McCartney & Beirne Fredericton Book Launch(es)
By Eric Hill • Apr 19th, 2010 • Category: Goose Lane Authors, Happenings|
For immediate release April 12, 2010
Fredericton Celebrates McCartney and Beirne Writers launch new books at local hotspot
Canadian independent literary publishers Goose Lane Editions and Oberon Press announce an invitation for the public to celebrate new books by Sharon McCartney For and Against (Goose Lane Editions) and Gerard Beirne Turtle (Oberon Press), on Wednesday, April 28, at the Garrison District Ale House in Fredericton — hometown for both McCartney and Beirne. Both writers will read selections from their new books followed by a book signing. There will be snacks (cash bar) and books will be for sale courtesy of Westminster Books. The event is free of charge.
FREDERICTON Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 5:30 to 8:00pm The Garrison District Ale House, 426 Queen Street
SHARON McCARTNEY is a poet, editor, technical writer, mother, and brilliant observer of life. Her new collection of poetry, For and Against, is permeated with themes of beginnings and endings. Whether she’s contemplating a marriage ending in divorce, lives shadowed by illness and death, or the transitions between one time of life to another, McCartney pushes the language in the poems so that they fluctuate with moments of absolute rawness with moments of intimate retrospection until things can be seen clearly, wilful blindness is shed, and a level of life-affirming humour and joy is reached.
McCARTNEY received the 2008 Acorn/Plantos People’s Poetry Award for the Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her poems have been nominated for National Magazine Awards and for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in numerous magazines. She has an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a law degree from the University of Victoria. She works as a legal editor in Fredericton, where she lives with her three sons and Jack, her Jack Russell terrier.
GERARD BEIRNE is an Irish writer who has lived in Canada for over twelve years. He is a past recipient of The Sunday Tribune/Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year Award. His new novel, Turtle, is a sprawling, surreal allegory about a small town where the identical cycle of events recurs generation after generation, until a stranger slides into town and threatens to change everything. In this case, the stranger calls himself Rails and carries the bones of his grandmother in a pack on his back. The town, Turtle, was founded by Nathan Baxter’s grandfather in order to create a community less dependent on progress. Rails pits Nathan against his own townspeople, reminding him that there is a bigger world outside.
Beirne was Writer-in-Residence at the University of New Brunswick in 2008-2009. His other books include The Eskimo in the Net, a Daily Express Book of the Year, and Digging My Own Grave, second place winner in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. His short story, “Sightings of Bono” was adapted into a short film featuring Bono (U2) by Parallel Productions.
NEWS EDITORS Sharon McCartney and Gerard Beirne are available for interviews prior to the event. For author interviews, excerpts, or review copies, please contact:
Susan Baker, Goose Lane Editions (506) 450.4251 ext 224 Toll-free 1.888.926.8377 |
Eric Hill is the editor of branta.
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