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Double Reading: Bill Stenson and Linda Rogers
October 4, 2018 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Please join us at a double reading celebrating Bill Stenson’s Ordinary Strangers: A Novel (Winner of the Great BC Novel Contest) & Crow Jazz, the debut collection of short fiction by poet Linda Rogers.
Thursday, October 4 | 7 pm
Book will be for sale on-site.
About Ordinary Strangers:
This astonishing novel begins at a fair on a hot August day in 1971 in Hope, BC. Sage and Della Howard are driving to Fernie to start a job and begin a new life. They stop for a break, and find a crying toddler in the nearby woods and continue their journey with her. A tragic-comedy thriller that takes you to the other side of happenstance and fear.
“Bill Stenson’s stories fly easily as kites in a blue sky in the best wind. However high they soar — often high indeed — they are as down-to-earth as honey and jam. A fine and fascinating collection.”
— Leon Rooke
“Like Twain and Kinsella, Bill Stenson’s work has a glint in its eye. Make room on your shelf for his stories, and make his characters feel welcome, for they are people you know.”
— Bill Gaston
About Crow Jazz:
A dazzling first collection of short fiction from one of Canada’s most accomplished poets. The 22 tales in Crow Jazz reveal clever crow energy; bird’s-eye views of the new human community. Shape-changing characters, child survivors of adult narcissism and social alienation, eat crow and reinvent themselves to fit aspirational narratives through mirth, rebirth and compassion.
“Fuelled by a poet’s sensorium and word mischief, Crow Jazz is a jostling ride that, story after story, is funny, angry, wise, and wild. It’s a perfect title.”–Bill Gaston, author of Juliet Was a Surprise
“In the early stories of Crow Jazz, a fierce laughing girl-child falls for birds and words, discovers sex, plays tricks, sees through hypocrisy, takes revenge, loves the natural world. That sensibility appears often in Linda Rogers’ varied characters, in stories often presenting a strong mix of pain and comedy, such as “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “Shock Therapy.” On every page, Rogers’ imagery shines like a crow’s glossy wing.”–Cynthia Flood, author of What Can You Do.
