Fat Oyster Author Reading

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Saturday, January 26th, 2019
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Kelly Shepherd’s new book, Insomnia Bird, is topping the sales charts in Edmonton. It is also listed as one of the "top 18 books of 2018" by the brilliant & prolific literary omnivore Lindy Pratch. (Tied with Alice Major for best poetry book.) With Insomnia Bird, Kelly Shepherd establishes himself as Edmonton’s chief bricoleur, honouring & copying the bird of the title, the magpie Edmontonians know so well, with its huge nests built out of the detritus it finds everywhere in the city. As his epigraph to the whole book (stolen in magpie fashion) puts it: ‘And of these one and all, I weave the song of myself. / – Magpie, on nest-building.’ Insomnia Bird builds its own nest of observations, insights, memories bad & good, & old-fashioned boosterism turned awry. Shepherd…is a keen observer.

Amanda Hale’s Angela of the Stones is a book of linked stories set in Baracoa, Cuba. We come to know the inhabitants through their dreams and frustrations, their daily challenges, and the manner in which they stay afloat in a sea of constant change. Ángela sleeps rough in Parque Central, dreaming her life into order, waking to another difficult day; Godofredo, the peanut vendor, limps the streets, greeting locals and tourists alike, in the small town where he has lived since his birth on the eve of the Revolution; Gertrudis ponders the testimony she must give on yet another anniversary of the 1953 assault on the Moncada barracks; Aurelia idolizes an Italian priest who is banished from Cuba in disgrace; and Daniela flies from her roof in a moment of divine spontaneity.

We’re also delighted to welcome Ecko Aleck, a sound poet with energy and grounding, to our event. Echo Aleck was born into the Nlaka’pamux Nation and adopted into the shíshálh Nation. Her traditional name Kawaya, or Blue Jay, represents laughter. She is a spoken word artist with a vision to be a voice for her people. She is trained in both Interior Salish and Coast Salish protocols. Since the age of 13 she has travelled with her father, Terry Aleck, to discuss the intergenerational traumas of residential schools as well as perform and teach Indigenous songs and dances to elementary and secondary students. Ecko Aleck was recently selected to go to the Indigenous Women’s Leadership Summit in Ottawa.

A special feature of the evening is that the two books being launched, Amanda Hale’s Angela of the Stones and Kelly Shepherd’s Insomnia Bird are both new publications by Thistledown Press. The publisher, Al Forrie, will introduce Amanda and speak briefly about his role as publisher.