Sunday, October 17, 2010

Cursed! and Key in Lock launches; Shelf Life Books; Cow Town / Punk Town

Unfortunately had to miss the launch of Maureen Bush's new YA novel Cursed! on Saturday, as I was at my Uncle Rick's funeral. Sigh -- sad indeed. My mother's family is being hit hard right now. But I understand the launch was a blast, even without me. Congratulations again, Maureen -- looking forward to getting my own signed copy soon.

Can't wait for the launch of my good friend Rona Altrows' new book, Key in Lock, at Memorial Park Library, 1221-2 St SW, next Saturday, Oct. 23rd at 2 PM. Congratulations to Rona and her publisher, Calgary's own Recliner Books.

I've been invited to read at the grand opening celebration for Shelf Life Books at 1302- 4 St SW. They'll be featuring readings by local authors Thursday, October 28 - Saturday, October 30. I will be reading sometime on the Saturday; details to follow. In the meantime, come on down and check out Calgary's newest independent bookstore! Not only is the staff friendly and knowledgeable, they also reminded me that as well as being the former home of Interfaith Thrift Stores, the very spot in which I worked many years ago, the store was once the site of the infamous Parkside Contintental. Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about the Parkside. We used to go on Sunday nights sometimes to catch the drag queen shows and to drink. This was in the days before you could go to a bar on Sundays in Alberta -- imagine. Seems kind of quaint and old-fashioned now.

Anyway. Speaking of long-ago things, as is my wont, a reminder about Cow Town / Punk Town, the program that Dan Hayes of the Golden Calgarians and myself are doing as part of Calgary Public Library's One Book, One Calgary event on November 6th. I will read from Love Minus Zero and Dan has set up a rockin' multimedia show. Punk out!

Speaking of Love Minus Zero, I'm doing a book club meeting Tuesday night for a lovely woman I know, wife of a colleague of my husband's, and a very cool librarian. Looking forward to it!

Finally, tomorrow's civic election day in Alberta. I look forward to exercising my right to vote, and hope we get a good voter turnout this time around.

2 comments:

Jan Markley said...

As always, there's a lot going on in the literary community in this town! It's great that you are participating in some events coming up!

Lori Hahnel said...

Yes, indeed. Hope to see you at some of them!