All Write in Sin City

Marian L. Thorpe grew up in Harrow, Ontario. She holds a Masters in Biology from the University of Guelph, and has recently retired as a Special Education supervisor at a school district in Ontario. Marian is the author of the alternative world medieval trilogy Empire’s Legacy. The series was rated Top Ten (#5, #7, and #8) in Alternate History, on Amazon.com, April 8, 2019.  Her life-long interest in Roman and post-Roman European history informs her novels, while her avocations of landscape archaeology and birding provide background to her settings. Marian also has published short stories and poetry.

As well as writing and editing professionally, Marian oversees Arboretum Press, a small publishing imprint run as a collective. Marian is currently writing Empire’s Reckoning, the next book in her series. Marian and her husband Brian live in Guelph. For more information, check out these websites:
https://marianlthorpe.com/
https://arboretumpress.com/

This week's podcast takes place at Gertrude’s Writing Room on the grounds of historic Willistead Manor in Windsor. We talk with two authors of very different genres who just happen to be married. They live in Windsor with adjoining writing spaces and their menagerie of animals.

Alexander Zelenyj is the author of the books Blacker Against the Deep Dark, Songs for the Lost, Experiments at 3 Billion A.M., and Black Sunshine. Alex was also one of the authors selected for the Juniper Books Spring Reads series.

Elizabeth J. M. Walker is the author of the books She Dreamed of Dragons, This Night Sucks, Slip Jig Summer, and The Boy Who Owned the Forest.

Find out more about Alex and Elizabeth's writing at these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Zelenyj
http://www.eibonvalepress.com/chapbooks/Chap12_Animals.htm
https://elizabethjmwalker.wordpress.com

This week’s podcast brings you a variety of Detroit poets reading at Poets and Pies, a regular event hosted by the Detroit Writers’ Guild. This set of readings was recorded in August at the St. Clair Shores library. 

Joyce Jenkins is a Detroit native who has spent much of her life in Berkeley, California. Joyce has long been a noted Bay Area poet and the editor of “Poetry Flash,” as well as the producer and sponsor of the Northern California Book Reviewers and the Northern California Book Awards. 

Caroline Maun teaches creative writing and American literature at Wayne State University, and she is the Chair of the English Department. She is also the editor of The Collected Poetry of Evelyn Scott, and author of Mosaic of Fire: The Work of Lola Ridge, Evelyn Scott, Charlotte Wilder, and Kay Boyle. Her poetry publications include the volumes The Sleeping, and What Remains.

Pat Barnes is a longtime Metro Detroit poet who is a favorite with poetry audiences. Her work is witty, funny and always leaving audiences with a good vibe and food for thought.

Alinda Dickinson Wasner the author of 4 collections of poetry, the most recent being, When You Don't Know Who You Are published by Crisis Chronicles Press. Winner of several U.S. poetry prizes and an international prize, her work can be found in numerous print and online journals. Called "one of Detroit's best poets" by poet laureate, M.L. Liebler, Wasner is currently at work on a new collection, Too Much Love: Detroit Poems.

To find out more about Poets and Pies or the Detroit Writer's Guild follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DetroitWritersGuild.

Last week on All Write in Sin City, we talked with Teajai Travis, Windsor activist, artist and writer and also the recipient of the 2018 City of Windsor Heritage Grant. One of his recent projects is the Windsor Storytellers Collective. He and two other artists recently kicked off their first experimental, collaborative spoken-word presentation at the Green Bean Cafe.
 
Titled Wordz!, the sound and song art performance featured two poets reading spontaneous selections of poetry and a DJ, weaving together a unique experience of spoken word and song. The featured performers are:

 Slam Poet Eric E-tomic Johnson
 DJ Needle 9:14
 And Teajai Travis

For event photos, check out the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/359541714967740/

Teajai Travis is a proud and mindful descendant of Afro-indigenous ancestors who survived slavery in the Americas and settled in North Buxton, Ontario prior to the American Civil War. Teajai’s relations spread across the North American continent, and abroad. Teajai researches and writes about his ancestors, specifically those in the Americas during a time of chattel slavery. He is inspired by the stories of his own family. A recipient of the 2018 City of Windsor Arts and Heritage Grant, Teajai is currently working on a multi-media project, Born Enslaved: a series of poetry, fiction, and drama inspired by family history. He is a revered community activist, and is the founder of Bloomfield House, an arts and social centre for youth in Sandwich, Ontario. 

How did one of the shining cities on the hill in mid-century North America become the poster child for de-industrialization? In this All Write in Sin City, you’ll hear Part Two of a presentation by Anna Clark, talking about her award-winning book, The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy.  Anna continues her commentary about the Flint water crisis, and takes a look at possible structural causes, with additional insight provided by Flint-based writer and former journalist Robert Campbell. You’ll also hear additional questions and commentary from moderator and Windsor community organizer, Steve Green.

