Events

Richard Kelly Kemick at Calgary Wordfest: Turtle Island Reads

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Richard Kelly Kemick, author of Hello, Horse (Aug 6, 2024), will be appearing at the Calgary Wordfest’s Imaginairium Festival’s event, “Turtle Island Reads.” Richard will be joined by a number of fellow writers, including Carleigh Baker, Shashi Bhat, Fanny Britt,  Sig Burwash, and Conor Kerr. At turns edgy, humorous, experimental, complex, and raw, the tales told by these cross-country stars of contemporary Canadian storytelling speak to our longing for community and connection. Books will be made available for purchase by Owl’s Nest Books.

The event will take place on Thursday, October 17 at 7:30PM.

Tickets and more details here.

Grab Hello, Horse here!

ABOUT HELLO, HORSE

Taut, stylish stories take on big moral questions from surprising perspectives.

A teenager’s job mucking stalls at a dog track takes a strange turn when his co-worker finds a new religion at odds with winning streaks. Two brothers set out in search of fame upon the frozen waters of a subarctic lake. After her mother’s death, a high school student tries to make rent by winning the Unitarian Church’s Annual Young Writer’s Short Story Competition. An incarcerated man considers the nature of justice between shifts with his fellow inmates at Nations at War, the ultimate live-action experience for tourists eager to learn about the Canadian Civil War.

Spanning states and provinces, and featuring an apocalypse, a coterie of ghosts, nuns on ice, and an above-average number of dogs, the stories in Hello, Horse consider the mirage of authenticity and the impact of decisions we make—for better and for worse.

ABOUT RICHARD KELLY KEMICK

Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet, journalist, and fiction writer. His limited series podcast, Natural Life, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. Richard is also the author of I Am Herod (also on audiobook), which takes readers undercover at one of the world’s largest religious events, and Caribou Run, a collection of poetry. He is the recipient of multiple awards including two National Magazine Awards and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s 2019 Award for Best Short Story. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Michael Lista at Calgary Wordfest: Poetry Cabaret

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Michael Lista, author of poetry collection Barfly (June 6, 2024) will be at the Calgary Wordfest’s Imaginairium Festival’s “Poetry Cabaret”! Michael will be joined by fellow poets Conor Kerr, Canisia Lubrin, and Benjamin Hertwig on stage to regale the audience in verse with readings and short interviews. Join them to fill your Friday night with a figurative (and perhaps a literal) cocktail of the poetic joy and wonder within us all. Books will be made available for sale and signing by Owl’s Nest Books.

The event will take place on Friday, October 18 at 7:30PM.

Tickets and more details here.

Grab Barfly here!

ABOUT BARFLY

A CBC Books’ Poetry Collection to Watch for in Spring 2024 • A Toronto Star Most Anticipated Spring Title

We’re in love, but we’re still Millennials. / What’s wrong with our hearts is congenital. 

In Barfly, the poet comes back to haunt himself, and us. In this incomparable third collection, his first in a decade, Michael Lista returns to reinvent poetry with humour, pugnacity, and a deeply singular voice. Splicing Byronic rhymes and Auden’s meters with the twenty-first century irreverence of a late-stage Twitter feed, the poems in Barfly are alternatingly aggressive, sweet, deadly, and raw with a break-your-heart vulnerability.

ABOUT MICHAEL LISTA

Michael Lista is an investigative journalist, essayist and poet. He has worked as a book columnist for the National Post and as the poetry editor of The Walrus. He is the author of four books: the poetry volumes Bloom and The Scarborough; Strike Anywhere, a collection of his writing about literature, television and culture; and The Human Scale: Murder, Mischief and Other Selected Mayhems, a book of longform journalism. His essays and investigative stories have appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, The Walrus, Canadaland, and Toronto Life. He is a contributing editor at Toronto Life and Maclean’s. He was the 2017 Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University and the winner of the 2020 National Magazine Awards for both Investigative Reporting and Long Form Feature Writing. His story “The Sting” is being adapted by Adam Perlman, Robert Downey Jr., and Team Downey into a television series for Apple TV+.

