Christian McPherson: Launch of the Bywords Quarterly Journal Saturday, May 28, 2011, 5pm, the Manx Pub, 370 Elgin St

Friday, May 13, 2011

Launch of the Bywords Quarterly Journal Saturday, May 28, 2011, 5pm, the Manx Pub, 370 Elgin St

Bywords 7th Annual Cornerstone Fundraiser & Spring Launch
Saturday, May 28, 2011, 5pm, the Manx Pub, 370 Elgin St.
with music by Jesse Cole and poetry by Emily Falvey, Christian McPherson, Rod Pederson and Dimitra Xidous

Cornerstone provides emergency shelter and housing for women. With your help, they will provide the following this year:
about 500 women will be offered safe emergency shelter and the support to start a new life beyond homelessness;
about 200 women will have help to find safe, affordable, permanent housing;
about 8,000 meals will be served;
about 100 women will receive support to move beyond addictions to recovery;
about 20 women will receive training in computer and job preparation skills.
for more info about Cornerstone and the services they provide please go to
http://www.ottawa.anglican.ca/cornerstone/
In previous years, Bywords has raised $300-$400 in support of Cornerstone. With your help, we can help Cornerstone: $90 feeds one woman for a month.
$50 will provide bus tickets for 25 women to get to doctor and housing appointments.
You will receive a free copy of the spring issue of the Bywords Quarterly Journal with your donation.
We have fantastic music by Jesse Cole; listen to her here:
http://www.myspace.com/jessecoleband/music
Jesse performed at our fall 2009 reading but i was in the hospital and missed her, so this will be a treat for me in particular.
The poetry readings will give you a chance to hear out of town, emerging and established poets:
Emily Falvey is a former Ottawa resident, art curator who worked at the Ottawa Art Gallery and is now an independent curator. Her poetry is very visual and collage like. This is a rare reading in Ottawa for Emily.
Christian McPherson has a new poetry collection out The sun has forgotten where I live. his poems are humorous and full of everyday life’s conundrums.
Rod Pederson is the host of the Tree Reading Series, one of Ottawa’s most beloved poetry reading series and the driving force behind the new annual poetry festival VerseFest. www.versefest.ca. His love of poetry shows in his own writing.
Dimitra Xidous is an enthusiast of the duende who writes cosmopolitan and sensual poetry.
[cover photo by John Wenzel]

further info:
Amanda Earl, managing editor, Bywords.ca and the Bywords Quarterly Journal
amanda at bywords dot ca
www.bywords.ca

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Praise for Saving Her

"Fans of psychological thrillers like Stephen King's will clamour for this book" - All Lit Up's Super Secret Festival of Lit: Mysteries & Thrillers

"I have often purchased at book stores or downloaded from the internet a novel about which the advertisers and the reviewers say “You can’t put it down.” Once in a while, rarely for me, the description and my personal experience as a reader are a match. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was a match for me. Saving Her is another." - Rem Westland, Apt613

"With the taut pace of a thriller, it's a story about an accomplished woman going off the rails and striving to save herself and others. I itched to be reading this slim volume when I had to put it down, driven by a fast-moving plot and the suggestion that it could unravel in many different directions." - Hattie Klotz, Ottawa Magazine

Praise for The Cube People

What’s really distinctive about the book is just how funny it is. The sex scenes and masturbatory scenes are side-splitting; the bizarre, labyrinthine governmental logic is richly, darkly comic; the failures of the struggling writer are, in their sad-sack way, laughalong. McPherson has many ways to make the reader laugh, from the more energetic and obvious to the more sophisticated – Shane Neilson, The Fiddlehead

The life-among-the-bean-counters part of McPherson's book is well managed and entertaining ... the comic evocation of domestic routines makes for an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the book. What ties everything together is the character of Colin, a well-meaning, dutiful type who acts as a pivot of sanity for the chaos to swirl around. And despite the raw moments, the conclusion is a good-natured affirmation of his core family values.
—Alex Good, Quill & Quire

[The] Cube People is a sardonic and acerbic tale of one man’s daily grind as a faceless underling in a federal office. Outside of the office he works on his own novel (we get the plot within the plot), and desperately tries to get his wife — anxious and impatient for children — pregnant. It’s a funny and clever book, and it could deservedly become a sleeper hit for the writer.
—Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen (The Cube People was also Simpson’s pick as his critic’s top choice!)

Christian McPherson’s The Cube People is a cocktail of genre work that has something for every reader to enjoy. Though the novel follows in the footsteps of novelists interested in exploring the angst of white collar workers (the kind of novel now diligently studied in Am Lit graduate seminars), it also ventures into the campy worlds of science fiction, blood-and-guts schlock horror, and a certain kind of fantasy, all the while sustaining the episodic carnival with a sincerely touching family narrative that is honest, funny, relatable, and very loving.
—Amanda Trip, Maple Tree Literary Supplement

There is something to be said about a book that can keep you so deeply immersed you finish it in a single day … between his book’s rejections, his baby-obsessed wife and horrible day job, Colin becomes the everyman for anyone who has been constantly beaten down and hoped for salvation.
―The Charlatan

What people are saying:

"McPherson’s writing is never boring . . . McPherson is a writer to watch." - Naomi Lewis, SEE Magazine

“Christian McPherson’s barfly madrigals are smoky and complex, shadowy tales from a shadowy planet, some so afflicted they’ll give you a rash.” —Mark Anthony Jarman

". . . he knows how to create an atmosphere of suspense in a debut full of realistic tales of petty crime and sad suburban obsessions." - Alex Good, Guelph Mercury

“...genuinely hilarious moments... McPherson is at his best when the threatening potential for deviancy, dishonesty, or violence remains spectre instead of spectacle... it is in the book's subtleties that the writing and storytelling is most accomplished.”—Owen Percy, Canadian Literature

“In his debut collection, McPherson conjures a gritty and colourful Ottawa, populated by addicts and losers, obsessives and gawky teens. ... McPherson’s endings, like the pool hustles, drug deals and long afternoon shags of these stories, have a nice way of leaving things open to the unexpected.”—The Dominion

“The characters who haunt Six Ways to Sunday are prisoners of their own passions, desires, addictions. When they cannot break out of the misery of their own creation, McPherson offers redemption through small acts of bravery, miracles of love large and small. A fascinating debut.”—Byrna Barclay

"Just picked up "rats" and was astonished. I'm ashamed I haven't seen your work before. Great stuff. Simply great. Did you just pop out fully formed or have you been studying how to be an excellent human poet in some sort of strange monastery where they let you watch movies? Whoosh. Loved these poems." - Michael Dennis

“It will be interesting to see how McPherson’s obvious talent as a truly entertaining writer will develop as he begins to produce more work.” —Deanne Beattie, The Peak

Pages

Friday, May 13, 2011

Launch of the Bywords Quarterly Journal Saturday, May 28, 2011, 5pm, the Manx Pub, 370 Elgin St

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