Queen’s to be Represented at Next Week’s Kingston WritersFest

Published on: 2010/09/17 - in News

Queen’s University will be well represented at next week’s Kingston WritersFest with many professors and alumni taking part in the festival that attracts some of the top writers from across North America.

English professor Carolyn Smart’s Hooked, a collection of poems about seven famous women with obsessive addictions, will be read by Gemini Award–winning actress Nicky Guadagni.

“As a poet I know the importance of delivering the poems with their best dramatic impact, and once the manuscript was complete I saw the possibility of it as a one-woman show, moving from character to character,” says Ms Smart. “I’ve known Nicky for 27 years and recognize her brilliance as a character actor. I just simply put the two things together and they worked perfectly.”

Clarke Mackey, head of the Department of Film and Media, will chat with Queen’s alumni Jason Gilmore and Alex Jansen about their cutting-edge documentary film KENK: A Graphic Portrait, which tells the story of notorious Toronto bike thief Igor Kenk.
Robert Morrison.

English professor Robert Morrison, world-class scholar of Romantic and Victorian literature and author of the acclaimed biography of Thomas de Quincey entitled The English Opium Eater, will be in conversation with world-renowned fiction star Guy Gavriel Kay.

“I’m honoured Kingston WritersFest asked me to take part this year,” says Professor Morrison.

Also taking part in the festival is Queen’s writer-in-residence Stuart Ross, poet-novelist and Queen’s alumnus Steven Heighton, Senator Hugh Segal (School of Policy Studies), English professor Rosemary Jolly and Eric Friesen, artistic advisor to Queen’s Performing Arts.

Queen’s is a sponsor of WritersFest and students get free rush tickets (except to master classes, Book Lovers Lunch and the Sunday brunch event) by presenting their student cards at the door.

WritersFest runs from September 22 to September 26.

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Article courtesy of the Queen’s University News Centre and reprinted with permission.
Photo source: Kingston WritersFest website (link above)

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