Posts Tagged ‘Author’
Life in a Chinese Village Comes to the Medicine Hat Public Library
Presentation About Life in Rural China – Sunday, November 9, 2:00 p.m.
Chinese-Canadian author Chunqing Wang will be coming to the Medicine Hat Public Library on November 9, 2014, at 2:00 p.m., for a free presentation about life in a Chinese village. She will be showing photographs of her village, past and present, and will be discussing lifestyles of rural Chinese villagers today and through the past hundred years. From persistent poverty at the end of the last emperor’s reign, through the Japanese invasion, the Communist takeover, and several decades of Communist schemes like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, Ms. Wang will discuss the effects of war, politics and market reforms on her family and her fellow villagers.
The presentation will be reveal parts of the real China that very few visitors have a chance to see. “Most tourists travel to the big cities or go on pre-packaged tours, but it’s difficult for an outsider to get a sense of rural China,” Ms. Wang says. “Because hundreds of millions of people live in villages–more than the total population of Canada and the United States combined–it’s worth knowing about if you’re interested in China at all.” As China becomes more and more urbanized, the experiences of Chinese peasant farmers are being forgotten: but her new memoir assists by committing to print her experiences and the experiences of villagers from Shanxi Province.
Ms. Wang will be reading portions of her book: You May as Well Sing, Brother: Seventy Years of Strange but True Stories of Adventure, Determination, Cruelty, Bravery, Survival and Especially Love from Inside a Chinese Village. In this memoir, compelling stories told in the first person show every human foible, folly, virtue and vice, as the villagers describe themselves, their neighbors, and those they have encountered along the way. (The memoir will be available for optional purchase for $15.00.)
Ms. Wang will be accompanied by her husband, Chris Denholm, who will provide his perspective as one of the few westerners to stay in a Chinese village for an extended visit.
Refreshments will be served.
Note: Because some of the topics, including war, persecution and suffering would be sensitive to young audiences, the presentation is intended for adults only.
Image Credit: RandomHouse.ca
Steven Galloway, author of the acclaimed novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, will be the speaker at the eighth annual One Book One Community event. This free event takes place on Friday, October 12 at 7.00 pm in the Esplanade Studio Theatre.
The evening will be introduced by Mayor Norm Boucher who carried out two United Nations Missions in Croatia in 1995 and Kosovo in 2001. He is conversant in Croat and makes regular visits to Croatia.
The Community Orchestra, conducted by Christine Bootland of the Conservatory of Music and Dance, will play Albinoni’s Adagio. Coles the Book People will have books available for sale and signing. Refreshments will be serving following the reading.
Book discussions and activities will take place on Saturday, October 13 in the Crowfoot Room at Medicine Hat College from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm. All events are free. Participants may bring their own lunch or purchase lunch at the College Cafeteria.
For more information, please go to www.obocmh.ca, or contact obocmh@gmail.com. This event is sponsored by Medicine Hat College, The City of Medicine Hat, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Medicine Hat Public Library, L.E.A.R.N., and The Esplanade.
Medicine Hat author Don Lemna launches his new book, Out In Left Field, at Medicine Hat Public Library on Sunday, April 1st. The reading takes place at 2:00 pm in the Library Theatre.
A sequel to When the Sergeant Came Marching Home published in 2008, Out in Left Field continues the adventures of Donald, an eleven year old boy growing up in post-World War 2 Montana. When an error in baseball costs his team the game, he knows the whole town is laughing at him. Desperate to redeem himself, Donald attempts to become a superstar (at hockey, archery, skiing) but all efforts end in disaster and comedy.
After a career as an electrical engineer in the Canadian Armed Forces, Don Lemna retired and now spends his time writing books for children and adults, plays and poetry. In Bubsy (1993), he drew on his experiences as a child growing up in Medicine Hat. While Out in Left Field and When the Sergeant Came Marching Home are set on the prairie landscape of Montana, the portrayal is very familiar to Prairie Canadians.
Don Lemna may be contacted at 403-529-6052. For further information, go to:
http://www.accessola.com/forest2010/Silverbirch/fiction/sb8/bio.php
Copies of Out in Left Field will be available after Don Lemna’s reading for sale and signing. A reception will follow.
Don Lemna’s book launch is cosponsored by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
For more information, contact Hilary Munro at 403-502-8533 or at hilmun@medicinehat.ca
Today we have something a little different for you. This story was submitted by David Walks-as-Bear, Author of Shamus Ghillie U.S. Secret Service In Medicine Hat.
Yes, indeed, the Crow Moon. For the Shawnee, this time arrives when the cawing of crows signals the beginning of the end of papoonwi (winter). And, indeed, early March is the time of ‘wakening’… when the Earth Mother first begins to stir, eh. Like a slowly waking beautiful woman, she gradually rouses; the days begin to warm, and the ground begins to thaw. Um-hmm, and like the lovely languid sleeper, she murmurs in the coo of budded awakening, too. Yep, but as any guy knows… who’s ever gotten too close to one who is first arousing… appearances can be deceiving. Get too beguiled and that sweet and gentle subtleness may just get’chu a pillow or… a huge wad of snow… whipped smack-dab… into your goofily naive face.
You know, some of the more northern Indians know this time of the year as the Crust Moon. That’s because it’s the time when the snow cover becomes crystallized and is thus ‘crusted’ from thawing by day and freezing by night. Sure, and to some of the early white Catholic settlers, it was known as the Lenten Moon. That’s because it arrived with the Catholic observance of Lent. But, for the Shawnee, this has always been the time of the Crow Moon.
Shamus Ghillie U.S. Secret Service In Medicine Hat Book Cover
I would like to bring to your attention, a recently released novel by Native American author David Walks-As-Bear relating to Medicine Hat:
Overview: ( Historical Fiction )
Shamus Ghillie is a half-Choctaw-half-Irish elite ex-Confederate soldier who is, also, a man of the wild and untamed West. But, he’s also a man of rare and unusual skills as a hunter of both animals and men. It is Ghillie, with his unique talents, that President Grant wants to secretly enlist to handle the trouble along the boundary of the newly formed nation of Canada, just north of the Montana Territory. But, men like Ghillie don’t come easily, and, if they come at all, they don’t come cheap.
David Carter is an author who was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1934 and has traveled all around Canada during his years. He has written 15 books and has been involved in many historical journals throughout the prairies. Along with this, he has provided research materials, probably based on his books, to a myriad of TV productions, including:
- Murder Behind The Wire for CBC
- The Enemy Within for the National Film Board of Canada
- Hitler’s Canadian’s for History Television
Some of his books are related to Canada’s history. One book in particular, entitled POW – Behind Canadian Barbed Wire, describes how Canada operated Prisoner of War camps during the First World War, in which many of the people who did not possess a Canadian citizenship and/or were judged to be a threat to the British Empire were ’rounded up’ and put into camps. Sounds kind of like Nazi Germany. The book was originally published in 1998, but since 2004 now includes black and white photos.
More about David Carter can be viewed on his website