‘Celebration of the power of words’ is back for its sixth year

The banks of Grand River are about to get besieged by aliens and fantas­tical creatures.

That is, Ira Nayman, author of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be will be landing here to read selections from his new book What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys at the annual spring Wordfest at the Elora Centre for the Arts.

Hosted by local author and poet Donna McCaw, Wordfest is a “celebration of the power of words.”

This year, as in the past, resident authors, writers, poets, and storytellers are invit­ed to read or recite a piece or two at the WordFest open mic evening.

Each person will be given approximately five min­­utes, depending on attendance. Those who do not write are invited to listen to the work of amateur authors, up-and-com­ers, published professionals, and fellow lovers of the power of the written word.

Last year, the audience was even treated to a recitation of party pieces by Robert Service and Rudyard Kipling.

WordFest will be held in the YAEC- Rotary Room at the Elora Centre For the Arts, and audience members are invited to sip and nibble the goodies the Centre provides with all of the readers at the event.

This year, WordFest will be featuring its first ever head­lin­ing author in Nayman.

He is a comedy writer who has parlayed success as a radio sketch comedy troupe member of Earth Two and Dead Air in the 1980s into his popular satirical Page Aux Folles website.  Two Les Pages aux Folles books, No Public Figure Too Big, No Personal Foible Too Small and Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be, are currently available in print.

Recently, to help promote the coming book What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys (which will be out in paperback soon), Nay­man also pulled together a group of Toronto professionals to create an audio drama based on Alternate Reality.

If there’s interest in the drama, a serial may be forth­coming. Nayman also writes for film and television, and is an instructor in new media at Ryerson University, where he focuses his research on the adap­tation of traditional story­telling techniques for inter­active media.

To sign up for an open mic time slot, call the Elora Centre for the Arts at 519-846-9698. Further information is at eloracentre­for­thearts.ca. Entry is $5.25, tax included.