Festival

2016
Festival Program
June 2 - 5, 2016
Wingham, Blyth, Goderich
Painting: Staircase by Michele Miller
“A story is not like a
road to follow.
It’s like a house.
You go inside and
stay for a while...”
-Alice Munro
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Thank you
TO OUR SPONSORS
Dave Peers
(519)357-3280
davepeers@davepeers.ca
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Welcome
Welcome to the Alice Munro Festival
of the Short Story. This festival, now in
its seventh year in its current format, continues to grow as its
mandate comes in to focus. The Alice Munro Festival of the
Short Story provides participants with the unique opportunity
to honour Alice and the short story form in situ; on the very
landscape so closely associated with her work. But while her
work captures the Huron County landscape so succinctly its
renown comes from how it transcends the particulars of this
place and uncovers universal truths. Your being here is, in part,
testament to the strength of that universality.
Over the course of four days we’ll hold conversations,
masterclasses, readings and workshops celebrating the art of
the short story form. From Elizabeth Hay to Samuel Archibald
and Vivek Shraya to Margaret Atwood; these celebrated
figures are among those from the Canadian literary landscape
who will inspire our discussions. We hope the discussions will
engage, challenge assumptions, provide context, and deepen
understanding.
Meighan Wark
County Librarian and
Director of Cultural Services
3

The Alice Munro Festival has been around in one form or another since
2001. It originated with a desire by the local community to celebrate and
honour Wingham, Ontario native, Alice Munro. The Festival and accompanying
short story contest had a resurgence in 2013 when Alice Munro
won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 2014, a comprehensive plan was
developed to expand the scope and scale of the event and the Festival’s
name was changed to the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story to reflect
this new vision and mandate. In 2015, we presented Canadian authors: Lisa
Moore, Heather O’Neil, Caroline Adderson, Andrew Kaufman and Merilyn
Simonds.
Our goal for this year remains the same: to nurture emerging writers and
to celebrate short stories in the rural landscape that inspired Alice Munro.
In 2016, we have doubled the number of authors featured, and expanded
the scale of our programming with the intention of producing a Canadian
literacy event that is intimate, stimulating, and hopefully a little surprising, for
writers and readers alike.
MEET THE COMMITTEE
Chair - Rick Sickinger
Sharlene Bolen | Nancy Fisher | Gil Garratt
Connie Goodall | Alison Lobb Shannon Kammerer
Judy Lyons | Yolanda Ritsema-Teeninga | Colleen Schenk
Verna Steffler | Karen Stewart | Amy Zoethout
JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Alice-Munro-Festival-of-the-Short-Story
@AliceMunroFest
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www.alicemunrofestival.ca

AUTHOR READING
Thursday, June 2
Margaret
Atwood
In Conversation
We are thrilled to have one of Canada’s most celebrated writers
kick off the 2016 Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story on stage
at the Blyth Festival. Ms. Atwood will read a selection
from her 2014 short story collection Stone Mattress:
Nine Wicked Tales. Following the reading Ms. Atwood will
be joined onstage by fellow Canadian author Merilyn
Simonds for an informal conversation about her work,
her take on current events and the world, and some of
her many passions. Immediately after, Ms. Atwood will
be signing books in the lobby.
10% of ticket sales will be donated to support the work of the Lake
Huro Centre for Coastal Conservation (see page 27.
Reading ~ 7:30pm | Signing ~ 9:00pm
Blyth Festival theatre, 423 Queen Street, BLYTH, ON
Photo by Liam Sharp
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Friday, June 3
AUTHOR PANEL
PARTICIPATING
WRITERS
That’s So Gay
Vivek
Shraya
An interactive combination of author readings and conversations
between three queer Canadian authors and Gay Straight
Alliance Clubs from Secondary Schools in Huron and Perth
Counties. The panel will explore some of the different ways
that LGBT youth come out, the diversity of LGBT voices, is gay
the new cool? the outsiders perspective, and the importance of
finding and connecting to an accepting and inclusive community.
Shawn
Syms
Vivek Shraya is a Toronto-based artist whose body of work
includes several albums, films, and books. She is a threetime
Lambda Literary Award finalist, a 2015 Toronto Arts
Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist, and a 2015 recipient
of the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Prize Honour
of Distinction.
12:30 - 2:00pm.
F.E. Madill Secondary
School, 231 Madill Dr.
Wingham, ON
$10.00 - Limited
Availability
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Mariko
Tamaki
Shawn Syms has written about sexuality, politics and culture
for over 25 years in more than 50 publications. He was one
of the publishers and editors of the internationally respected
LGBT magazine Rites for four years, publisher of Pink Triangle
Press’s Canadian Male, and for many years co-wrote Carnal
Queeries, one of the earliest advice columns about gay sexuality
and relationships.
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian artist and writer. Her new novel,
Saving Montgomery Sole follows Montgomery Sole, a square peg
in a small town, a girl with two moms forced to go to a school
full of homophobes and people who don’t even know what
irony is. Her saving grace - her two best friends, Thomas and
Naoki.

