Cabot Trail Writers Festival returning for ninth year

The dates and some of the participants in this year’s Cabot Trail Writers Festival have been announced.

The ninth annual event will take place Friday, September 29 until Sunday, October 1, at the Gaelic College, St. Ann’s.

Well-known painter Kenny Boone is the featured artist this year and his painting will appear on all of the festival materials. Three presenters who will attend include Sarah Mac Lachlan, publisher of House of Anansi Press; Douglas Gibson, Alistair MacLeod’s editor and friend and Katherena Vermette, whose novel “The Break” has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award.

House of Anansi Press will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It was founded in 1967 by writers David Lee and David Godfrey who wanted to develop a press catering to Canadian writers.

Over the years, it has published such writers as Margaret Atwood, Matt Cohen, Michael Ondaatje and Northrup Frye and it regularly appears on the longlists and shortlists of all major Canadian literary prizes as well as international ones.