Saint Mary’s Reading Series
The SMU Reading Series brings writers to campus to share their work with students, staff, faculty, and our wider community. Admission is free and all are welcome.
Upcoming events:
The SMU Reading Series presents two of Halifax’s premiere children’s authors, author-illustrators, & storytellers for all ages —
JACK WONG & SYDNEY SMITH
Thurs. 21 Nov. 2024, 7 p.m. | Atrium room 101 (SMU Campus)
Admission free. All welcome!
Jack Wong (黃雋喬) was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver. In 2010, he left behind a life as a bridge engineer to pursue his Bachelor of Fine Arts at NSCAD University in Kjipuktuk/Halifax; he has called the east coast of Canada home ever since. Working as a children’s author/illustrator, Jack seeks to share his winding journey with young readers so that they may embrace the unique amalgams of experiences that make up their own lives. Jack’s award-winning picture books include When You Can Swim (Scholastic), The Words We Share (Annick Press), and All that Grows (Groundwood).
Sydney Smith is the author/illustrator of the Kate Greenaway awarded Small in the City (2019), and Do You Remember? (2023) and the illustrator of My Baba's Garden and I Talk Like a River, written by Jordan Scott (2020), Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson (2015); The White Cat and the Monk by Jo Ellen Bogart (2016); and Town Is By the Sea by Joanne Schwartz (2017), which was awarded the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal and the 2018 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Sydney has received the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen award for Illustration. He currently lives in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, with his family.
This special event is presented in collaboration with Woozles, Halifax’s beloved children’s bookstore.
Past events:
The SMU Reading Series presents
SUE MURTAGH
reading from her debut story-collection We're Not Rich,
& in conversation with Alexander MacLeod
Wed. 23 October 2024 | 7 p.m.
Atrium 101 | SMU Campus
‘all the big, too-human catastrophes coupled with the searing moments of sweet clarity that get us through.’ —Lisa Moore, author of This is How We Love
Sue Murtagh (she/her) lives in Halifax. Her writing has appeared in The Nashwaak Review, Grain, carte blanche, the Humber Literary Review, The New Quarterly and Yolk Literary. She won the Budge Wilson Short Story Prize in 2016 with a story written in a creative writing course at Saint Mary's University. In 2020, she apprenticed with Alexander MacLeod through the WFNS Alistair MacLeod mentorship program. She then graduated with distinction in 2022 from the Humber School of Writers, working with Danila Botha. We're Not Rich is her first book.
Admission free. | All welcome.
Presented in collaboration with Nimbus Publishing, Bookmark, and the Department of English Language and Literature.
The SMU Reading Series is back for the fall season with a kick-off musical event at the Halifax Public Library, Central Branch:
Wed. 16 Oct. 2024 at 7 p.m., in the Paul O’Regan Hall
THE SIGN OF JONAS, an apocalypse folktale
by Luke Hathaway & Benton Roark; performed by Benton Roark & Mother Country
Sparse in construction, timeless in imagery, arcane in meaning, mythological in characters and narrative, The Sign of Jonas is an apocalypse folk tale — a story of personal and cultural collapse, and regeneration.
Join us as we bring to life this song cycle lost and found. The fragments of text speak of journeys, of death and rebirth, of decay and regrowth; the music, blending Baroque polyphony, art song, old-timey, and ambient styles, is a ceremonialized cycle of part songs, responsorials, rounds, and incantations.
This event is free and open to the public; supported by the Halifax Public Library, the SMU Reading Series, ANIMA, & Arts for Everyone.
The SMU Reading Series welcomes poets
Gavin Barrett & Jennifer LoveGrovefor our last reading of the 2023/24 season:
Monday, March 25, 2024, 7 p.m.
Atrium building, Room 101, SMU campus
Born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and based in Toronto, Gavin Barrett is the author of Understan (Mawenzi House), a CBC Books recommendation. He is the founder and series curator of the Tartan Turban Secret Readings, a Toronto reading series that focuses on giving IBPOC writers a stage.
Jennifer LoveGrove is a poet and novelist. Her next collection of poetry, The Tinder Sonnets, is forthcoming in 2025 with Book*hug Press.
Presented with the support of the Department of English Language and Literature, the League of Canadian Poets, and Bookmark.
Click here to view the event poster
Reading + Q&A with SMU's 2024 Writer in Residence Casey Plett
Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 7 p.m.
Atrium building, Room 101, SMU campus
Introduction by Nolan Natasha, author of I Can Hear You, Can You Hear Me?
Casey Plett is the author of On Community, A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, and A Safe Girl to Love; the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers; and the publisher at LittlePuss Press. She has written for the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, the Guardian, Globe and Mail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the Winnipeg Free Press, and other publications. She is a winner of the Amazon First Novel Award and the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award; her work has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Presented with the support of the Department of English Language and Literature, the Irish Studies Program, Arts with Impact, and Bookmark.
Click here to view the event poster
An Evening of Poetry
with Sylvia D. Hamilton and Nanci Lee
The SMU Reading Series welcomes two award-winning local poets for our final event of the fall season.
Sylvia D. Hamilton is a writer, filmmaker and artist whose book Tender ‘chronicle[s] the experience of Black people, especially of Black women, in their quest for self-determination and their desire to live full, complex, unencumbered lives.’
Nanci Lee is a Syrian-Chinese poet and educator whose book Hsin is ‘a booksong of grief and celebration’.
Thursday, November 30, 7 p.m.
Atrium building, Room 101, SMU campus
Brought to you by SMU’s Dept. of English Language and Literature and the Irish Studies Program, with the support of Bookmark and the League of Canadian Poets
Click here to view the event poster
An evening with Michael Crummey and Holly Hogan
Join the award-winning writer and the acclaimed biologist as they launch their new books THE ADVERSARY and
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE: Ocean Dispatches from a Seabird Biologist
Wednesday, October 25, 7 p.m.
Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
Presented by Bookmark, Knopf Canada and Saint Mary’s Reading Series
Click here to view the event poster
‘Poetry as Praxis’
Ed Madden: a reading in conversation with Seán Kennedy
Brought to you by Arts with Impact in collaboration with the SMU Reading Series
Tuesday, October 3rd, 7 p.m.
Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
Ed Madden teaches creative writing, LGBTQ studies, and Irish literature at the University of South Carolina, and is Poet Laureate of the City of Columbia. He is the author of many collections of poetry including A pooka in Arkansas (Word Works, 2023).
The Art Gallery’s exhibition Kaleidoscope will be on display.
SMU Reading Series Poster October 2023