Toronto performance poet, Andrea Thompson, visits Medicine Hat Public Library to perform and read from her work. This takes place in the Currie Room on Tuesday, October 16 at 7.00 pm.

For the past twenty years, Andrea Thompson has performed her poetry across North America. As
one of the pioneers of Slam poetry, her writing has been included in magazines, literary journals and anthologies. She has been featured on film, radio and television. Her debut collection, Eating the Seed (2000) has been featured on reading lists at the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her spoken word cd, One was nominated for a Canadian Urban Music Award in 2005. She was the Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in 2009.

She recently coedited an anthology, Other Tongues, Mixed-Race Women Speak Out, which includes
poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and explores the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the twenty-first century. The anthology serves as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes and feelings of others, and what racial identity has come to meant today.

For more information and to contact Andrea Thompson, go to www.andreathompson.ca

Andrea Thompson’s visit is cosponsored by Medicine Hat Public Library, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

For more information, contact Hilary Munro at 403-502-8533 or hilmun@medicinehat.ca

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Calgary poet Kirk Ramdath presents a reading of his work at Medicine Hat Public Library on Tuesday, September 18 at 7.00 pm. The reading will take place in the Honor Currie Room.

Kirk Ramdath is the author of Love in a Handful of Dust, published in 2011. He was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to Canada with his family in 1989. Since 2005 he has been a regular presence at Calgary art, poetry and music events as a performer and as a publisher and organizer of events.

Kirk Ramdath’s visit is made possible through funding from the Canada Council of the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Kirk Ramdath may be contacted at kirkramdath@yahoo.ca or at 403-714-5517. For more information go to http://kirkramdath.ca

For more information, call Hilary Munro at 403-502-8533.

Noted Vancouver poet and author, Evelyn Lau, will read from her work on Tuesday, March 20 at Medicine Hat Public Library. Her reading takes place at 7:00 pm in the Currie Room.

Evelyn Yee-Fun Lau was born in Vancouver to Chinese immigrant parents in 1971. They raised her in a traditional middle-class way with high aspirations for her future. As a young teenager she started writing and publishing her work, much to their dismay. At the age of 15, resenting her sheltered upbringing, she ran away from home to live on the streets for two years. During this time, she kept a diary which became a best seller. Runaway, Diary of a Street Kid, published in 1989, was later adapted as a television movie for the CBC in 1993. In her book of autobiographical essays, Inside Out, published in 2001, she states that the tumult of her early adulthood has coloured all aspects of her later life.

In addition, she has published several books of poetry: Living Under Plastic (2010), Treble (2005), In the House of Slaves (1994) and You Are Not Who You Claim (1990). She has two collections of short stories: Fresh Girls and Other Stories (1993) and Choose Me: Stories (1999).

Evelyn Lau lives in Vancouver where she was appointed as the city’s third Poet Laureate in October 2011.

Evelyn Lau’s visit is made possible through funding from the Canada Council of the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

For more information about Evelyn Lau, go to http://www2.athabascau.ca/cll/writers/english/writers/elau/elau.php

To contact her or for more information, call Hilary Munro at 403-502-8533.