AUTHOR PANEL
PARTICIPATING
WRITERS
Samuel
Archibald
Merilyn
Simonds
Shawn
Syms
Mariko
Tamaki
Friday, June 3, 2016
Opening
Reception
If Truth Be Told
Originally inspired by the Huron County Book Bannings
of the 1970s, Beverley Cooper’s new play, If Truth
Be Told, is a fictionalized account of the very real
censorship that took hold across the province (and the
nation) in that tumultuous time.
GUEST ARTISTS
Gil
Garratt
Catherine
Fitch
Beverley
Cooper
AUTHOR PANEL:
7:00 – 10:00pm
Wescast
Community
Centre,
99 Kerr Drive,
Wingham,
$15.00
Largely led by a group called ‘Renaissance Canada,’
school boards throughout Ontario in the 1970s voted
to ban many major award-winning books including:
Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, Margaret
Laurence’s The Diviners, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and
Men, and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.
Cooper’s play follows fictional luminary author Peg
Dunlop as she moves back to her old hometown, only
to discover the very friends and neighbours she had
grown up with are scandalized by her celebrated books
and determined to protect their children protected
from such filth. What ensues is a small-town battle for
the right to tell the whole story.
As a special one-night only event, come catch a live
staged reading of scenes from the play in advance of
its world premiere at the Blyth Festival on July 27th.
And, as part of this exclusive event, come risk your
own moral fibre by also hearing the very incendiary
excerpts of these original classics among others that
led to them being banned in the first place.
Complimentary Dessert Bar | Cash Bar
Painting: Early Evening by Michele Miller
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Photography Exhibit
Sense of Place
The Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story is excited to be hosting a new
joint project between the Huron County Library and the Photography
Club of Bayfield that combines the words of Munro’s stories with
photographic images.
Huron County Library Book Clubs read Alice Munro’s stories and selected
quotes that were visually descriptive of the places and landscapes featured
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in her stories. Members of the Photography Club of Bayfield
matched twenty-four of the passages from the stories to
images they shot of Huron County.
Opening Reception:
Friday, June 3 at 7pm
Exhibition Open
Saturday June 4, 2016
Library
8
Wescast Community
Complex, 99 Kerr Dr.
Wingham, ON
N0G 2W0
Photo by Janet Hullah

AUTHOR PANEL
PARTICIPATING
WRITERS
Elizabeth
Hay
Merilyn
Simonds
MODERATED BY
Robert
Thacker
AUTHOR PANEL
9:00 – 10:30am
St. Andrew’s
Presbyterian
Church
281 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$15
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Cambridge
Companion
to Alice Munro
Moderated by Robert Thacker,
author Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives (2011)
and Reading Alice Munro (1973-2013, 2016)
The new Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro,
2016 is a thorough introduction to the writings
of Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro. Uniting
the talents of distinguished creative writers and
noted academics, editor David Staines has put
together a comprehensive, exploratory account
of Munro’s biography, her position as a feminist,
her evocation of life in small-town Ontario, her
non-fictional writings as well as her short stories,
and her artistic achievement. Considering a wide
range of topics including Munro’s style, life writing,
her personal development, and her use of Greek
myths, Celtic ballads, Norse sagas, and popular
songs. This volume will appeal to keen readers of
Munro’s fiction as well as students and scholars of
literature and Canadian and gender studies.
Join two of the contributing authors, Elizabeth
Hay and Merilyn Simonds, for a wide-ranging
discussion of Munro’s style, her personal
development, her place in Canadian literature, and
her evocation of place and motherhood.
COFFEE BREAK:
10:30 - 11:00am
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MASTERCLASSES
Sheila
Heti
Writing Standing and
Writing Seated
Jean Cocteau once said in The Paris Review that his
brilliant young writer friend, Raymond Radigued,
criticized Cocteau and his peers, noting (as Cocteau
recollected) that “an avant-garde commences standing,
and ends seated soon enough. He meant, in the academic
chair.”
MASTERCLASS
11:00 – 12:30noon
St. Andrew’s
Presbyterian
Church
281 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$20
This workshop takes as his premise that there are ways
to write standing, and ways to write seated. And that
it is preferable to write standing — that is, to write
from a place of radical independence. We will discuss
and try to find strategies to begin and then continue
writing standing. There will be some writing done in the
session.
Everyone welcome.
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Mariko
Tamaki
MASTERCLASS
11:00 – 12:30noon
North Huron
Museum
273 Josephine St.
Wingham, ON
$20
How She Talks
Mariko Tamaki is a woman in her 40’s noted for her
ability to capture the teenage voice in her work in
fiction and graphic novels. In this workshop, Mariko invites
participants to explore the fertile ground of “talk.”
How does a writer go about creating an “authentic”
voice? What are the component parts of a character’s
speech? Where does a voice come from and what are
the many functions it can play in literature?
This workshop will appeal to young adults, but
everyone welcome

