Lakefield loves literature
Popular annual festival enters its third decade, bringing authors and readers together
One of the Kawarthas’ enduring traditions is the Lakefield Literary Festival (LLF). Begun in 1995 under the local leadership of Brenda Neil and Ron Ward, it has evolved into one of the leading literary festivals in the country. It owed much of its early success to the organizational efforts of Shelley Ambrose, a nearby cottager, who brought Shelagh Rogers on board and helped give the festival a prominence it has lived up to ever since.
The LLF happens every July — this year from July 14-16 — and it remains solely the product of enlightened volunteer commitments. Unlike most festivals, the LLF receives no arts grants to support its work. Rather, it flourishes on the basis of its interesting programs, the labours of passionate local volunteers, and yearly ticket sales. This year an attendee can purchase a ticket for all events for a mere $109. Individual events are priced separately. The LLF website provides all the details.
I have watched the festival grow in strength and significance since its inception and have been increasingly impressed by its breadth, its prevailing spirit and its modesty of scale. It never tries to be something bigger than it is but it always succeeds in making its visitors—both audience members and performers—feel welcome and at home in the moment.
At the same time it celebrates Lakefield as a significant literary place in Canadian history and in Canada today. Once labelled ‘the birthplace of Canadian writing,’ the town has been an important place in the lives of numerous writers. It has been a home of sorts (actual or emotional) to Catharine Parr Traill, Susanna Moodie, Isabella Valancy Crawford, Margaret Laurence, John Craig and more recently Drew Hayden Taylor, to name only the most prominent. This year actor-writer Mark Finnan will conduct a walking tour on the Saturday morning, taking participants from tiny Christ Church (built in 1854) to nearby sites linked to some of these well-known names. He will provide commentary and readings along the way. The little church, which is now also a small-scale museum, is the only built structure in Lakefield that honours the literary efforts of its early and more recent writers. It reminds us that, in their initial phases, what later become major literary works are seldom large or auspicious. This was certainly so in early settlement days, both in Lakefield and the country as whole.
This year’s program may not ring immediate bells for attendees, but it includes a wide range of upcoming and interesting writers. Friday evening (7:30 pm) at the Bryan Jones Theatre, Lakefield College School, novelists Marni Jackson, Kerry Clare and Zoe Whittall will be on stage. Toronto journalist Jackson will moderate and read from her debut novel (and fourth book) Don’t I Know You?, while Clare will read from Mitsy Bytes and Whittall from her Giller finalist, The Best Kind of People.
Mitsy Bytes takes on blogging as a modern form of communication and self-absorption, exploring some of the personal problems that can follow. In a sly and humorous way, Clare explores the tensions between the stories we tell and the people we actually are.
Storytelling, we learn, can sometimes get out of control and masks can slip. Whittall’s The Best Kind of People (such a neat title!) also explores what happens when masks slip or are pulled off apparently innocent faces. When a wellrespected husband, father and teacher is accused of sexual impropriety at an elite private school, all hell breaks loose for him and his family. The novel offers no easy answers to what must be every family’s nightmare, whether the accusation has some validity or is simply a nasty intrusion into their private lives.
As part of the Friday program Jane Eccles will share HER Margaret Laurence memory, which grew out of her painting Laurence’s portrait in the mid1980s. This much-looked-forward to “moment” is a LLF tradition, honouring Laurence’s residence in Lakefield during her later years; in fact, the festival is always held on the weekend closest to Margaret’s birthday (July 18).
Saturday sees the traditional children’s morning program at 10 am at Cenotaph Park with two much-published and accomplished storytellers, Andrew Larsen and Kari-Lynn Winters. The afternoon event begins with the presentation of the young writers’ awards and is followed by a fascinating session on ‘Canadian’ culinary marvels. Lindy Mechefske from Kingston will speak about her book, Sir John’s Table: The Culinary Life and Times of Canada’s First Prime Minister, offering a new and lively take on writing biography through the consumption of food and drink. Her talk will help to prepare attendees for the “picnic” dinner --based on John A.’s favorite foods-- from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the courtyard of LCS. The session’s second talk is a presentation by Fiona Lucas and Nathalie Cooke on their new edition of Catharine Parr Traill’s The Female Emigrant’s Guide. It is Mrs. Traill’s only appearance at this year’s festival but it promises to offer insights into her close and thoughtful attention to what Canadians ate and how they prepared their foods in the early years of the nineteenth century.
The Saturday evening session, The Many Faces of Mystery, returns to fiction with Douglas Gibson as moderator. Sharing the LCS stage with him will be Lynne Kutsukake, Giles Blunt and Steven Price.
Kutsukake is a first-time novelist whose The Translation of Love is a moving account of a Japanese Canadian family who agree to be deported back to Tokyo during the Second World War. There the daughter becomes entangled in a mystery involving a new friend.
Originally from North Bay, Blunt is one of Canada’s best-known mystery writers. His protagonist John Cardinal has been at the centre of no less than six novels. Blunt will read from the second of his Cardinal mysteries, Blackfly Season.
Price’s By Gaslight is a mystery that many will be eager to hear about. It romps through many international locations during 1885 following historical characters like William Pinkerton. Ranked the #1 Best seller in Canada, Price’s novel has an epic scope and is brilliantly conceived.
Spaced throughout the weekend are talks by authors about their literary interests and particular practices. They include the opportunity to hear Steven Price on the creation of character, Kerry Clare on ‘the art of blogging’ and Lindy Mechefske on “A Taste of Food Writing.”
Sunday’s events include the traditional church service (11 am at Lakefield United Church) with Curve Lake First Nation Chief Shirley Williams who I remember well as a colleague at Trent University’s Lady Eaton College.
The final event is another of Doug Gibson’s informative romps through the world of Canadian writers and their special places. A former editor and publisher at both Macmillan Canada and McClelland and Stewart, Doug is everyone’s favorite guide to both the writers he has edited and those he has come to know. His recent books, Stories about Storytellers and Across Canada by Story, are best sellers in themselves and serve as the foundation for a presentation that charmingly weaves his “stories” about writers into a rich fabric of Canadian popular music and visual images of Canadian art work.
All in all, this year’s Lakefield Literary Festival promises to be an entertaining and enriching weekend. You will certainly not regret time spent with this year’s roster of Canadian writers.