2013 Readers

Saturday July 20 at 7:00 PM: Ami McKay reading from The Virgin Cure
Saturday August 10 at 7:00 PM: William Kowalski reading from The Hundred Hearts
Saturday August 24 at 7:00 PM: An evening with Doug Gibson based on his Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau and [many] Others.

Ami McKay (amimckay.com)
Ami Mckay, born and raised in rural Indiana, now lives in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia. She has written and produced the play Jerome: The Historical Spectacle as well as documentaries for the CBC. Her first novel, The Birth House (2007) was a #1 best seller in Canada, winner of three Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Awards, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and a book club favourite around the world. McKay will be reading from her recent novel The Virgin Cure (2011), based on the life of her great-great-grandmother, a female physician in nineteenth-century New York City. The Virgin Cure is “a powerful, affecting novel rooted in the same elements that made The Birth House both critically lauded and a bestseller. One of McKay’s gifts as a writer is her ability to utterly immerse the reader in her fictional world.” (National Post)

William Kowalski (williamkowalski.com)
William Kowalski, an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and writing mentor was born in Ohio, grew up in Pennsylvania and now lives in Mahone Bay with his family. His first novel, Eddie’s Bastard (1999), won South Africa’s Boeke Award in 2001, was twice selected for Booksense 76, appeared at #5 on the Times of London best-seller list, and has been translated into 15 languages. Three novels followed: Somewhere South of Here (2001), The Adventures of Flash Jackson (2003), and The Good Neighbor (2004). As an offshoot of his experience teaching adult literacy, Kowalski has written three books, The Barrio Kings, The Way It Works, and Something Noble, for the Orca Rapid Reads series “intended for a diverse audience including ESL students, reluctant readers, and adults who struggle with literacy”. Kowalski will be reading from his new novel, The Hundred Hearts (May, 2013), “a moving story about how wars continue to be fought in the hearts of soldiers long after they have returned home.”

Douglas Gibson (douglasgibsonbooks.com)
Since coming to Canada from Scotland in 1967, Douglas Gibson has been editing and publishing major Canadian authors, first with Doubleday Canada, then Macmillan of Canada (1974-1986), and finally McClelland and Stewart, where he became president and publisher and established his own editorial imprint, Douglas Gibson Books, which he continues to publish. As Alistair MacLeod points out, “no one has done more for Canadian Literature.” Gibson’s Stories about Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau and Others (2011) is a memoir documenting his personal and professional relationships with his writers. Gibson will be presenting a version of his acclaimed one-man show especially tailored to our Readers’ Festival format, Stories About Storytellers: An Evening with Doug Gibson . . . and Many Famous Canadian Authors. “If Gibson delivers his one-man presentation at a Festival anywhere near you, run to it.” (Nigel Beale, LiteraryTourist.com)

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[‘GoogleAnalyticsObject’]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,’script’,’//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js’,’ga’);

ga(‘create’, ‘UA-42230904-1’, ‘portmedwayreadersfestival.com’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’);