AUTHOR READINGS
READING
Alice Munro
Public Library
281 Edward Street
Wingham, ON
$10
Samuel
Archibald
Samuel Archibald is an author
and academic, teaching at the
University of Quebec in Montreal.
His first short story collection, Arvida, was a
bestseller in Quebec, it won Quebec’s Prix Des
Libraries 2012 and Prix Coup de Coeur Renaud-
Bray 2012. Translated into English by Donald Winkler,
Arvida is an unforgettable portrait of Archibald’s
hometown in Quebec and is filled with stories of
wild beasts and young girls, attempted murder and
ritual mutilation, haunted houses and road trips
heading nowhere. Arvida was a Finalist for the 2015
Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Lynn
Coady
Winner of the 2013 Scotiabank
Giller Prize and shortlisted for
the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction
Prize. Selected as an Amazon.ca Best Book and for
The Globe’s Top 10 Books of 2013. In Hellgoing, Lynn
Coady gives us nine unforgettable new stories, each
one of them grabbing our attention from the first
line and resonating long after the last.
READING
North Huron
Town Hall
274 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$10
Equally adept at capturing the foibles and obsessions
of men and of women, compassionate in her
humour yet never missing an opportunity to make
her characters squirm, fascinated as much by faithlessness
as by faith, Lynn Coady is quite possibly the
writer who best captures what it is to be human at
this particular moment in our history.
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LUNCH & KEYNOTE
Alice Munro
Country
Saturday, June 4, 2016
KEYNOTE AUTHOR
12
Robert
Thacker
LUNCH & KEYNOTE:
12:30 – 2:00pm
St. Andrew’s
Presbyterian
Church
281 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$20 includes Lunch
This talk will take up the crucial significance of of
Wingham and Huron County in Munro’s
imagination. More than most writers,
Munro’s Home Place (Wright
Morris’s phrase, she acknowledges)
— its details, its textures, its mores,
its landscapes, and its geology
— is key to her accomplishment.
Tracing this from her early work
on, and detailing the importance of of
her 1973-75 return to Ontario
and Huron County from British
Columbia — I will try to define
her creation of of
“Alice Munro Country.”
Painting: Farm House, Nile Road by Michele Miller

MASTERCLASS
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Photographing
Munro Country
with
Don Martel
PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP: 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Former CNR Train Station, 431 Josephine Street, Wingham | $40
With his easy manner of teaching and 25 years of experience,
Martel will help you to better understand your camera and the art
of visual design. He will share practical tips and show you how to
make amazing photographs. Come and join a fun filled and action
packed 3 hour event
Dress for the weather, with comfortable footwear,
as you’ll be taking a fieldtrip to take new shots.
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MASTERCLASSES
Samuel
Archibald
MASTERCLASS
2:00 – 3:30pm
St. Andrew’s
Presbyterian
Church
281 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$20
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Blurred Lines: Mingling Fact
and Fiction
The stories in Samuel Archibald’s Arvida draw on the
fact, fiction and folklore of his hometown Arvida, Quebec
as their source material. How do we write about
what we know and how do we use our personal experiences
and stories for new works of fiction. What are
the ethical implications and will your friends and family
ever talk to you again if you write their stories?
This workshop will be appeal to those writing fiction,
non-fiction, memoirs or drama.
Merilyn
Simonds
MASTERCLASS
2:00 – 3:30pm
Alice Munro
Public Library
281 Edward Street
Wingham, ON
$20
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Writing the Past – or excuse me,
your research is showing!
The past, like all reality, is messy—and there is so much
of it! Through hands-on exploration with Merilyn
Simonds, author of memoirs, historical fiction, and
nonfiction set in the past, you’ll learn techniques for
selecting the truly golden details, compressing time
and space, and writing characters that breathe with
passion on the page. You’ll confront common research
dilemmas—how much is too much? Is Where can
you find those golden details? Google reliable?— and
take away tricks for “getting into” historical characters
and ferreting out the insidious, hideous beast of
anachronism.
This workshop will appeal to playwrights and anyone
writing fiction, non-fiction, and memoir..

