Canadian Writing Comes to You -- Live!

The Reading Series has been bringing cutting-edge Canadian writers to St. Jerome's University since 1984.

Each year we strive to offer a range in our slate of visiting writers: well-established and up-and-coming, from the local area and from sea to sea, working in verse and prose and beyond. Experimental and traditional, serious and playful, beautiful and stark, cynical and celebratory -- come and sample the wealth and variety that is Canadian literature today.

These readings are special opportunities to get inside the book -- to hear writers read their own words, and speak about their own writing. Every reading includes an open question and answer session.

All readings are free and open to the public. And there's free parking!

St. Jerome's is located at 290 Westmount Road North, Waterloo, Ontario.

From its beginnings through 2018-19, the Reading Series has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and St. Jerome's University. It now continues to be funded by St. Jerome's.

19 November 2012

Michael Boughn and Christopher Dewdney read on 27 November!


It's November. It's grey and yucky outside. Term is almost over, but not quite. It is definitely time for a couple of amazing avant-garde Canadian writers to come and rouse us all out of wanting to hibernate. 

We're thrilled to be hosting a double bill with Michael Boughn and Christopher Dewdney. 
Please join us at 8pm, Tuesday 27 November 2012, in St Jerome's room 3014. 
And please spread the word -- as always, thanks to the Canada Council and to St Jerome's, the readings are free and all are welcome.


Michael Boughn was described in the Globe and Mail as "an obscure, veteran poet with a history of being overlooked." He is the only living recipient of The Friggin Prize. His last book of poetry, Cosmogrpahia - a post-Lucretian faux micro-epic was shortisted for the 2011 Governor General's Award for Poetry. Great Canadian Poems for the Aged Vol. 1 Illus, Ed. has just come out from Book Thug in fall 2012.


Christopher Dewdney is the author of four books of non-fiction as well as eleven books of poetry. A four-time nominee for the Governor General's Award, he won first-prize in the CBC Literary Competition for poetry and was awarded the 2007 Harbourfront Festival Prize, given in recognition of his outstanding contribution to literature. His most recent non-fiction title, Soul of The World; Unlocking the Secrets of Time, was published by HarperCollins in 2008. It became a Canadian bestseller and was listed in 4th place in the non-fiction section of  The Globe And Mail's Top 100 Books of 2008. Dewdney appeared in the critically acclaimed film, Poetry in Motion, and his 2005 book, Acquainted With the Night, was released as a feature documentary in 2010. The film garnered a Gemini award in 2011. Dewdney teaches creative writing and poetics at York University in Toronto.