Lawrence Hill will be among the line-up of 50 authors at this year’s Writers’ Festival.
Hill’s latest book (fiction) is The Book of Negroes, published in 2007 by Harper Collins. It was named one of the 100 best books of 2007 by Toronto’s Globe and Mail, and recently won the 2008 Commonwealth writer’s prize for best book (Canada and Caribbean region).
Hill is the author of several novels and works of non-fiction, including Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada; Any Known Blood; Some Great Thing; Women of Vision: The Story of the Canadian Negro Women’s Association, and a children’s book, Trials and Triumphs: The Story of African Canadians.
Hill’s first two books explore complications of race and identity, as does his bestselling memoir, Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada, released in 2001. He is credited with establishing those issues as literary themes and challenging long-held notions about slavery in Canada.
Paul Quarrington will join the festival’s 20th anniversary set with Leon Rooke and Alistair MacLeod.
Quarrington’s latest book (fiction) is The Ravine published in 2008 by Random House. As well as being a novelist, Quarrington is also a musician, most recently in the band Porkbelly Futures, an award-winning screenwriter, and an acclaimed non-fiction writer. His novel, Galveston, was nominated for the Giller prize and Whale Music won the Governor General’s award for fiction in 1989. Quarrington won the Stephen Leacock medal for King Leary, which was also the winner of the 2008 CBC Canada Reads contest.
Eden Mills Writers’ Festival will be held Sept. 7 from noon to 6pm, with 50 guest authors in attendance. It includes youth and children’s sites. A jazz concert will take place Sept. 5 and the seminar on travel writing will be held at Camp Edgewood on Sept. 6.
Tickets are $10 at the gate or $8 advance. Free shuttle buses run on Sept. 7 only from Guelph to Eden Mills leaving The River Run at 11am and The University Centre at 11:15am, and then every 40 minutes. See edenmillswritersfestival.ca for details.