Michael Lista at Calgary Wordfest: Rocking the Boat

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Michael Lista, author of poetry collection Barfly (June 6, 2024) will be at the Calgary Wordfest’s Imaginairium Festival’s event, “Rocking the Boat.” Michael will join authors Catherine Hernandez and Danny Ramadan for a conversation hosted by Zain Velji about what it costs—professionally and personally—when you decide to make waves. Art cannot be separated from human rights, facts, and social justice. These writers have stood unwavering in their convictions and desires to create a more equitable, transparent, and empathetic world, often placing themselves in opposition to the status quo, whether literary, political, or societal. Books will be made available for sale and signing by Owl’s Nest Books.

The event will take place on Saturday, October 19 at 1PM.

Tickets and more details here.

Grab Barfly here!

ABOUT BARFLY

A CBC Books’ Poetry Collection to Watch for in Spring 2024 • A Toronto Star Most Anticipated Spring Title

We’re in love, but we’re still Millennials. / What’s wrong with our hearts is congenital. 

In Barfly, the poet comes back to haunt himself, and us. In this incomparable third collection, his first in a decade, Michael Lista returns to reinvent poetry with humour, pugnacity, and a deeply singular voice. Splicing Byronic rhymes and Auden’s meters with the twenty-first century irreverence of a late-stage Twitter feed, the poems in Barfly are alternatingly aggressive, sweet, deadly, and raw with a break-your-heart vulnerability.

ABOUT MICHAEL LISTA

Michael Lista is an investigative journalist, essayist and poet. He has worked as a book columnist for the National Post and as the poetry editor of The Walrus. He is the author of four books: the poetry volumes Bloom and The Scarborough; Strike Anywhere, a collection of his writing about literature, television and culture; and The Human Scale: Murder, Mischief and Other Selected Mayhems, a book of longform journalism. His essays and investigative stories have appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, The Walrus, Canadaland, and Toronto Life. He is a contributing editor at Toronto Life and Maclean’s. He was the 2017 Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University and the winner of the 2020 National Magazine Awards for both Investigative Reporting and Long Form Feature Writing. His story “The Sting” is being adapted by Adam Perlman, Robert Downey Jr., and Team Downey into a television series for Apple TV+.

Richard Kelly Kemick at Calgary Wordfest: The Way We… Wear

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Richard Kelly Kemick, author of Hello, Horse (Aug 6, 2024), will be appearing at the Calgary Wordfest’s Imaginairium Festival’s event, “The Way We… Wear.” Richard will be joined by fellow writers Anne Enright, Holly Gramazio, Jenny Heijun Wills, Sarah Leavitt, Canisia Lubrin, Marissa Stapley, and Tanya Talaga. The eight writers tell a story about a piece of clothing that became more than just a garment. A lucky left sock? A silk kimono dug up from the bottom of a vintage trunk? The horrible dress your father made you wear to school? The beauty of The Way We… is that we can’t possibly predict what you’ll hear, but we *can* predict you’ll be telling your friends, “You had to be there!” Books will be made available for sale and signing by Owl’s Nest Books.

The event will take place on Saturday, October 19 at 7:30PM.

Tickets and more details here.

Grab Hello, Horse here!

ABOUT HELLO, HORSE

Taut, stylish stories take on big moral questions from surprising perspectives.

A teenager’s job mucking stalls at a dog track takes a strange turn when his co-worker finds a new religion at odds with winning streaks. Two brothers set out in search of fame upon the frozen waters of a subarctic lake. After her mother’s death, a high school student tries to make rent by winning the Unitarian Church’s Annual Young Writer’s Short Story Competition. An incarcerated man considers the nature of justice between shifts with his fellow inmates at Nations at War, the ultimate live-action experience for tourists eager to learn about the Canadian Civil War.

Spanning states and provinces, and featuring an apocalypse, a coterie of ghosts, nuns on ice, and an above-average number of dogs, the stories in Hello, Horse consider the mirage of authenticity and the impact of decisions we make—for better and for worse.

ABOUT RICHARD KELLY KEMICK

Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet, journalist, and fiction writer. His limited series podcast, Natural Life, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. Richard is also the author of I Am Herod (also on audiobook), which takes readers undercover at one of the world’s largest religious events, and Caribou Run, a collection of poetry. He is the recipient of multiple awards including two National Magazine Awards and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s 2019 Award for Best Short Story. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.