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3rd of 3 Authors on Stage; influence of where they lived

November 10, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

The last chance of the year to enjoy an evening with the last three exceptional authors, to hear their readings and their how-I-do-its comes up next Thursday, November 16. This is a series that audiences have really enjoyed. The big name authors coming to this  town is impressive and says a lot about our literary appreciation and the excellence of our favourite independent book store, BookLore, owned by Nancy Frater. It is Mrs. Frater who brings together these evenings, backed by Theatre Orangeville, where the authors evening are staged.

There is excellent reason for this, besides the virtue itself in hosting such occasions, for all the proceeds from the Authors on Stage go to the New Play Development program at Theatre Orangeville.

“It’s really important to encourage new playwrights and support the established ones,” Mrs. Frater was emphatic to say. “The written word is an essential part of the arts.”

Always so thrilled with the authors who say yes to her invitation to appear here, Mrs. Frater was pleased about the writers joining us for this upcoming Authors on Stage.

Dan Needles with his Confessions from the Ninth concession, a collection of his writings from his twenty years of columns with Harrowsmith, In the Hills and many other publications.

Coming up next to Theatre Orangeville is Mr. Needles’ new comic play, The Last Christmas Turkey, a musical. This is a perfect time to let audiences know about it, in addition to their interest in his new book.

“He’s so much fun – we never get tired of him,” said Mrs. Frater. “It doesn’t matter if you’re rural or urban – you get the every day and he just makes it funny.”

With this assembly of three renown writers, two are local and one is international.

Cecily Ross is the other of our local authors for this event, being sister to Nicola Ross, who wrote Loops and Lattes, her beautiful hiking guide books.

“We are a family of writers,” said Cecily Ross, referring to Nicola, their brother, Oakland, her own daughter, Leah MacLaren, and other members of the Ross family. “It’s the only thing I know how to do.”

Ms. Ross is presenting us  with her first novel, The Lost Dairies of Suzanna Moodie. Fiction though this is, Suzanna Moodie is rather a famous pioneer; at least, she was famous in her own time of the mid to late 1800’s for her writing, in particular about living in the wilderness with four children. Suzanna Moodie writings provided the ground upon which Ms. Ross based these diaries she imagined, with the many books of sketches and poetry the 19th Century lady left as legacy.

Naturally, there has been much more to it and the brilliant book Ms. Ross has produced is as a result of considerable study, work and imagination.

Bianca Marais has come from South Africa, arriving in Toronto in 2012. She began writing the book she is bringing to us, Hum if You don’t Know the Words, while she was at a Creative Writing Certificate through U of T’s School of Continuing Studies.

In it, Ms. Marais combines the lives of a 10 year old white girl and Beauty Mbali a Xhosa woman, living at opposite ends of society’s poles, during the time of Apartheid in South Africa.

“This is an exceptional debut novel,” Mrs. Frater stated. “The synopsis is a young white girl’s parents are killed in an accident and the two lives become intertwined when [Beauty] becomes her nanny. Beauty has come to Johannesburg to look for her own daughter.”

She noted, “All these writers have been influenced by where they lived. It just astounds me people’s – writers’ – imaginations and what they do with them.”

Tickets for this evening of interesting, witty conversation with these three fine authors can be purchased at both BookLore, 121 First St., 519-942-3830; www.booklore.ca and Theatre Orangeville’s Box Office at 87 Broadway and the Information Centre on Buena Vista Drive at Highway 10. By telephone 519-942-3423; www.theatreorangeville.ca  Refreshments later, catered by Fromage – and wine.


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