On Thursday, January 26 at 7pm, join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books and Vancouver Public Library for Conversations with Khahtsahlano: As We Knew Him. One of the most significant books on local history that’s been out of print for more than 60 years, Conversations with Khahtsahlano 1932-1954, contains twenty-two years of conversations between Sḵwx̱uwú7mesh Chief X̱ats’alanexw, a.k.a. Chief…
Category: Explore Book Launches
Watch: Another Way to Split Water by Alycia Pirmohamed
Join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books and Birlinn Ltd for the launch of Alycia Pirmohamed’s debut collection, Another Way to Split Water. This lyrical exploration offers stories told and retold, how ancestral memory reforms and transforms and the imagined and reimagined. Joined by Isabella Wang, author of Pebble Swing (Nightwood Editions) and poet ALHS, the three will offer meditations and…
Watch: Strange Beasts & Good Citizens
Massy Arts Society presents Rachel Rose, author of the Giller-longlisted story collection, The Octopus Has Three Hearts (Douglas & McIntyre), and Maria Reva, author of Good Citizens Need Not Fear (Knopf Canada), in conversation with Renée Sarojini Saklikar, author of Bramah and the Beggar Boy (Nightwood Editions), for a virtual event in celebration of their…
Watch: A Natural History of Transition
This co-presentation with Metonymy Press and Elliott Bay Book Company celebrates of the launch of Callum Angus’ debut short story collection, A Natural History of Transition. The author is joined by special guests Hazel Jane Plante and Corinne Manning. A Natural History of Transition is a collection of short stories that disrupts the notion that trans people…
Watch: The Bridge Book Launch with Keith Maillard
Author Keith Maillard is hosted by Lynne Quarmby and joined by special guests Andrea Bennett, Edward Carson, Lee Shedden and Debbie Willis for the launch of ‘The Bridge’, published by Freehand Books. About the Bridge: As a child, Keith Maillard asked his mother and grandmother, over and over again, “Am I a boy, or am…
Watch: The Colour of God Book Launch with Ayesha Chaudhry and Sarah Munawar
Canada Research Chair in Religion, Law and Social Justice Ayesha S. Chaudhry in conversation with Sarah Munawar. They discuss writing in community, decentering whiteness in storytelling, embodiment, and more. About ‘The Colour of God’: This is the story of a child raised in Canada by parents who embraced a puritanical version of Islam to shield…
Watch: Peter Quartermain with Colin Browne, Rachel Blau Duplessis, Marjorie Perloff, and Fred Wah
Peter Quartermain launches his long-awaited Growing Dumb: An Autobiography of an English Education (Zat-So Productions 2021) with readings by friends Colin Browne, Rachel Blau Duplessis, Marjorie Perloff, Fred Wah and hosted by Erín Moure. Come hear extracts from this wonderful work! ABOUT THE BOOK Beloved writer Peter Quartermain is one of Canada’s best-kept literary secrets. He has…
Watch: Satellite Love with Genki Ferguson and Kevin Chong
Set in 1999 Japan, Satellite Love is a heartbreaking and beautifully unconventional debut novel about a girl, a boy, and a satellite–and a bittersweet meditation on loneliness, alienation, and what it means to be human.
In celebration of the launch of Satellite Love, author Genki Ferguson is in conversation with special guest Kevin Chong, author of The Plague, where they discuss relationships to technology, Japanese literature, process, and more.
Watch the event below.
During this talk, Genki Ferguson discusses a number of authors important to his practice. Genki has shared the following notes with us:
Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize winner, writing in post-war Japan. Snow Country, a tale of doomed love, was a big influence in terms of the atmosphere for Satellite Love.
Natsume Soski, considered the first “modern” Japanese author. Kokoro, the story of a student and his teacher, is considered his masterpiece.
Osamu Dazai, a deeply troubled author, also post-war Japan. Composed his opus No Longer Human shortly before taking his own life.
Mieko Kawakami, contemporary author who writes about tender family dynamics and the lives of the working class in Japan.
Sayaka Murata, another contemporary author, writes really weird, form breaking fiction. Definitely recommend her for people who like Satellite Love.
Yoko Ogawa, also contemporary, writes with elegant, distinct prose about connection, loss. Memory Police is fantastic.
And local author Eddy Boudel Tan! After Elias was phenomenal, and I’m really looking forward to The Rebellious Tide to be released in 2021.
Watch: Lullabies in the Real World
Meredith Quartermain’s Lullabies in the Real World is a sequence of poems about a train journey from West Coast to East Coast that invokes a patchwork of regions, voices and histories. Her language zings with train rhythms as she unfolds a complex conversation with poets such as bpNichol and Robin Blaser. Here, Meredith Quartermain is…
Watch: In Conversation - TK Torme, Rachel Taylor & Aaniya Asrani
Massy Arts Society is pleased to host the web release of Tara Kimberley Torme and Rachel Taylor’s In Conversation: Volume 1 with special guest interdisciplinary artist and visual storyteller Aaniya Asrani. About the Book In this collection of haiku poetry, Torme poses a haiku and then Taylor presents an answer to the posed haiku, hence the title In Conversation. …