More than 50 students, eight mentors, three faculty members, a mentor apprentice and featured guests will come together at the University of King’s College in Halifax beginning on Aug. 6 for two weeks of creative nonfiction lectures, workshops, panels, presentations and readings.
The MFA in creative nonfiction summer residency is a key element of King’s two-year limited residency program.
“We’ll be studying and celebrating creative nonfiction with an eclectic variety of writing and publishing guests,” says Kim Pittaway, executive director, King’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction.
Daemon Fairless.
This year’s Writer in Residence is Daemon Fairless, the author of the Penguin Random House Canada bestseller Mad Blood Stirring: The Inner Lives of Violent Men. It tackles challenging subject matter—and challenged Fairless himself.
Daemon, a King’s journalism grad and veteran science journalist with a master’s degree in neuroscience, admits the first draft of his book was “garbage.” He says, “It wasn’t until I tackled the emotional questions posed by this material—and wove in elements of memoir—that I was able to find a way through to the intellectual insights that eventually informed the book.”
Fairless will meet one-to-one with students, conduct a master class and give a public reading from his work at Halifax Central Library’s Paul O’Regan Hall on Wednesday Aug. 8 at 6:30 p.m.
There will also be two other public readings:
- On Monday, Aug. 13, this year’s 2018 Donald Sedgwick Reading Series will feature graduates of the program reading from their published or soon-to-be published books, including:
- Helena Moncrieff, MFA’16, The Fruitful City: The Enduring Power of the Urban Food Forest (ECW Press)
- Renée Pellerin, MFA’16, Conspiracy of Hope: The Truth About Breast Cancer Screening (Goose Lane Editions)
- RC Shaw, MFA’16, Louisbourg or Bust: A Surfer’s Wild Ride Down Nova Scotia’s Drowned Coast (Pottersfield Press)
- Lezlie Lowe, BA(Hons)’96, No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs(Coach House)
It will take place in Alumni Hall at the University of King’s College, 6350 Coburg Rd., Halifax, at 6:30 p.m.
- On Tuesday, Aug. 14, authors who teach in King’s MFA program will read from their latest works:
- Lorri Neilsen Glenn, author of Following the River: Traces of Red River Women (Wolsak & Wynn),
- Ken McGoogan, author of Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage (HarperCollins Canada),
- Jane Silcott, co-editor of the anthology Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups & Downs of Marriage (Caitlin Press), and
- Ayelet Tsabari, author of the memoir-in-essays The Art of Leaving (coming in February 2019 from HarperCollins Canada).
It will take place at Halifax Central Library at 6:30 p.m.
This year’s Editor in Residence will be Kate Cassaday, Senior Editor at HarperCollins Canada. Cassaday will also conduct master classes and meet one-to-one with students in the program.
“We’re going to immerse ourselves in engaging, true stories, learn from them and draw inspiration from some of the best creative nonfiction writers, editors and teachers in Canada today,” Kim says.
The residency ends Aug. 18, 2018.
