Be Joyful

A truly delightful evening last night! Kate Eichhorn hosted Five New Manifestos on the Book, our annual keynote panel. The strongest aspect of the night was the range of opinions and views from the participants - Jay MillAr was militant in his pro-book stance while next to him Caitlin Fisher spoke to the infancy (and virtues) of a digital literacy and the need for patience. Bill Kennedy, fearless Scream leader, explained how books have moved to the decadent and the incomparable Barbara Godard bemoaned the "death of the reader." Finally, Margaret Christakos concluded the round of manifestos with a call to arms and audience multi-vocal performance.

After the panel discussion, we celebrated the launch of the new Open Letter and heard from four amazing poets: Erin Gray, Jenny Sampirisi, Trish Salah and angela rawlings. Each woman provided powerful and engaging performances, ranging from the interwoven verse of Gray to the sound poetry of rawlings.

If you missed last night, you can skip over to our streamed version (courtesy of SyncLive) and watch the whole thing again and again.

And once you're done re-watching the magic that was last evening, come to the Pilot for 8PM (not 7PM as listed erroneously in the programme) for the Joyland Joy-a-thon. Break your mourning and throw off the black clothes for one evening as Joyland.ca and the Scream Literary Festival peddle eleven readers, raffle prizes, and, yes, T-shirts! Claudia Dey, Rebecca Rosenblum, and Stacey May Fowles read their own work from Joyland and Maggie MacDonald will perform a dramatic reading of a script by Bruce LaBruce. Helping out with cover readings are: Zoe Whittall, Kevin Connolly, Carl Wilson, Emily Holton, and Faye Guenther. And in a very special set, editors Lynn Henry and Michael Holmes read their own writers!

Hosted by Brian Joseph Davis and Emily Schultz, the world’s most incompetent capitalists, who will beg and plead for T-shirt sales in an entertaining fashion throughout the entire night.

Joyland.ca is an international hub for short fiction founded by well-meaning mixed citizenship couple Brian Joseph Davis (CAN) and Emily Schultz (US/CAN). To date the site has featured work by Lydia Millet, Lynn Coady, Jonathan Lethem, Ed Park, Nathan Sellyn, and many other emerging and established talents.

Today is the last day to buy Dennis Lee booklength tickets. A reminder that due to the Toronto City Workers' strike, we'v had to change venues; the event will now take place at The Walmer Centre, 188 Lowther Ave. Buy those tickets now!