Literally growing
Cabot Trail Writers Festival celebrating 10th anniversary
The Cabot Trail Writers Festival has become one of this country’s premier literary events in just 10 years, giving new festival director Rebecca Silver Slayter a chance to put her imprint on an already healthy event. The Cape Breton Post recently did an email interview with Silver Slayter about this year’s festival, which runs September 28-30 at the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s. alter its overall structure, but also to find ways to bring in some new ways for our audiences to engage with and encounter books.
So we've created a Festival Book Club that we're rolling out slowly, beginning with a single breakaway Festival Book Club session at this year's festival, which is an moderated Q&A with a featured author (this year, Linda Spalding), about her latest book. This session is free to registered Book Club members and limited to 25 participants, which we hope will preserve that sense of an intimate chat about writing and reading. Our intentions are, if the interest is there, to build the Book Club to include multiple book club sessions at future festivals, as well as readings and gatherings for members during the many months between festivals, at different locations around the island, and to offer free, shareable or discounted books to participants, or opportunities to access hard-to-find titles and develop an on-line forum for conversations about reading. My intention and hope with this event was (1) to help ensure that even as our festival grows, it retains that sense of intimacy that made it so special in the first place, still ensuring close encounters between authors and readers are a key part of the festival experience, and (2) to help build a reading community across the island that extends beyond the festival weekend.
We also have a new outdoor event called Heard in the Highlands, which will take place right beside the Gaelic College grounds. Participants will take a guided stroll into the woods, encountering Mi'kmaw musicians and storytellers along the way... this was a way to bring the festival out into the landscape, which is of course one of the best parts of being in Cape Breton that time of year!
We are also trying out something new with an event called In Other Words, which is a multilingual reading and conversation among Gaelic, Mi'kmaw, Acadian French and English writers. This was a bit of a risk, as managing a multilingual conversation will certainly be a challenge, but we thought it was one worth taking, as a way to try introducing some of Cape Breton's other languages and literatures to our stage. Personally, I'm really looking forward to this!
And on Saturday night, after dinner, there will be a conversation between Madeleine Thien and Linda Spalding which I anticipate will be incredible, followed by a performance by the amazing, truly unique violinist Jacques Mindreau …
And we have a few other things up our sleeves, which we'll be sharing more details of in the coming weeks, including a Saturday night dinner reading I'm really excited about and a fundraiser we're calling My Favourite Book. But I can tell you more about those soon!
RSS: It was important to us to bring together a diversity of writers, so they could share with our audience a range of literary genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry), writing styles, and cultural/ geographic origins. We began with a sort of wish list and were lucky to find most of the writers on our wish list willing, able and eager to take part in the festival. The festival founders and the board members and volunteers who have worked so hard on this festival over the years have built up its reputation among publishing houses and especially authors, which makes it an easier job to invite the kind of authors who are receiving and having to turn down many such invitations every year. When I invited Sharon Bala for instance, she said she “enthusiastically accepted,” noting that a former CTWF guest writer (Megan Coles) had spoken so highly of the festival that she “just couldn't say no.” I think the festival board has always made it a priority to ensure the writers as well as the audiences are having a wonderful time and having the opportunity to really connect with one another and with the readers, and so it's a huge help to have authors leave the festival saying what an incredible experience it was...and of course, it's hard to come from away from a weekend among Cape Bretoners and not have had a fantastic time. Here is your arts schedule in Antigonish for Sept. 5 to 12:
Thurs., Sept. 6: Antigonight: film screening, People’s Place Library community room, 7 p.m.;
Fri., Sept. 7: Antigonight: community showcase, People’s Place Library, 6 to 9 p.m.;
Sat., Sept. 8: Antigonish Farmers’ Market, Exhibition Grounds, James Street, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Antigonight: James Mcswain artist talk (Antigonight headliner), People’s Place Library community room, 11:30 a.m.;
Sun., Sept. 9: Traditional Irish session, Townhouse Brewpub and Eatery, 6:30 p.m.;
Upcoming Events
Antigonight: Art After Dark Festival (various locations in the Town of Antigonish), Sept 15, 6 to 10 p.m.;
Antigonish Performing Arts Series: Stéphane Tétreault and Marie-ève Scarfone, cello and piano, St. F.X’S Immaculata Hall, Sept. 15, 8 p.m.
If you are an artist, organization, venue or event in need of making connections or promotion, contact Rachel Power, ACA arts coordinator at info@antigonishculturealive.ca
Visit the Antigonish Culture Alive arts’ calendar, at antigonishculturealive.ca, for updates and more information about events.