Please join us for our fall Book Club with the Author, when we will be hosting Kaie Kellough to discuss his novel Accordéon! If you've read a book and wanted to talk over what you thought and your questions with the author themselves, this is the event for you.

Accordéon is an experimental novel, a piercing deconstruction of Québécois culture, an ode to Montréal--a city where everything happens at once and all realities exist simultaneously. Against a satirical Ministry of Culture set on quotas, preservation and containment according to its own cultural code, Kellough weaves voices and images from the margins to probe collective fantasies of Québec old and new.

Kaie Kellough is a novelist, sound performer, and poet. His novel Accordéon, published in 2016, was shortlisted and written about. His work migrates between poety and fiction, between Canada, South America, and the Caribbean, and between text and sound.

Join us for the book launch of the new updated edition of Beyond Sartre and Sterility by local author Lewis S. Cattarini! Books will be available for signing, and for the launch only, at a special reduced price.

In this second edition of his book, Cattarini posits that Sartre and his philosophy of existentialism takes rationalism to its ugliest conclusion, and places us in a meaningless universe where anxiety and pessimism are inescapable. He instead argues for a view in which the soul deserves better protection, insisting that we should not become victims of any modern philosophy that would deprive us of our motivation and incentive. He invites the reader to dare again to believe that conscience precedes consciousness.

Please join us for a great lineup of local poetry, prose, and music, organized by Ilona Martonfi, entitled Song, Verse & Fun! The event costs $5 at the door.

Our readers:
Victoria LeBlanc, writer and artist, has contributed to over 40 publications on Montreal artists. Forthcoming, her first poetry book, Hold.

Mike Di Sclafani, musician and poet. Vultures (Coracle Press, 2017). Forthcoming chapbook Apothecary. bit.ly/mikedisclafani

Ilona Martonfi, her latest poetry title is The Snow Kimono (Inanna, 2015). Forthcoming, Salt Bride (Inanna, 2019). The Tempest (Inanna, 2020).

Su Sokol’s first novel, Cycling to Asylum (Deux Voiliers Publishing, 2014), was nominated for the Sunburst Award; her second novel is coming out next year.

Jeffrey Mackie is an internationally published and translated poet. He is currently an Anglican seminarian at McGill University.

Marie Dupuis, Psychologue de formation, elle anime des ateliers d'écriture. A publié trois recueils de poésie et des nombreux textes dans des revues littéraires.

Shaheen Munir, Writer and women’s rights activist will sing Tagore Songs of Noble Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

Matthew Murphy, Teacher & author of a first novel, A Beckoning War (Baraka Books, 2016) http://www.murphilinear.com Twitter @murphilinear

Rae Marie Taylor, Spoken Word Poet, author of The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope, is now back in Montreal!

Jonathan Kaplansky is a literary translator from French. His stories have been translated by Hélène Rioux for XYZ : la revue de la nouvelle.

Maxianne Berger writes in Japanese genres and OuLiPo constraints. Her 2016 haiku collection, Winnows, is a radical erasure of Moby Dick.

The fall edition of our Japan Book Club, conducted in collaboration with the JET Alumni Association of Quebec and Atlantic Canada, will feature a new translation of the Japanese sci-fi classic Hybrid Child by Mariko Ohara. As a special treat, the book's translator, Jodie Beck, will be joining us for the discussion!
 

Hybrid Child is a classic of Japanese speculative fiction that blurs the line between consumption and creation when a cyborg assumes the form and spirit of a murdered child, Jonah. In another thread, on faraway Planet Caritas, an outpost of human civilization, the female AI system that governs society has become insane. Meanwhile, the threat of the Adiaptron Empire, the machine race that #3 was built to fight, grows stronger.

This book has a fairy tale-like quality, and considers the distance between many dualities: mind and body, child and mother, infinitesimal and infinite. It promises to be a great discussion! You don't have to have read the book to come, but there will be spoilers. On top of that, there'll be Japanese refreshments. Hope to see you there!

Join us for a reading of the new book Polyamorous by Jenny Yuen, followed by a conversation with Q&A with Guardian columnist and Girls Will Be Girls author Dr. Emer O'Toole, associate professor at Concordia University in the Department of Irish studies, and a book signing.

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A look at how people are giving themselves a choice to love another way.

“The heart is not like a box that gets filled up, but expands in size the more you love.”

Enlightened words you wouldn’t expect to hear from the computer in the movie Her, but it also rings true for humans. More people than ever are exploring the possibility of opening up their relationships — and not only that, they are fighting for their legal rights to love however and whomever they choose.

In Polyamorous, reporter Jenny Yuen digs into why open relationships are such a hot topic, why they’re becoming more normalized, and how relationships with multiple partners can be a practical alternative to monogamy and an intriguing expedition through uncharted emotional territory. Couples are clearing a path for “throuples,” “quads,” and “relationship anarchists” who navigate through jealousy and reach a place of “compersion” — feeling joy because your partner feels joy with another — as pairing off is no longer the default option for many. For some, polyamory is just a part of who they are.

Poly is love. Infinite.

Join author Lucas Crawford with Triny Finlay to celebrate the publication of The High Line Scavenger Hunt with an evening of scintillating poetry.

The High Line Scavenger Hunt is a poetic search for the ruins and relics of what was New York's high line neighbourhood and is now the High Line park. These poems lean into this fraught space that straddles violent gentrification and erased queer histories, braiding together architecture, autobiography, and transgender history into a remarkable collection. It is essential reading for any urban misfit, intellectual outlier, and every queered heart.

Lucas Crawford is a professor of English Literature at the University of New Brunswick. He is the author of The High Line Scavenger Hunt, Sideshow Concessions, and Transgender Architectonics--a book that helped to spark ongoing interest in the High Line park, its designers, and its histories.

Triny Finlay's latest poetry collection, You don't want what I've got, is an exploration of mental illnesses, their treatments, and stigma. She is the author of Splitting Off, and Histories Haunt Us, and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary magazines.

We look forward to seeing you for this fantastic reading!