Sold Out Reading

It was a cold and stormy night, but that did not daunt our audience: We were sold out! Thank you all who made our November 18 launch such a success. Edeet Ravel and David Rotenberg were hits! Sadly Scott Bakker was ill, but writer-pal and reading attendee Caitlin Sweet read for him...now that's a friend in deed! Books were flying off Ryerson's sales table and we suspect that many Christmas shopping lists were considerably shortened last night. A great success, a great launch.

Now into the future: Our three authors for January 27 reading are set and ready to go. Chef Jennifer Mclagan will be speaking about her delicious new book Fat: An appreciation. She has received some heavy media attention on this, so come out and hear what she has to say. Next up will be Dr. Bryce Wylde...you know the guy....you've seen his good lookin' mug on Breakfast Television. He is the nutritionist with personality. His new book The Antioxidant Prescription hits the shelves late December so TRS is one of his first stops. Come and learn how to easily get that holiday waist back into shape and feel terrific all over.

Finally we welcome the hilarious, witty and always clever Patricia Pearson. Her new book A Brief History of Anxiety rounds out the evening, giving us lots of fun and easy ideas on how to beat the January blaaahs and erase anxiety from our lives. Pearson, a Stephen Leacock Humour Award Winner (and also granddaughter to one of Canada's finest and most famous PM's) has that unique ability to look at the human condition with compassion and humour.

Remember, our first event sold out...we were packed! Don't miss out...get your tickets early from Commensal or from our terrific sponsor Ryerson University Bookstores.

Buy books for Christmas and be sure to get a couple for yourself....

TRS Group

IFOA

Recovered from International Festival of Authors...as always fantastic. We at TRS have been frequent flyers at IFOA since its inception in the days of Greg Gatenby, the founder. Thus, we notice subtle changes to formats and offerings. We are not sure we like 5 or 6 authors set into one reading event that lasts 2 hours. It also provides individual attendees scheduling problems and missed readings. While there are more authors, there is less choice yet your exposure is increased. A wash, a toss-up! We imagine this is a budgetary decision as fewer rooms need to be used. Gatenby, while always controversial, was quite correct when he said "The mind cannot absorb more than the bum can endure." Five authors is too many. Four is a push, three is comfortable. We take notes at the readings and the round tables but the readings are becoming too much of a blurrrrrrrrrr. We can't keep track of who wrote what (and argue about it afterwards while scrambling for our programmes.) Eschewing the organizing principal of 'themes' (boring but they do bring unity to a reading and are a temptation to which TRS has fallen) IFOA did a 'mash up' approach putting urban lit with historic fiction. Juxtapositioning was interesting at first but then felt too incongruous and a little jarring.

The round tables (discussions) were all fantastic with great moderators. The moderators were enthusiastic, well informed, well read but needed more coaching on how to balance each writer's contribution. A few were dominated by the loudest/funniest voice. While this can be entertaining, it is difficult to watch 'quieter' less effusive authors shrink into the shadows.

Speaking of shadows: TRS is a reading series that is small and intimate. The readers can see the authors and the authors can see the readers!

Talk soon.