June | 2017 | Sharon A. Crawford author

Book Launch Crossing Limbo July 8

Dana Bowman escapes from Beyond Blood again.

Creativity from the Stacks presented by my East End Writers’ group last evening went over very well – despite a smaller audience than expected, despite the laptop falling over (and the connecting cable coming out – yes, everything was fine) and despite Shane and I mixing up some of the order of our skit (we did a lot of improv there, which I prefer, and it went over well). The food was good, everyone enjoyed themselves and I managed to get my main Beyond mystery series character Dana Bowman back between the covers of Beyond Blood. That despite one of Shane’s book characters, George Walton, stealing a copy of Beyond Blood.

Speaking of Shane Joseph, the Toronto Launch of his new literary book, Crossing Limbo, a collection of short stories, is Saturday, July 8, 3 to 5 p.m. at Supermarket Restaurant and Bar, 268 Augusta Ave. in Toronto’s Kenginston Market area. If you are in the Toronto area then, why not drop in? It is open to the public and there is no admission charge. And no, George Walton is not in the book. And oh yeah, I’m one of the guest readers and so is Michael Dyet.

Crossing Limbo’s 13 stories cover the harder and darker side of life – greed, desire, ambition, loss, illness, death, and the driving quest to find purpose in a meaningless world.

Below is a sized-down version of the poster for Crossing Limbo.

Cheers.

Sharon

Creativity from the Stacks June 28 – more talented performers

22 Jun

As promised I will introduce the rest of the creative talent from the East End Writers’ Group who are performing/presenting at our big event Creativity from the Stacks. We meet in a library branch in Toronto which is also where the presentation takes place, hence the title created by Paola Ferrante one of our performers. You met Paola in last week’s post.

Date and Time: Wednesday, June 28, 2017, 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Includes mix and mingle, light refreshments, sample writing critique, authors’ books for sale, and presentations by EEWG members.

Location: S. Walter Stewart Library (auditorium), 170 Memorial Pk. Ave., Toronto, Ontario

We are also partnering with the library branch for this presentation as we do with our regular writing critique evenings. More info about the East End Writers’ Group here.

We also are partnered for this event with East End Arts.

More info about them here.

And now – drum roll…

Here are the rest of us who are presenting.

Nick Nanos – Musician, Composer, Fiction Author

Gail Murray – Poet and Creative Non-fiction author

Lee Parpart – Poet and Fiction Author

Shane Joseph – Literary Fiction Author

,

Sharon A. Crawford – Mystery Author, Memoir Writer, Writing Instructor

More info about the performers and the presentation here.

Of course to get the full flavour, the full experience, you have to come to the event.

See you there.

Sharon A. Crawford

More info about all the performers and the presentation here.

Creativity from the Stacks features variety of talent

15 Jun

Many of you probably know that I run a writing critique group called the East End Writers’ Group. It’s been going for almost 17 years. This month on June 28 we are holding a special presentation to showcase some of our members’ talents. And many of us are going beyond doing author readings. Of course we will have some of that. But we will also have photography combined with memoir, a how to from pitching your story to a magazine to publication, a songwriting/singing presentation, and a comedy skit where book characters run wild. We are also holding a short writing critique sample so people can see just what we usually do and participate. The whole event is free and is open to the public, so not only just to writers.

We are doing this presentation in partnership with East End Arts and the Toronto Public Library, specifically the S. Walter Stewart branch where we meet once a month except for August and December. You can read more about East End Writers’ Group on my website.

Without further ado, here is more specific info including an introduction to some of our presenters. The rest will be in next week’s post.

First the schedule:

6.30 p.m. to 7.10 p.m. Mix and mingle, nibblies and sample writing critique

6.40 p.m. to 7.10 p.m. Sample Writing Critique led by Gia Petec in a corner of the auditorium (those not participating can continue on eating and chatting)

7.15 p.m. to 9 p.m. the presenters take their turns on the stage in this order:

Sharon A. Crawford welcomes all briefly and starts introducing the performers.