Join a group of readers for a
moderated, casual discussion
about the novel His Whole Life. or
The Antagonist. We’ll cover the
themes, characters and subject of
the book. Everyone welcome.
His Whole Life
Elizabeth
Hay
BOOK CLUB
2:00 – 3:30p.m.
North Huron Museum
273 Josephine St.
Wingham, ON
$15
His Whole Life takes the reader
into a rich and intimate world where everything
that matters is at risk: family, nature, country,
home. Ten-year-old Jim, with his American father
and Canadian mother, is on a car journey from
New York City to a lake in eastern Ontario during
the last hot days of August. What follows is an
enveloping story that spans the pivotal years of
his youth, when claims on his loyalty and love are
tested to their limits.
Moderator Hayley Linfield
BOOK CLUB
2:00 – 3:30pm.
North Huron Town Hall
274 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$15
The Antagonist
Lynn
Coady
Winner of the 2012 Georges
Bugnet Award for Fiction and shortlisted for the
2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize. A finalist for the
prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, and named
one of the best books of the year by Amazon,
the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star, The
Antagonist tells the story of Gordon Rankin
(“Rank”), a former hockey enforcer driven to seek
revenge on an old friend who has published a
novel revealing Rank’s deepest secret.
Moderators Rick Hundey and David Scott
15

Festival
at a Glance
THURSDAY, JUNE 2
Baskerville
7:30 p.m. - Margaret Atwood in Conversation
FRIDAY, JUNE 3
2:00 p.m. - That's So Gay
7:00 p.m. - Opening Reception - If Truth Be Told
SATURDAY, JUNE 4
9:00 a.m. - AUTHOR PANEL:
Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro
11:00 a.m. - MASTERCLASSES:
Writing Standing and Writing Seated
with Sheila Heti
How She Talks with Mariko Tamaki
11:00 a.m. - AUTHOR READINGS:
Samuel Archibald
Lynn Coady
12:30 p.m. - LUNCH & KEYNOTE
Alice Munro Country with Robert Thacker
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1:00 p.m. - PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP
Photographing Munro Country with
Don Martel
Author Readings | Masterclasses | Special Events

2:00 p.m. - MASTERCLASSES
Blurred Lines: Mingling Fact and Fiction
with Samuel Archibald
Writing the Past: or, excuse me, your
research is showing with
Merilyn Simonds
2:00 p.m. - BOOK CLUB
His Whole Life with Elizabeth Hay
The Antagonist with Lynn Coady
4:00p.m. - AUTHOR READINGS
Spending Time in My Head with
Sheila Heti
Saving Montgomery Sole with
Mariko Tamaki
4:00 p.m. - MASTERCLASS
From Pen to Publication with
Shawn Syms
6:30 p.m. - JUBILEE GALA
Dinner | Keynote | Short Story Contest
Awards
SUNDAY, JUNE 4
11:00 a.m. - BOOKS & BRUNCH
Short and Superb
2:00 p.m. - AUTHOR TALK
Who Needs Books? with Lynn Coady
See maps re venue locations on Page 30
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AUTHOR READINGS
4:00 - 5:00pm
North Huron Town Hall
274 Josephine
Wingham, ON
$10
Spending Time in My Head
Sheila
Heti
Saturday, June 4, 2016
“I spend most of my time in my head. You can
always work out solutions and satisfactions there.
Maybe you can’t actually bring them about, but
there’s usually a pleasant pillow of time between imagining
you can and realizing you cannot.” – Sheila Heti, Up Front
New York Times, January 18, 2013
From her debut with her story collection, The Middle
Stories, published in 2001 when she was twenty-four,
to her most recent novel, the bestseller, How Should a
Person Be?, Ms. Heti has lived in her head crafting many
solutions and satisfactions, many of which have found
their way to the pages of her seven books, including the
play All Our Happy Days are Stupid and the children’s
book We Need A Horse.
Find out what it’s like to live in her head when Ms. Heti
reads selections from her yet-to-be published new
work.
4:00 - 5:00pm
Alice Munro Public
Library, 281 Edward St.
Wingham, ON
$10
18
Saving Montgomery Sole
Mariko
Tamaki
Join Canadian writer Mariko Tamaki for a
reading from her new young adult novel
Saving Montgomery Sole. Montgomery Sole
is a square peg in a small town, forced to go to a
school full of jocks and girls who don’t even know
what irony is. It would all be impossible if it weren’t for
her best friends, Thomas and Naoki. The three are also
the only members of Jefferson High’s Mystery Club,
dedicated to exploring the weird and unexplained, from
ESP and astrology to super powers and mysterious
objects. Thoughtful, funny, and painfully honest,
Montgomery Sole is someone you’ll want to laugh and
cry with over a big cup of frozen yogurt with extra
toppings.

