After two years of virtual programming, the 12th annual St. Albert's Readers’ Festival (STARFest) is back in person. This year St. Albert’s premiere literary festival runs Oct. 13 to 25, highlighting nine of Canada’s most talked about authors.
Since most literary festivals take place in autumn, STARFest director Michelle Steinhusen began scoping the landscape in January.
“We match up authors with an interviewer, usually local celebrities in the community. The 90-minute presentations start with an interview portion and then the author gives one or two readings. At the end there’s a Q & A from the audience and there are books available for signing,” said Steinhusen.
Reading is a solitary activity. But during a Gazette interview, she spoke with passion about the readers as well as each novelist. To her, the festival is more than reading books and connecting with themes, plots, characters, and complex arguments.
It is an opportunity for solitary readers to meet other readers and connect with authors. It is a way for readers to discover there are hundreds of people out there who share the pleasure of discovering great books.
“As much as online is a positive experience, there’s something different about being in a room with an author. It’s much more personal and interactive with other readers, and it’s a more meaningful experience.”
All events will be hosted in Forsythe Hall at the Downtown Public Library, 5 St. Anne St. Tickets are still at the pre-COVID price of $7 and can be purchased at STARFest.ca.
Below is a partial list of six authors expected to take part.
J. M. Miro (aka Steven Price)
Friday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m.
Acclaimed author Steven Price wrote his first historical fantasy, Ordinary Monsters, under the pseudonym J. M. Miro. It takes place in Victorian England where two children with special powers are hunted by a man made of smoke. The first female detective from the Pinkerton Agency is charged with rounding up all the talents and taking them to a special school in Scotland. Ordinary Monsters, the first of a trilogy, is 600 pages long and is packed with adventure, mystery, and a quasi-Sherlockian vibe.
Miro grew up in the 1980s in a small community outside of Victoria, a bookish boy not a lot of other children connected with.
“I had a wonderful family, but school was a challenge. I found refuge in books. I hid in them, reading Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, Tolkien. In Grade 6 I was fortunate to have a teacher who saw a boy in need and gave me a book — Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. I devoured it and I knew this is what I wanted to do.”
A visual writer, Miro maps out his storyline, and the title of his second novel, Bringer of Dust, is already online.
“It’s always helpful to have goal posts at the end and signposts in the middle. But I’m also a firm believer in letting the plot and characters surprise the writer as well as the reader.”
Zarqa Nawaz
Sunday, Oct. 16 at 2 p.m.
Creator of the hit CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairies, Zarqa Nawaz wrote Jameela Green Ruins Everything. The spoof focuses on a disillusioned American Muslim woman who becomes embroiled in a plot to infiltrate an international terrorist organization. In the process, she reconnects with her loved ones and faith.
“She’s from Manitoba and I enjoyed her book,” said Steinhusen. “It is a satire and quite satisfying, but some things are heartbreaking. She goes into family and the Middle East, but it’s balanced with humour. I can see it being made into a film or a television show. It changes perspective and bounces from one character to another.”
Genevieve Graham
Tuesday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m.
Genevieve Graham, a crowd-pleaser at past STARFests, returns with her new novel, Bluebird. It’s a historical fiction set during the Great War in Europe and post-war prohibition Ontario. It focuses on a young nurse, a soldier, and a family secret that connects them for generations.
She weaves together the front-line horrors and medical discoveries of the First World War with rum running, untreated post-traumatic stress syndrome, family, and love.
“With my research I start out like a black and white postcard. As I find the details, I think of colouring it. My research has to be thorough so the reader cares about that person. In Bluebird I have two separate story lines. It’s important to feel emotionally attached to the history I share,” said Graham.
In her passion for Canadian history, Graham is making it a mission to get her books into all schools.
“Instead of giving a candle or a coffee cup to a teacher at Christmas, give them a copy of a book and they can share it with everyone.”
Donna Morrissey
Thursday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m.
East Coast writer Donna Morrissey presents Pluck, a deeply personal memoir about the restorative ability of love. In this account, Morrissey candidly recounts a journey through mental illness, family death, and despair, to becoming a sought-after writer.
Intertwined throughout Morrissey’s personal journey are the stories of those who came before her, a breed of iron-willed women — mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, teachers, mentors — who provided a template for life.
“Newfoundland is a place unlike any other,” said Steinhusen. “It is so isolated from the rest of the country, but they have a strong sense of community. It’s not surprising they keep their humour in such a rough landscape.”
Heather O’Neill
Monday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.m.
Once again Heather O’Neill is headed for a bestseller with her newest release, When We Lost Our Heads. Set in Montreal in the late 1800s, two 12-year-old girls meet and form a destructive relationship. Marie Antoine, the daughter of a sugar baron and the less wealthy Sadie become fast friends.
Sadie is kicked out of the house and goes to live in a poorer quarter toiling with other women with no future. Although the teens separate, they reunite later, but their friendship is so intense it threatens to destroy them. When We Lost Our Heads explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, wealth and poverty.
One of O’Neill’s first ideas was to reincarnate a little girl from the French Revolution and pit her against gender norms. In developing her characters, she used Marie Antoinette as a model for Marie Antoine and the Marquis de Sade for Sadie.
“I thought they should be enamoured with each other and fall in love. They are narcissistic and push the envelope. They eroticize female friendships but are never physical with each other. Marie and Sadie took a lot of work. Sadie comes across as unlikeable, but I didn’t want to take off her edge. Marie is oddly the least like me. She is raised by a single father and her idea of femininity is performance. It’s almost an act. They are at heart people unable to not put themselves first,” O’Neill said.
Post-festival event
Adam Shoalts
Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m.
STARFest is also featuring an online event with wilderness adventurer Adam Shoalts. He has written The Whisper on the Night Wind: The True History of a Wilderness Legend. The book is his exploration of an eerie Labrador legend that combines folklore, historical documents, and adventure.
Archival documents reveal that in the early 1900s a creature attacked and haunted the small settlement of Traverspine. Strange tracks were discovered in the snow, unearthly cries were heard at night, sled dogs went missing, and children were reportedly stalked by terrifying animals.
Shoalts first heard of the legend while reading old exploration and fur trade accounts. He decided to venture into the wilderness, put himself in the shoes of people who lived a century ago, and possibly unravel the mystery.
In between taking groups deep into the wilderness, Shoalts wrote an email to The Gazette. In it he described the physical challenges he endured.
“The journey involved canoeing on the coast of Labrador and battling large waves and high winds, but also mountain climbing and bushwhacking in a very remote place with no trails. The overland travel through the Mealy Mountains was the most physically gruelling part of the journey."
For more STARFest information visit starfest.ca