Laura Jones -shares photographs and passages from her memoir-in-the works

Paola Ferrante reads her short story “Cold Hands” which appears in the current issue of Minola Review.

Event co-host Nishe Catherine will read her short memoir “Selena” which was shortlisted in Malahat Review’s Creative Non-fiction contest.

Nishe Catherine takes over the MCing.

Gail Murray will talk about writing to submission calls and will read her story “Summer in the Sandbanks” from More of Our Canada.

Sharon A. Crawford and Shane Joseph perform a comedy skit featuring characters from their books who collide with real life and each other.

Lee Parpart talks about small press publishing and reads three recent poems.

Nick Nanos does a musical performance and talks about songwriting.

9 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.. More chatting, nibblies and checking out and perhaps buying a book or photograph.

Introducing the Presenters Part 1

Gia Petec – writer and zumba instructor

Link to Gia here

Laura Jones – photographer and writer

See Laura’s website

Paola Ferrante – writer and teacher

Nishe Catherine – poet and writer of short stories and non-fiction

More info on these and the other presenters are on the event website created by Lee Parpart. Of course you get a peek at the others too. But I’ll still feature the rest of us in next week’s post. Meantime check out the event’s Facebook page also created by Lee.

And the Location for Creativity from the Stacks

S. Walter Stewart Library (auditorium), 170 Memorial Park Ave., in the East York part of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you are in the area please join us on Wednesday, June 28.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

1 Comment

Posted by Sharon A. Crawford on June 15, 2017 in Author Reading, Comedy Skit, East End Arts, East End Writers' Group, Sharon A. Crawford, Toronto Public Library, Writing Critique Groups

Tags: Author Readings, Beyond Blood, Characters in Fiction, Creativity from the Stacks, East End Arts, East End Writers' Group, East York Cultural Hot Spot, Gail Murray, Gia Petec, Laura Jones, Lee Parpart, Nick Nanos, Nishe Catherine, Paola Ferrante, Shane Joseph, Sharon A. Crawford, toronto public library, Writing Critique

Beyond Faith rewrite done, now what?

08 Jun

Dana Bowman preparing for her next appearance later in June

Last week I finally completed the last rewrite of Beyond Faith for the publisher. I say “final” as there will still be one more when it is partway through production to check it over for minor things – such as the odd spelling or punctuation mistakes. No big changes are supposed to occur as at this stage, changes will now cost the publisher money.

So, what’s next? Promoting Beyond Faith. of course. The publisher has already started that and so have I. I will be a guest reader at the book launch of literary fiction author Shane Joseph at the Toronto book launch of his new short story collection Crossing Limbo, Saturday, July 8. 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Supermarket Restaurant and Bar in Toronto. I will read a short excerpt from Beyond Faith – using the manuscript 8 1/2 by 11 1/2 sheets and maybe pump up the font size for my bad eyes – well the left eye. (If I don’t continue to use the various prescription eye drops I go blind in the left eye. All these health issues – beyond eyes – are interfering with my life – writing and otherwise. One of the others is dental and the editor at my publisher’s joked that the next Beyond book should be title Beyond Teeth).

So with all this medical crap going on with me, I decided to do some transference in Beyond Faith. Without going into details, I will just say that one of the main twin PIs, Dana Bowman, has her own medical issue crop up that she has to deal with and that influences how she operates to sort out all the criminal issues going on and who is responsible.

And that is the way I liked to do it – i.e., I write complicated plots with plenty going on and lots of twists. And I might do some hinting at that in future blog posts. For now, I’ll just say that Dana’s medical problem has nothing to do with eyes or teeth. And leave it at that.

Meantime, Dana and her comedy skit partner, the aforementioned Shane Joseph and several of his books’ charactes are preparing for another performance where fact is mixed with fiction. More on that in another post. For now here is a link to Shane’s blog post about Crossing Limbo.

As for Dana Bowman, she is staying between the book covers – for now.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Sharon A. Crawford author

Monthly Archives: June 2017

Creativity from the Stacks June 28 – more talented performers

Creativity from the Stacks features variety of talent