MASTERCLASS
Shawn
Syms
4:00 - 5:30pm
North Huron
Museum
273 Josephine St.
Wingham, ON
$20
From Pen to Publication:
The Art & Commerce of Short Fiction
Many consider short fiction a way to “break in” to the
literary-fiction publishing market – but it is a distinct
art form, to which many people devote entire careers.
Short stories offer a vision of life that is distilled and
essential. Shawn Syms, a short-fiction author and book
critic, will touch upon what differentiates the best short
stories. Then he’ll provide personal insights on how to
strategically advance your career as a writer of literary
short fiction – offering tips, tricks, tools and templates
that will enhance your profile and amplify your
publication-seeking efforts – increasing the likelihood
that the right editor at the right publication will see
your most well-suited story at the right moment.
There will be ample opportunity for questions and
conversation.
Short Story Competition
The Short Story competition,
now in its 12th year, is an opportunity
for writers to explore the short
story, a literary art form made popular
by 2013 Nobel laureate Alice
Munro.
The short story allows writers
to take a microscope to an idea and
bring it into focus as a sharp image
that could be lost in a moment’s
breath. The competition will showcase
the remarkable talent of
Canadian writers of all ages writing
fiction, in English, in less than 2,500
Saturday, June 4, 2016
(Finalists names
on page 20)
words. It takes a sure hand to make
that work.
This year we received over
200 entries. A team of local judges
narrowed it down to ten semifinalists,
and the top three prize winners in
both adult and youth categories will
be announced by celebrity judge
Samuel Archibald at the Jubilee Gala
on June 4th.
A special prize for 2016 sponsored
by the Arts and Letters Club of
Toronto Foundation will be awarded
to an outstanding story by an
emerging writer from the GTA.
The winner of the Toronto Arts and Letters Foundation Youth award is
Menaka Raman-Wilms - Tissue Paper Congratulations, Menaka.
19

Awards | Keynote | Dinner
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Jubilee Gala
6:30 pm Cocktails & Entertainment
Cash Bar - try our Signature
Alice Munro Cocktail
PARTICIPATING WRITERS ...
Samuel
Archibald
Elizabeth
Hay
7:00pm
Fire Roasted Tomato Chicken Dinner,
Poppy Seed Salad, Roasted Red Potatoes
Chocolate Mousse Cake with Whipped
Cream & Fresh Strawberries
20
6:30 – 10:00 pm
Wescast Community
Complex, 99 Kerr Drive
Wingham
N0G 2W0
$50
8:00pm
Keynote Address: Mothers and Sons by
Elizabeth Hay
It all starts simply enough when a boy wants a dog.
Elizabeth Hay will take us behind the scenes of her
most recent novel. She will talk about how she came
to write His Whole Life, in which the bond between a
mother and son deepens even as the family comes
apart - where everything that matters is at risk: family,
nature, country, home.
Dinner Sponsor by Huron County winery
Maelstrom
maelstromwinery.ca
SHORT STORY AWARDS
Samuel Archibald, Guest Judge for the 2016 Short Story Competition, brings
comments and presents the awards to the 2016 winners of the Short Story
Competition.
Adult Category: Youth Category: Thanks to the Arts &
Ragna Goodwin Iza Agullar
Letters Club for recognizing
one of our Short
Judy Waytluk
Curtis Jeffrey Story Writers
Connie Cook
Caleb Butcher
from the greater
Toronto Area.

