The Writers & Friends literary gala in aid of Horizons of Friendship and its important work in Central America and Mexico marks its 22nd anniversary this spring. Many of the same volunteers who helped launch this event in 1996 are still meeting to enable it – and we’ve all become fast friends over the years. But we are also getting long in the tooth, so this event will be the final one. And maybe, just maybe, the best one.
This fabulous afternoon is in support of Horizons – and especially its four-year, $13- million project in co-operation with Global Affairs Canada that promises to hugely benefit women and newborn children in Guatemala. For every dollar that Horizons and its supporters raise, the government will match it six to one!
You will not want to miss this star-studded lineup:
Joel Thomas Hynes.
Winner of the 2017 Governor- General’s Award for fiction for his novel, We’ll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night – about a buffeted Newfoundlander crossing to the west coast with his girlfriend’s ashes. “Hilarious yet disturbing,” the jury citation read. Hynes has won multiple awards for his work as a writer, playwright, screenwriter, director, actor and musician.
Frances Itani.
This award-winning author has penned That’s My Baby, the last in a trilogy of novels (Tell and Deafening are the others) that have won their author a place on best-seller lists as well as critical acclaim. The Winnipeg Free Press calls her latest work – about an aging journalist in Deseronto trying to solve the mystery of her birth – “yet another unforgettable novel from a Canadian literary icon.”
Kyo Maclear
The Toronto Star called Birds Art Life “an incandescent exploration of beauty, inspiration, art, family and freedom that seems to leave no topic out of its binocular scope.” This book about birds was shortlisted for the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize, while The Globe, NOW magazine, The National Post, the CBC and a great many other publications put it on their must-read lists for the year.
Diane Schoemperlen.
The awards keep coming to this acclaimed Kingston writer – the Governor- General’s Award for fiction, the Marian Engel Award, and, just last November, the Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life – a $25,000 prize that honours her 33-year career as a writer. Her latest book is First Things First: Early and Uncollected Stories.
The Writers & Friends grand finale promises readings, book signings, on-stage interviews with host Lawrence Scanlan, plus Early Bird prizes, our eclectic Silent Auction, and treats savoury and sweet.
Be eligible for an Early Bird Prize by ordering tickets between February 26th and March 18th, call 1 888 729 9928 ext. 10, online or at info@horizons.ca, tickets $125 per person (tax receipt $95 approx.)