Empty chair at Authors Fest
While Creemore is hoping to fill every seat at the International Festival of Authors (IFOA) event on Saturday, one chair will remain conspicuously empty.
The “Empty Chair,” which is placed onstage alongside the four featured authors, stands for one writer whose voice has been silenced.
This year, the chair will represent Eskinder Nega, a jailed Ethiopian journalist and blogger who advocates for freedom of expression, publicly calling for an end to political corruption and repression in that country.
For the last 19 years, Pen Canada has placed an Empty Chair onstage at all IFOA events in place of a writer who is not permitted to travel freely. In the past, IFOA Empty Chairs have “sat” in for Nigerian activist Ken Saro Wiwa and Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan.
PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization of writers that promotes literature, fights censorship, helps free persecuted writers from prison, and helps writers living in exile in Canada. It works with others to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right, at home and abroad.
During Saturday’s event at Station on the Green, Creemore will welcome four writers who are able to travel around the world to attend writer’s festivals, from Ireland, Canada and the U.S. They will read from their new works and participate in a discussion moderated by Curiosity House Books manager, Jenn Hubbs.
Janet E. Cameron will present her debut novel, Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World. The Halifax-born author has spent the last 10 years in Ireland, where the book won the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair Competition.
Born in South Africa, Lewis De Soto moved to Canada as a teenager. His first novel, A Blade of Grass, was an international bestseller and was longlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. He is also the author of a biography of the painter Emily Carr. On Saturday, he will read from his new work, The Restoration Artist.
Time magazine called American author Sam Lipsyte “the most consistently funny fiction writer working today.” His new short story collection, The Fun Parts, promises even more laughs. Lipsyte is a New York Times-bestselling author and the winner of the first annual Believer Book Award. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House and the Los Angeles Times.
Newfoundlander Nicole Lundrigan now makes her home just outside of Toronto. At IFOA, she will be reading from her fifth novel, The Widow Tree. Her previous novels have received critical acclaim. Unraveling Arva was selected as a Globe and Mail top ten, and Thaw was longlisted for the Relit Award.
To purchase tickets for $20, call Curiosity House Books or visit www.litontour.com