AUTHOR PANEL
PARTICIPATING WRITERS ...
Samuel
Archibald
Elizabeth
Hay
Sheila
Heti
Merilyn
Simonds
Books & Brunch
Short and Superb
Sunday, June 5, 2016
moderator: Merilyn Simonds
Join four writers as they read from one of their
current favourite short stories, followed by a lively
conversation about what makes a short story
good—and sometimes great. Prepare to have your
must-read list expanded as they talk about great
short fiction from Canada, Mexico, Uruguay, Ireland,
France, China, and around the world.
PANEL DISCUSSION
11:00 – 1:00pm
The Livery – 35 South St.
Goderich N7A 3L4
$25 pp includes brunch
catered by
Cait’s Kitchen
BRUNCH
includes assorted pastry basket,
fresh fruit and soft cheese, hot breakfast sandwiches
with Metzger bacon, egg, PineRiver cheddar, and
tomato on English muffins, Cait's Cafe yogurt
bar with granola, vegetable frittata, and breakfast
perogies.
Please advise of any dietary restrictions
when you purchase your ticket.
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Sunday, June 5, 2016
AUTHOR TALK
Lynn
Coady
AUTHOR TALK
2:00 – 3:00pm
Huron County
Museum
110 North Street
Goderich, ON
$10
Who Needs
Books?
Reading in the Digital Age
“We look around and feel as if book culture as we
know it is crumbling to dust, but there’s one important
thing to keep in mind: as we know it.”
What happens if we separate the idea of “the
book” from the experience it has traditionally
provided?
Lynn Coady challenges booklovers addicted to
the physical book to confront their darkest fears
about the digital world and the future of reading.
Is the all-pervasive internet turning readers into
web-surfing automatons and books themselves into
museum pieces? The bogeyman of technological
change has haunted humans ever since Plato warning
about the dangers of the written word, and every
generation is convinced its youth will bring about
the end of civilization. In Who Needs Books?, Coady
suggests that, even though digital advances have long
been associated with the erosion of literacy, recent
technologies have not debased our culture as much
as they have simply changed the way we read.
22

Meet our Guest Writers
Samuel Archibald
Samuel Archibald’s debut collection of short fiction,
Arvida (Éditions Le Quartanier, 2011), won Quebec’s
Prix Des Libraries 2012 and Prix Coup de Coeur
Renaud-Bray 2012. The English translation (Biblioasis,
2015) was nominated for the 2015 Giller Prize.
Samuel currently teaches genre fiction and creative
writing at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty
books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her latest
book of short stories is Stone Mattress: Nine Tales
(2014). Her MaddAddam trilogy – the Giller and
Booker prize-nominated Oryx and Crake (2003), The
Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013) –
is currently being adapted for HBO. The Door is her
latest volume of poetry (2007). Her most recent
non-fiction books are Payback: Debt and the Shadow
Side of Wealth (2008) and In Other Worlds: SF and
the Human Imagination (2011). Her novels include
The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize; Alias
Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and
the Premio Mondello in Italy; and The Robber Bride,
Cat’s Eye, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Penelopiad.
Her new novel, The Heart Goes Last, was published
in September 2015. Margaret Atwood lives in
Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
23

Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady is an award-winning author of six
works of fiction. Her first novel, Strange Heaven, was
nominated for a Governor General’s Award, and in
2011, her novel The Antagonist was shortlisted for the
prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, an award she won
in 2013 for her short story collection Hellgoing. Coady
lives in Toronto, where she writes for television.
Elizabeth Hay
Elizabeth Hay’s nine books include short fiction,
creative non-fiction, and five novels, notably the Giller
Prize-winning Late Nights on Air and most recently
His Whole Life, a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust
Fiction Prize. Formerly a radio broadcaster, she spent
a number of years in Mexico and New York City
before returning to Canada. Elizabeth contributed the
introduction to the Penguin Modern Classic edition
of “The View from Castle Rock” (2010) by Alice Munro
and she also authored a chapter in the Cambridge
Companion to Alice Munro, 2016. She lives in Ottawa.
Sheila Heti
Sheila Heti is the author of seven books of fiction and
non-fiction, including the novel, How Should a Person
Be? and the New York Times bestseller Women in
Clothes, which features the voices of 639 women from
around the world. She has published in Harper’s, The
New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The New York
Times and The London Review of Books. Her
writing has been translated into more than a dozen
languages. She works collaboratively and alone from
her home in Toronto.
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Vivek Shraya
Vivek Shraya is a Toronto-based artist whose body
of work includes several albums, films, and books,
which have been used as textbooks at several postsecondary
institutions. Her debut novel, She of the
Mountains, was named one of The Globe and Mail’s
Best Books of 2014. Vivek has read and performed
at shows, festivals and post-secondary institutions
internationally, sharing the stage with Tegan & Sara
and Dragonette, and has appeared at NXNE, Word
on the Street, and Yale University. Vivek is a threetime
Lambda Literary Award finalist, a 2015 Toronto
Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist, and
a 2015 recipient of the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s
Dayne Ogilvie Prize Honour of Distinction. Vivek’s
first children’s picture book, The Boy & the Bindi, will
be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2016. Her book
on recording artist M.I.A. will be published in 2017 by
ECW Press, as part of their Pop Classics series. Vivek
has been chosen to be the Grand Marshall for the
2016 Toronto Pride Parade
Merilyn Simonds
Merilyn Simonds is the author of 16 books, including
the novel The Holding, a New York Times Book Review
Editors’ Choice, and the Canadian creative nonfiction
classic, The Convict Lover, a Governor General’s Award
finalist and inspiration for the 2016 play by Judith
Thompson, Hot House. Her work is anthologized and
published internationally in eight countries. Her most
recent releases are a collection of personal essays, A
New Leaf, The Paradise Project, flash fiction published
in a hand-printed book arts edition, and “Where Do
You Think You Are?” in the Cambridge Companion to
Alice Munro, published in March 2016. In 2015, the
National Arts Centre Orchestra premiered Dear Life,
a symphony by Zosha di Castri based on Simonds’
adaptation of the Alice Munro story. Her forthcoming
book, in 2017, is Gutenberg’s Fingerprint: A Book Lover
Charts the Digital Divide.
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Shawn Syms
Shawn Syms has written for over 25 years for more
than 50 publications. Shawn wrote the 2015 Relit
Award–finalist short-fiction collection Nothing Looks
Familiar, a National Post pick for the Top Books of
2014 recently seized by the Michigan Department
of Corrections because it “may encourage criminal
activity.” Shawn is currently at work on a novel
about the power of filthy lucre, fetishistic sex
and compulsive gambling called Money Changes
Everything.
Mariko Tamaki
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian writer. She is the cocreator
of the award winning NYT Bestseller This
One Summer (with Jillian Tamaki), Skim (with Jillian
Tamaki), and Emiko Superstar (with Steve Rolston).
Her most recent YA novel is Saving Montgomery Sole.
Marikotamaki.blogspot.com
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Robert Thacker
Robert Thacker is Charles A. Dana Professor of
Canadian Studies and English at St. Lawrence
University. Beginning in the 1970s, he focused much
of his scholarly attention on Alice Munro and her
work as she emerged as the major Canadian writer
of her generation. Writing an early M. A. thesis on
Munro (1976), Thacker has continued to publish
critical essays and reviews since then. A selection
of these essays, newly contextualized, was just
published in February 2016 by the University of
Calgary Press: Reading Alice Munro, 1973-2013. He
is also Munro’s biographer, having published Alice
Munro: Writing Her Lives (2005, revised 2011), a
book written with Ms. Munro’s cooperation. More
recently, he has edited Alice Munro, a collection
of new essays by various hands forthcoming from
Bloomsbury Academic in September 2016.

Don Martel was born in Windsor Ontario,
Canada’s most southern point. Although
London is now home base, he travels the
world to photograph and to teach the Art of
Visual Design. His presentations and hands-on
workshop leave his students admitting, they
never see the same again. Don’s passion for teaching has lead him to do
workshops in North America, South Africa, Namibia Africa, and Cuba.
Presenting to the many camera clubs in Ontario and New Brunswick he
shares his knowledge and encouragement with beginners and seasoned
photographers alike. As a full time freelance photographer Don has
been carrying a camera around for more than 28 years and in the time
he’s taught hundreds of students, photographed countless weddings,
been the guest on CBC’s live radio program Ontario Today, and covered
hundreds of events for Sun Media.
Don
Martel
www.donmartel.com www.singingsandsworkshop.com
ARTIST ILLUSTRATIONS by Judy Lyons - Judy Lyons was born and
raised in Belmore at the north end of Huron County. She has a
passion for art and has been doing illustrations since the early 1980’s.
She graduated from the Graphic Design Program at Fanshawe College.
Founded in 1998 with the goals of
protecting and restoring Lake Huron’s
coastal environment and promoting a
healthy coastal ecosystem.
www.lakehuron.ca
27

