January and February warm up with words
Dear January
I’m almost through with your wintery smile. I’ve told you over and over again that if you didn’t warm up to me I’d leave you for February. But you just keep giving me the cold shoulder. Remember the fun we had on New Year’s Eve? Let’s rekindle our chilly relationship over some fiery words.
Loneliness be gone. Samantha Warwick from the Writers Guild of Alberta teams up with Robyn Read of the University of Calgary Creative Writing Research Group for A Literary Roundtable for the Bookish Community an info session about Calgary’s lit scene on January 28 at 7 p.m. at the Barley Mill Eeatery and Pub. To RSVP email Read at rjread@ucalgary.ca .
Nothing like a little slam to warm your hands. Two-time Calgary SLAM! teamster Jen Kunlire will share the stage with Sheri-D Wilson as hosts of the January SLAM! & Open Mic . Ify Chiwetelu will open as the fabulous Sacrificial Poet. Why is SLAM! capitalized and accompanied by an exclamation point? Be there and find out on January 28 8 p.m. at the Auburn Saloon.
Passion definitely gets the heat flowing. Passion Pitch Poetry will feature poetess Melvina Germain plus an open mic. Bring your own work and read it aloud. If the winter air doesn’t colour your cheeks performing will. Arrive at 7:45 p.m. to sign up for the open mic. January 30 8 p.m. at per.spec.tive gallery. There is a $5 cover charge.
Gregory Betts launches his phenomenal reworking of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 150 The Others Raisd in Me (Pedlar Press) at this month’s cozy Flywheel . Join filling Station’s Stephanie Davis as she hosts Betts along with local poets Ross Priddle Josh Barsky and Lori D. Roadhouse. Thursday February 4 7:30 p.m. at Pages Books on Kensington.
Hooray for Hiromi! It’s the sort of name that warms your tongue. Hiromi Goto writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta joins us via the Markin-Flanagan program for a reading at the University of Calgary’s Nickle Arts Museum on February 4 at 7:30 p.m.
The Calgary Writing Collective welcomes you to take shelter against threatening weather and other harsh elements. It’s a friendly and eclectic meet-up for writers at any stage of a literary project. Bring anything you wish to share and a notebook. Yet another way to beat that flaky January. February 9 7 p.m. at the Auburn Saloon.
While fiction author Betty Jane Hegeret recently left her post as the Calgary Public Library’s writer-in-residence you can still have your work scrutinized at the library by Lori Hahnel the current Canadian Authors Association writer-in-residence. For more information contact cwir@canauthorsalberta.ca . The program runs until April.
Look for a new Lit city every second and fourth Thursday of the month. Send literary events info to litcity.ffwd @gmail.com . Also don’t forget to check literary event listings toward the back of this paper.
Excerpt from “Leading Men” a story in Nothing Sacred by Lori Hahnel 2009 Thistledown Press.
As I listened to “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” it struck me that all my serious romantic interests resembled Harpo Marx in one way or another. David had his general build his sinewy arms a similar nose and curly hair (though black and not a wig) and played clarinet not the harp. Still. Sean had looked a bit like Harpo though his hair was red. And he’d been pretty quiet. He wasn’t around long enough to tell what he might have said given the chance. Luke had been the most Harpoesque of all. Actually with his glasses on he’d reminded me of a tall blond Woody Allen if you can picture that. When he took his glasses off he was a ringer for Harpo. He could even pull a Gookie that weird expression Harpo modeled after a cigar roller in his Lower East Side neighbourhood. And then Luke was trying to break into standup last I heard. So all of my boyfriends reminded me of Harpo in some way except for Kirk.
Kirk was unlike anyone I’d ever been interested in before. He looked a little like a blond Paul McCartney kind of a dirty blond hiker Paul McCartney. His blue eyes were flecked with yellow his teeth glowed against his tanned skin. I have to say
Kirk didn’t remind me of Harpo at all.
