Author Talks
Friday Author Talk
Guy Vanderhaeghe & Dave Badini
Saturday Author Talk
Marty Chan
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Friday Author Talk
Guy Vanderhaeghe and Dave Bidini will speak together on Friday night.
Guy Vanderhaeghe
Guy Vanderhaeghe was born in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, in 1951. He is the author of four novels, My Present Age (1984), Homesick (1989), co-winner of the City of Toronto Book Award, The Englishman’s Boy (1996), winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for The Giller Prize and the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and, most recently, The Last Crossing (2002), a long-time national bestseller and winner of the Saskatoon Book Award, the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Book of the Year, and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, and a regional finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book. The Last Crossing was the winner of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads 2004. It was also a selection for the BBC’s television program Page Turners. He is also the author of three collections of short stories, Man Descending (1982), winner of the Governor’s General’s Award and the Faber Prize in the U.K., The Trouble With Heroes (1983), and Things As They Are (1992).Vanderhaeghe’s fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals across Canada. His books have been published internationally in many countries outside of Canada, where his reputation is steadily growing. He has received the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Timothy Findley Award and the Harbourfront Literary Prize, both for a body of work. Recently he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Acclaimed for his fiction, Vanderhaeghe has also written plays. I Had a Job I Liked. Once. was first produced in 1991, and won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Drama. His second play, Dancock’s Dance, was produced in 1995. Vanderhaeghe also wrote the screenplay for the CBC Television adaptation of The Englishman’s Boy, which will be broadcast in 2008.
Guy Vanderhaeghe lives in Saskatoon, where he is a Visiting Professor of English at S.T.M. College.
Dave Bidini
Dave Bidini is author of For Those About To Write: How I Learned to Love Books and Why I Had to Write Them, a book for young people, and Around the World In 571/2 Gigs, a book about the search for rock ‘n’ roll around world, and life after the Rheostatics.
He has also made a terrific name for himself as a writer with The Best Game You Can Name, Baseballissimo, On a Cold Road, Tropic of Hockey. He wrote and hosted the Gemini Award-winning television adaptation of Tropic of Hockey called Hockey Nomad, first broadcast in 2003. He lives in Toronto.
Saturday Author Talk
Marty Chan will speak on Saturday night.
Marty Chan
Playwright, kids’ author and humorist, Marty Chan has been writing for 17 years. He’s best known for his play, Mom, Dad, I’m Living with a White Girl, which has been produced across Canada and Off-Broadway.He served as the Citadel Theatre’s first playwright-in-residence until 2006. His second kids’ book, The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul, was nominated for several awards including the 2007 Arthur Ellis Award (Juvenile Crime Fiction category). This book has also been selected for Kids Read Edmonton 2007, a city-wide reading campaign for elementary students.
Marty continues to write humour articles for the Edmonton Journal’s Life section. For more information, please go to www.martychan.com.