Michele
Miller
Michele Miller earned her Fine Art’s degree from the
University of Guelph and currently resides in Huron
County. She is an accomplished oil and watercolour
artist that has been showing her paintings across
southern Ontario for over 10 years. Light and mood
are pivotal elements in her art. Looking to her surroundings
for inspiration, she is frequently responding to the most ordinary
of subject matter. Her body of work consists of a diverse range of subjects
including landscapes, still life, portraits as well as buildings and animals. Having
won several awards, her most recent accomplishments include a solo
exhibit last summer at the Blyth Festival Art Gallery and a second place at
this year’s Paint Ontario annual juried art show. Michele has been teaching
art classes for several years in Oakville, Guelph and most recently in Huron
County.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“Art for me is an emotional expression of my experiences through
life and a way to deepen the understanding of my journey
while at the same time celebrating it.”
Oil and watercolour are the means I use to express and explore
what captivates me. Light and mood are important aspects of my art.
Watercolour invites a certain playfulness and it provides me with a method
to record and work out what intrigues me. In my oil paintings, I love to play
with depth of colour and brush work and use them as a means to express
different moods or aspects of my subject. I look to my surroundings for
inspiration and am frequently
responding to the most ordinary
of subject matter. I am reminded
when I paint that life is beyond
what we see at first glance.
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Painting: Judges Home by Michele Miller

Thank you
Mary Gregg
Britt Gregg-Wallace
Martha Beechie
The Village Bookshop
Kate Johnston
Huron County Museum & Historic Gaol
Conrad Kuiper
Jenni Boles
Meighan Wark
Huron County Library
Photography Club of Bayfield
Lisa Harper
Blyth Festival
Queen’s Bakery
Samuels Hotel
Benmiller Inn & Spa
Jacob Crosby
George Zoethout
Aaron Neeb
Renewal Retreat
Sharon Johnston
Huron Arts & Heritage Network
Debbie Green
Cherilyn Trick
Beverly Cooper
Catherine Fitch
Alice Munro Public Library
F.E. Madill Secondary School
St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
Doug Kuyvenhoven
Sue Doig and Wingham Knights
of Columbus Centre
Cindy Matthews
Barb Neufeld
Rick Hundey
Norma Rowen
Dr. Helen Ostovich
Arts & Letters Club Foundation
David Scott
Fanfare Books
Wingham and District Horticultural
Society
Hayley Linfield
Elizabeth’s Art Gallery
Goderich Co-op Gallery
Special thank you to our 2016 Guest Authors and Festival Supporters and Patrons
The Village Bookshop
of Bayfield
will have author books for sale
throughout the Festival.
thevillagebookshop.com
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Maps to event venues
C D E F
H
Blyth Festival
431 Queen Street
(Hwy 4), Blyth
WINGHAM
G
30
GODERICH
A
B
C
D
A
B
Huron County Museum
110 North Street Goderich
The Livery,
35 South St, Goderich
Alice Munro Public Library
281 Edward Street, Wingham
North Huron Town Hall
274 Josephine St., Wingham
E
F
G
DOWNTOWN WINGHAM
C
D
F
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
281 Josephine, Wingham
North Huron Town Hall
274 Josephine Street, Wingham
Wescast Community Complex
99 Kerr Drive, Wingham
E

Short Story Competition
opens January 1, 2017
QUEENS
Save the Date
June 1-4, 2017
Announcing our First Guest Writer
Guy Vanderhaeghe
B A K E R Y
& AC C O M M O DATI O N S
226-523-9720
queensbakery@tcc.on.ca
430 Queen Street
Blyth, ON
After hours: 519-523-4590
519-525-8007
31

Live. Original.
Canadian. Theatre.
FOUR WORLD PREMIERES!
HEROES
HILARITY
HEROINES
HISTORY
JUNE 15 to AUGUST 6
OUR BEAUTIFUL SONS:
REMEMBERING MATTHEW DINNING
by Christopher Morris
A play about love of family, the search for bravery, and the
always complicated paths to manhood, motherhood, and peace.
JUNE 22 to AUGUST 6
THE BIRDS AND THE BEES
by Mark Crawford
A hilarious new comedy about love, lust, bee keeping, and the
artificial insemination of turkeys.
JULY 27 to SEPTEMBER 3
IF TRUTH BE TOLD
by Beverley Cooper
She won awards for her writing all over the country. But some
people in her old hometown want her book banned. Fact or
fiction, truth or lies; who decides what makes for a good story?
AUGUST 4 to SEPTEMBER 2
THE LAST DONNELLY STANDING
by Paul Thompson and Gil Garratt
The rise and fall of a defiant young man who stood in the
face of history and dared to burn it all down with a smile.
CALL OR CLICK FOR TICKETS
519.523.9300 | 1.877.862.5984 | blythfestival.com
32
2015 - 2017 Season Sponsors Media Sponsor
Blyth Festival gratefully acknowledges the support of
an Ontario government agency
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario