CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Cape Breton
7 p.m. Reading Series, Vol.1
An evening of readings by our festival authors. With a short yoga intermission by Susan Paddon.
• With guests Rebecca Thomas, Danny Ramadan, Amy Spurway, Marjorie Simmins, Afua Cooper, Joshua Whitehead, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Marina Endicott, Desmond Cole & host Jared Bland
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2020_______________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
10 a.m. Now Breathe, Stretch & Write: Writing as Contemplative Practice
A 90-minute Zoom workshop for all levels ages 17 and up: “Isn’t all writing a contemplative practice? Well, yes and no. I'll offer guided exercises in a hands on writing workshop, using poetry as prompts, using breath and silence as a way to uncover voices and vision. But don't let the soberness of the word ‘contemplation’ mislead you. This is a (word) playshop as well as workshop. Your only task will be to fill your page with first burst beginnings of things, take away something you may want to work on or use on a work in progress, whether prose or poetry. Time for questions at end—hopefully!”
• With workshop leader Sheree Fitch.
10 a.m. Finding Your Story: A Memoir Workshop
A 2-hour Zoom workshop: “How do you find the memoir you were born to write? And how do we write the best, most original memoirs we can? Let's talk about the nuts and bolts of the genre (structure), and the stories themselves (content and themes).”
• With workshop leader Marjorie Simmins.
2 p.m. Soundtrack for a Walk Where You Are
A downloadable podcast of poetry and music that explores our relationship to the land. We invite participants to venture outside and listen to this recording while taking a walk in your own landscape, wherever you live, so we can enjoy a shared listening experience together from all our various corners of the world. (And if you like, send us a picture of what you see on your walk!)
• by Shalan Joudry & Katherena Vermette
7 p.m. Reading Series, Vol.2
An evening of readings by our festival authors. With a short yoga intermission by Susan Paddon.
• With guests Mary Louise Bernard, Andre Fenton, Morgan Murray, Sheree Fitch, Anne Simpson, Megan Gail Coles, Katherena Vermette, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Ian Williams & host Jared Bland
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2020_________________
9 a.m. Daily Writing Prompt | On website, Facebook & Twitter
9:30 a.m. What Makes a Good Opening in Fiction?
A 2.5-hour Zoom fiction workshop: What makes the opening of a story or novel vivid? How can characters come alive from the start? What is the question your story or novel poses—the reason it needs to be told? Anne Simpson will look at what can make your short story or first chapter of a novel come to life. She’ll focus on what drives the characters into the developing story from the beginning.
• With workshop leader Anne Simpson.
10 a.m. Introduction to Playwriting
A 2-hour character-driven playwriting workshop on Zoom focusing on dramatic voice, for participants who are already working on writing a play.
• With workshop leader Megan Gail Coles.
2 p.m. Heard in the Highlands: Cape Breton Out Loud!
This socially distanced outdoor, in-person reading will feature local writers sharing stories of the island. It will take place at the Lake-O-Law Provincial Park, at 4830 Cabot Trail Hwy 19, Lake-O-Law, N.S., overlooking a beautiful view of the lake and highlands.
• With authors Morgan Murray, Mary Louise Bernard, Amy Spurway, & Marjorie Simmin; musical guests Morgan Toney & Mary Beth Carty; & host Rebecca Silver Slayter.
7 p.m. Writing & Community
Our closing festival event, this panel will discuss community among writers, with readers, one's home community, identity communities.... and all the ways these communities support, inspire, challenge, and inform the stories writers tell.
• With guests Ian Williams, Danny Ramadan, Megan Gail Coles & host Andrea Currie
2020 FEATURED ARTISTS
Ian Williams
is the author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning Reproduction. He is also the author of Personals, shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award; Not Anyone's Anything, winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada; and You Know Who You Are, a finalist for the ReLit Prize for poetry. Williams completed his Ph.D. in English at the University of Toronto, mentored by George Elliot Clarke, and is currently an assistant professor of poetry in the Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia. He was the 2014-2015 Canadian Writer-in-Residence for the University of Calgary's Distinguished Writers Programme. He has held fellowships or residencies from the Banff Center, Vermont Studio Center, Cave Canem, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Palazzo Rinaldi in Italy. He was also a scholar at the National Humanities Center Summer Institute for Literary Study and is a judge for the 2018 Griffin prize. His writing has appeared in several North American journals and anthologies.
