Media Launch of the 2011 Festival

Guess Who's Coming to the 2011 Elora Writers' Festival?

Well, you are, of course!

And you're coming to hear this year's stellar line-up of Canadian authors, announced this week:

Johanna Skibsrud
2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner for The Sentimentalists

Richard Greene 
2010 Governor-General's Award poetry winner for Boxing the Compass

Sarah Selecky
Giller short-listed short story author for This Cake is For the Party

Alison Pick 
Multiple award-winning poet and novelist, including her latest, Far to Go

Cynthia Holz
Novelist, essayist, journalist, and author of new novel, Benevolence


Nicholas Ruddock
Award-winning author and poet, whose first novel is The Parabolist

Join us on Sunday, May 29 at Aboyne Hall, Wellington Country Museum and Archives, located in Aboyne, between the towns of Elora and Fergus (directions, here). Readings begin at 1pm and fill the afternoon. Afterwards, the authors join the audience for dinner in Aboyne Hall - and you're welcome to attend, but be sure to reserve your ticket soon.

Tickets ($15 for readings only, $60 for readings and dinner in Aboyne Hall) are available at Roxanne's Reflections Book & Card Shop in Fergus, or by calling 519-843-4391.

And don't forget the Elora Writers' Festival Writing Competition and the EWF Young Writers Contest. The buzz grows until the winners are announced on the day of the Festival. For more information, see our earlier post, here.

Questions? See the "CONTACT US" panel below.

New Law Unfair to Writers

Entry Forms for Writing Competitions: Available right here!

Entry forms are available here for the Festival's two writing competitions. The deadline for submission is Friday, April 29, 2011.  Winners will be announced on the day of the Festival, Sunday, May 29, 2011.

Elora Writers' Festival Open Writing Competition ENTRY FORM

1 short story/personal essay (2000 words)
1-3 poems (75 lines maximum)


EWF Young Writers Contest  ENTRY FORM

Age 12 and under:

1 short story (700 words)
1 poem (40 lines maximum)

Age 13-18:

1 short story (2000 words)
1-3 poems (75 lines maximum)

A Literary Reading in support of PEN Canada

Karen Connolly and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer will read in support of Lydia Cacho: a Mexican journalist who has been imprisoned for her reportage which speaks out against government corruption that shields criminals who exploit women and children. PEN Canada aims to draw International attention to Cacho's case, and assists writers and artists around the world who are persecuted for the peaceful expression of their ideas.

Friday, February 18th

5pm-6pm

Massey College, Upper Library

4 Devonshire Place, Toronto ON

The reading is free and all are welcome!

Our Readers:

Karen Connelly is the author of nine books of best-selling nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She has won the Pat Lowther Award for her poetry, the Governor General’s Award for her non-fiction, and Britain’s Orange Broadband Prize for New Fiction for her first novel The Lizard Cage.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer is the author of one book of short-fiction Way Up and two novels The Nettle Spinner and Perfecting. Her work has been shortlisted for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the ReLit Prize. She is an award-winning teacher in the University of Toronto's Continuing Education Program.

In Support Of:

Lydia Cacho has received the Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children's Rights; the International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award; the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize; and the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan. Despite international attention, Cacho's life remains in danger.

If hearing exciting new writers is just your cup of tea...

please also mark on your calendars two more readings happening later this spring at Massey!

5 p.m. Thursday March 17th - Michael Winter

will read from his latest book The Death of Donna Whalen.

Michael Winter is the author of two short story collections and four novels. He is the winner of the Winterset Award and has been nominated and shortlisted twice for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and once for the prestigious Giller Prize. His novel The Big Why was long listed for the IMPAC Award. His latest book The Death of Donna Whalen is a work of documentary fiction.

5 p.m. Thursday April 14th - Sarah Selecky and Alexander McCleod

two of this year's Giller Prize finalists will read from their nominated short story collections.

Sarah Selecky has been a writing instructor and workshop facilitator for over a decade. Her short fiction has been published in The Walrus, Geist Magazine, Event and in the Journey Prize Anthology. Her first short-story collection This Cake is for the Party was short-listed for the 2010 Giller Prize. Chatelaine Magazine writes: "Sarah Selecky could easily be the next Alice Munro."

Alexander McCleod was born in Cape Breton and raised in Windsor, Ontario. His award-winning stories have appeared in many of the leading Canadian and American journals and have been selected for The Journey Prize Anthology. He teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and his first short-story collection Light Lifting was short-listed for the 2010 Giller Prize.