Anna Clark is a journalist in Detroit. The Poisoned City was named one of the year’s best books by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, Audible, Amazon, the New York Public Library, and others. It is the winner of the Hillman Prize in Book Journalism and the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, and more.

Anna’s writing has appeared in Elle, the New York Times, Politico, the Columbia Journalism Review, Next City, and other places. She has been a Fulbright fellow in Nairobi, Kenya, and a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. She received the Excellence in Environmental Journalism award from the Great Lakes Environmental Law Council. You can find out more about the book and Anna’s writing on her website, annaclark.net. ​

When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins. Through a series of disastrous decisions, the state government had switched the city’s water supply to a source that corroded Flint’s aging lead pipes.

Anna Clark is a journalist in Detroit. The Poisoned City was named one of the year’s best books by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, Audible, Amazon, the New York Public Library, and others. It is the winner of the Hillman Prize in Book Journalism and the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award.It was also named a Michigan Notable book, won a State History Award, and it was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and it was also a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. 

Anna’s writing has appeared in Elle, the New York Times, Politico, the Columbia Journalism Review, Next City, and other places. She has been a Fulbright fellow in Nairobi, Kenya, and a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. She received the Excellence in Environmental Journalism award from the Great Lakes Environmental Law Council. You can find out more about the book and Anna’s writing on her website, annaclark.net. 

This podcast features two outdoor readings from the Woodbridge Farm Writer's Retreat Reading Series in Kingsville, Ontario. Windsor Poet Laureate Mary Ann Mulhern reads selected poems from her seven books, and Alix Hawley reads from her award-winning historical fiction series about the life of Daniel Boone.

Mary Ann Mulhern holds a Masters of Education and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Windsor. Mulhern wrote The Red Dress, her first book of narrative poetry, which focused on her experiences living in a convent for eight years in the 1960s. Her next book, Touch the Dead (2006) was shortlisted for the Acorn-Plantos Award in 2007. She has written countless poems, and published seven books to date. Mary Ann Mulhern was selected as Windsor’s Poet Laureate for the 2019-2022 term.

Alix Hawley studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Oxford University, the University of East Anglia, and the University of British Columbia. She published a story collection, The Old Familiar, which was longlisted for the ReLit award, with Thistledown Press in 2008. Several of her stories have won accolades from the CBC, and in 2017 "Witching" won the CBC Short Story Prize. Her first novel, All True Not a Lie in It, was published by Knopf Canada as its New Face of Fiction pick for 2015, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the  Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the BC Book Prize for Fiction. And her second novel, My Name Is a Knife, was longlisted for the Giller Prize. Both follow the story of larger-than-life frontiersman Daniel Boone.

Find out more about the authors:
http://blackmosspress.com/mary-ann-mulhern/
https://www.citywindsor.ca/residents/Culture/Pages/Mary-Ann-Mulhern.aspx
http://www.alixhawley.com/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/188181/alix-hawley

This podcast features two award-winning speculative fiction authors reading to a live audience at Windsor’s Phog Lounge. Coming to us from London Ontario, Timothy S. Johnston is an award-winning writer of futuristic and contemporary mystery/thrillers. He has won multiple awards including the CYGNUS, the CLUE , and the Science Fiction Epic Award. In this episode, he reads from his lates award-winning novel, The War Beneath. 

Next is the Detroit-based author of over a dozen novels and countless short stories, Kathe Koja. She has been a major voice in genre fiction for many years. Her stories frequently concern characters who have been in some way marginalized by society. She has also won many awards, including the Bram Stoker Award and the Locus Award for her first novel, The Cipher, and the Deathrealm Award for Strange Angels. Kathe has since branched off into other genres, including young adult and multi-media projects, and she shares some of her work with our ChiZine Series audience at the Phog. 

Find out more about these authors:
https://timothysjohnston.com/
https://kathekoja.com/blog/

Part Two of last week's podcast, a live recording of a recent interview with award-winning fiction author Casey Plett, recorded at Biblioasis bookstore. Windsor poet Vanessa Shields is the interviewer.

Casey Plett is the author of the short story collection A Safe Girl to Love and the novel Little Fish, which won this year's Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the Lamda Literary Award. It was also short-listed for the 2019 Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers.

Casey's also co-editor of the anthology Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers. She wrote a column on transitioning for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Maclean’s, The Walrus, Plenitude, and the Winnipeg Free Press. She is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction, a finalist for this year’s Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and a was a past finalist for the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers. She lives in Windsor, Ontario.

Check out Little Fish on the publisher's website: arsenalpulp.com/Books/L/Little-Fish