Marina Endicott’s
novel Good to a Fault won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Canada and the Caribbean, and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her next, The Little Shadows, was short-listed for the Governor General’s award and long-listed for the Giller Prize, as was her last book, Close to Hugh. Endicott is the recipient of a 2020 Atlantic Book Award for her latest novel, The Difference.
Rebecca Thomas
is an award-winning Mi’kmaw poet. She is Halifax’s former Poet Laureate (2016–2018) and has been published in multiple journals and magazines. She coordinated the Halifax Slam Poetry team from 2014 to 2017, leading them to three national competitions with the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. In 2019 she published her first book, I’m Finding My Talk, illustrated by Pauline Young, which was named a CBC and Globe & Mail Best Book and shortlisted for the Ann Connor Brimer Award and the APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award.
Morgan Murray
was born and raised on a farm near the same west-central Alberta village as figure-skating legend Kurt Browning (Caroline). He now lives, works, plays, writes, and builds all sorts of crooked furniture in Cape Breton. In between, he has been a professional schemer, a farmer, a rancher, a roustabout, a secretary, a reporter, a designer, a Tweeter, and a student in St. John’s, Calgary, Prague, Montreal, Chicoutimi, and Paris. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Studies from the University of Calgary, a Certificate in Central and Eastern European Studies from the University of Economics, Prague, a Master of Philosophy in Humanities from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a participation ribbon for beef-calf showmanship (incomplete) from the Little Britches 4-H Club.
Andre Fenton
is an award-winning author, spoken-word artist, and arts educator. He has represented Halifax at seven national poetry festivals across Canada, and his award-winning debut novel, Worthy of Love, was published in 2018. Andre’s work focuses on race, self-esteem, and creating more representation in young adult fiction. Annaka is Andre’s second novel. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Marjorie Simmins
is an award-winning journalist, her most recent win being a Gold Medal at the 2020 Atlantic Journalism Awards for best article in Arts and Entertainment, Any Medium. Simmins is also the author of three non-fiction titles: Coastal Lives, a memoir about living on Canada’s East and West Coasts (Pottersfield Press, 2014); Year of the Horse (PP, 2016), which details her life with horses in British Columbia and Nova Scotia; and Memoir: Conversations and Craft (PP 2020). Simmins’s fourth title, Somebeachsomewhere: A Harness Racing Legend from a One-Horse Stable, is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2021, with Nimbus Publishing.
Desmond Cole
is the author of the number one bestseller The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. He is an award-winning journalist, radio host, and activist in Toronto and his writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, The Walrus, NOW Magazine, Ethnic Aisle, Torontoist, BuzzFeed, and the Ottawa Citizen.
Souvankham Thammavongsa
is the author of four poetry books and the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife (McClelland & Stewart, 2020), longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and Granta. She lives in Toronto.
Megan Gail Coles
is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, National Theatre School of Canada and University of British Columbia. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Poverty Cove Theatre Company for whom she has written and produced numerous award-winning NL plays. Her first short fiction collection, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome, won the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award and earned her the Writers’ Trust of Canada 5×5 prize. Her debut novel, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, a contender for CBC Canada Reads and recently won the BMO Winterset Award. Originally from Savage Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Megan lives in St. John's where she is the Executive Director of Riddle Fence and a PhD candidate at Concordia University.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician, and a member of Alderville First Nation. She is the author of five books; This Accident of Being Lost (MacEwan Book of the Year, Peterborough Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement by an Indigenous Author, finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award, longlisted for CBC Canada Reads, a best book of the year by the Globe & Mail, National Post, and Quill & Quire) As We Have Always Done, This Accident of Being Lost, Islands of Decolonial Love, The Gift Is In The Making, and Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. She has released two albums, including f(l)ight, which is a companion piece to This Accident of Being Lost.
Anne Simpson
has published three novels: Speechless, Canterbury Beach, and Falling, longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. She has also written five poetry collections, of which Strange Attractor is the most recent. She won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Loop in 2004. Her book of essays, The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness, examines poetry, art, and philosophy. Simpson has worked as a writer-in-residence at libraries and universities across the country. She lives in Nova Scotia.
Danny Ramadan
is an award-winning Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and LGBTQ-refugees activist. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won multiple awards. His children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef, was published in March 2020. Danny is graduating his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.
Katherena Vermette
is a Métis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Métis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her NFB short documentary, this river, won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. Her first novel, The Break, is the winner of three Manitoba Book Awards and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and CBC Canada Reads.
Sheree Fitch
is a multi-award-winning writer, speaker, educator and the author of over 30 books in a variety of genres, including, most recently, You Won’t Always Be This Sad and Summer Feet, and the forthcoming Because We Love, We Cry. Since the publication of her first book, Toes in My Nose in 1987, she’s travelled the globe as a visiting poet and storyteller, writing instructor and literacy educator. A popular presenter at literary festivals, libraries, and conferences, Fitch has received the Vicky Metcalf Award for a body of work inspirational to Canadian children and three honorary doctorates for her contribution to Canadian literature and issues affecting women and children. She owns Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe and Dreamery, a seasonal book shoppe in rural Nova Scotia.
Joshua Whitehead
is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer, Jonny Appleseed, and the forthcoming Making Love with the Land to be released with Knopf Canada in 2021. Currently, his edited anthology, Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction is slated to release in Fall 2020 from Arsenal Pulp Press. Whitehead is an ABD doctoral student at the University of Calgary (Treaty 7) where he focusses on Indigenous literatures and cultures.
Afua Cooper
is a poet, and historian of slavery and freedom. A former poet laureate of Halifax, she has authored multiple works. Her most recent book of poetry is Black Matters: Poetry and Photography in Dialogue (Roseway, 2020). She is currently professor of Black studies and history at Dalhousie University.
Amy Spurway
was born and raised on Cape Breton, where, at the age of 11, she landed her first writing and performing gigs with CBC Radio. She has worked as a communications consultant, editor, speech-writer, and performer. Her writing has appeared in Today's Parent, the Toronto Star, Babble, and Elephant Journal. She lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Mary Louise Bernard
is the former chief of the Wagmatcook First Nation, a Parks Canada Interpreter and the author of children’s story Sweetwater Maiden: The Mi'kmaw Legend of Maple Syrup, which is available in Mi’kmaw, French, Gaelic and English. She developed Sweetwater Maiden into an interpretive program offered during the visitor season at Cape Breton Highlands National Park. She is now working on a second children’s book, a bilingual story of the little people that live in the Cape Breton highlands, known to the Mi’kmaq as the Wiklatmu’j.
Shalan Joudry
is a narrative artist working in many mediums. She is a poet, playwright, podcast producer, oral storyteller and actor, as well as a cultural interpreter. Her first book of poetry, Generations Re-merging, was published by Gaspereau Press (2014) and her second book, Elapultiek, was published by Pottersfield Press (2019). Her next collection of poetry, Waking Ground, is also coming out with Gaspereau Press (fall 2020). Shalan has shared her poetry, oral storytelling and drum singing with numerous stages, events, schools and organizations for the past decade. Shalan also facilitates cultural and ecological professional development workshops. She lives in her home territory of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia) with her family in their community of L’sətkuk (Bear River First Nation).
Shalan will share stories and readings in the audio recording Soundtrack for a Walk Where You Are.
Rose Meuse,
a Native flute player, is from Bear River First Nation community and is married with four beautiful children that range from the ages 31 to 7. She is a home school mom and her passion is her L’nu [Mi’kmaw] language and flute music. She plays in many different types of venues, including spiritual retreats and community events.
Rose plays flute on the audio recording Soundtrack for a Walk Where You Are.
Morgan Toney
is a twenty-one year old Mi’kmaq Fiddle Player. Playing the fiddle for just over a year, Morgan has touched the hearts of many in the Mi’kmaq Nation and throughout Nova Scotia. He is a Music Major at Cape Breton University, and has took lessons from Stan Chapman and Kyle MacNeil. Morgan has written a dozen of his own compositions, which he dedicates to other people. He has taken Mi’kmaq Songs which are usually sung accompanied by a drum, and had brought it to the Fiddle.
Morgan will perform with Mary Beth at Heard in the Highlands: Cape Breton Out Loud!
Mary Beth Carty,
with an accordion, a guitar, and a stomping board, is a rare gem. Her first solo album was nominated for a 2018 ECMA and is described by The East magazine as “one of the most fun and exciting albums we’ve heard this year.” She’s performed in Continental Europe, Central Africa, and throughout Canada. The UK’s fRoots Magazine describes her as “a solid instrumentalist of outstanding calibre whose passionate voice rings in your head long after you have stopped listening.” Born and raised in Lanark, Antigonish County, Mary Beth is a sought-after guitar accompanist for fiddler players. Mary Beth plays with a percussive, dynamic style in DADGAD tuning with a keen ear and a lot of passion! She is excited to accompany her friend Morgan Toney at this year's festival!
Mary Beth and Morgan will perform at Heard in the Highlands: Cape Breton Out Loud!
Jared Bland
is the publisher of McClelland & Stewart, and a vice president of Penguin Random House Canada, where he works with a broad range of authors such as Margaret Atwood, Linda Spalding, Michael Ondaatje, Omar El Akkad, Sharon Bala, and many more. Prior to joining M&S, he was the Arts editor of The Globe & Mail. Additionally, he’s worked as a senior editor at House of Anansi press, and was the managing editor of The Walrus magazine.
Jared will host our 2020 Reading Series, Vol.1 & 2.
Andrea Currie
is Saulteaux Métis from Manitoba. She is a psychotherapist, writer, musician, and teacher. Her experience working in healing and the arts with Indigenous peoples, the African Nova Scotian community, and street-involved people have blessed her with an abundance of learning about resilience and how healing happens. She sources strength and inspiration from the wisdom and musical traditions of the Métis, Mi'kmaq, Anishnabe, and Nova Scotia Black communities, and grounds herself with ceremony and mindfulness practice.
Andrea is also a member of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival board and will moderate our Writing & Community panel.
Frank Macdonald,
columnist, poet, songwriter, playwright and novelist, was born in Inverness, Cape Breton, where he and his partner, artist Virginia McCoy, now live. For the past 30 years he has penned a weekly column as a humourist/satirist with Inverness Oran newspaper and other Maritime publications. His columns have appeared in two collections, Assuming I’m Right (Cecibu 1990), and How to Cook Your Cat (Cecibu 2003). In 1992, Mulgrave Road Theatre produced a one-man play, Assuming I’m Right, written by Macdonald depicting the a day in the life of a columnist and his cat. Macdonald’s first novel, A Forest for Calum (CBU Press), was published in 2005. A children’s novella, T.R.’s Adventure at Angus the Wheeler’s (CBU Press) was released in 2010. A second novel, A Possible Madness (CBU Press) came out in 2012. In 2015, Tinker & Blue was published.
Frank will moderate our Festival Book Club.
Rebecca Silver Slayter
is the author of In the Land of Birdfishes, which was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her second novel, The Second History, will be published by Doubleday in April 2021. Named one of CBC's Ten Writers to Watch, Rebecca is the Artistic Director of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival and an editor of Brick literary journal. She lives on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
Rebecca will moderate our panels on The Joy of Reading & Story as Medicine.