Today I attended an event that is a festival favourite for many.  This was my first attending The Sunday Brunch but I am so glad I did.  There wasn’t much vegan food, except for a bit of bread, tasty, I might add.  There were also mimosas, mmm.  However, I didn’t go there for the food, I went for the authors!

Participating authors were John Gould, Genni Gunn, David Mitchell, Wells, Tower, Kathleen Winter, and Tess Gallagher.  Jane Urquhart had to cancel at the last minute which was disappointing however, Tess Gallagher filled in for her and was quite a treat.

John Gould did a reading from his debut novel, ‘Seven Reasons Not to Be Good.’  Here is a description of the novel, taken from the book:

Seven Good Reasons Not To Be Good opens with a cryptic postcard from forty-something Matt to his oldest friend, Zane. Zane is dying — for “good” — but Matt’s heading home to talk him out of it. Matt’s keen to make contact with his father too, before the old man disappears into the colourful world of his dementia, with its aliens and their crop-circle messages. With Matt’s marriage in tatters (he’s been cuckolded by the neighborhood barista) and his career as a movie critic gone sideways, it’s clearly time for this trip from Vancouver to Toronto — so he can save his friend, wave off his dad, and maybe find something of himself he lost long ago.

In Seven Good Reasons Not To Be Good, John Gould treats mortality, morality, and modernity with equal parts empathy and wit in the manner of Jonathan Letham and Zadie Smith. His prose dazzles even as it reveals this novel’s complex heart: the imperfect art of letting go.

In his introduction to the reading Mr. Gould explained that it “deals most centrally with a friendship.  In part of the book, one of the main characters “is caught reviewing films that don’t exist.”  The audience laughed.  There were actually many laugh out loud moments of his reading.  This sound like a promising novel!

Genni Gunn did a reading of her latest novel, ‘Solitaria.’  Here is a description of her novel, taken from the book:

When Vito Santoro’s body is inadvertently unearthed by a demolition crew in Fregene, Italy, his siblings are thrown into turmoil, having been told by their sister Piera that Vito had fled to Argentina fifty years earlier after abandoning his wife and son. Piera, the self-proclaimed matriarch, locks herself in her room, refusing to speak to anyone but her Canadian nephew, David. Now scattered over three continents, the family members regroup in Italy to try to discover the truth.
Before Ms. Gunn started her reading, she said, “If you want to sound like you have an authentic Italian accent, put an emphasis on the consonant at the end of each word.  Just try it.”
 (From left: Genni Gunn and Tess Gallagher)
Tess Gallagher is a poet and short fiction author.  Her latest collection is ‘The Man From Kinvara: Selected Stories.’  Here is a description, taken from the book:

Tess Gallagher’s vivid and rewarding short stories bear witness to the intimate details and subtle revelations of daily life. Set mostly in Gallagher’s native Pacific Northwest and drawn from her two widely acclaimed collections, The Lover of Horses and At the Owl Woman Saloon, these stories contain the lives of loggers, bartenders, bear wrestlers, gamblers, Avon ladies, horse whisperers.

Ms. Gallagher explained that she lives in Port Townsend, Washington and about of a third of her time in a small town in Ireland.  She said that she felt that she owed the town in Ireland something and followed her Irish boyfriend, of 12 years, around, feeding him whisky and recorded his stories for one of her books.  She read a story from that book which was both poignant and hilarious.  She also read a poem.

David Mitchell latest novel is, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.   I won’t post his book description here, since I posted it yesterday but you can read my review of the novel, here.
Before he read, Mr. Mitchell said that he tends to write “self indulgent drivel” sometimes. 
This was his first time in Vancouver and he wrote down his thoughts of his “imaginary Vancouver,” before he arrived.  He shared these with the audience rather than doing a reading from his book.  It was quite funny.
Wells Tower read from his latest, his first collection of short stories, ‘Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.  His book sold out at the festival and they were taking orders.
Kathleen Winter read from her debut novel,  ‘Annabel’.   I won’t post a description here, since I posted about it a few days ago, here.

Before she did her reading she said that her father and mother moved to Canada from England before she was born.  One day her father said to her, “Kathleen there isn’t one stick in England that isn’t owned by someone.”  That’s why he moved to Canada.

I attended this event with my friend, Betty Lou.  At our table there were two women who came to Vancouver from Prince George, BC, just for the festival.  We had a great conversation about the event we have attended and authors we love, over brunch.  This really added to the event.

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