All Write in Sin City

Petra Kuppers is a disability culture activist and a community performance artist who uses somatics, performance, and speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. She is the Anita Gonzalez Collegiate Professor of Performance Studies and Disability Culture at the University of Michigan, a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, and codirector of the somatic writing studio Turtle Disco. Her third performance poetry collection, Gut Botany, was named one of the top ten US poetry books of 2020 by the New York Public Library, and it won the 2022 Creative Book Award by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Her fourth collection, Diver Beneath the Street - true crime meets ecopoetry at the level of the soil – was published by Wayne State University Press in 2024.

https://www.petrakuppers.com/
https://wsupress.wayne.edu/9780814351116/

Jade Wallace (they/them) holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor, and writes poetry, novels, and short fiction, serves as the inaugural book reviews editor for CAROUSEL, and is co-founder of the collaborative writing entity MA|DE. Jade’s work has been published in literary journals internationally and has been shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. Their writing has also been nominated for The Journey Prize. In addition to their own writing, Jade works on poetry and fiction editing, manuscript consultation, ghost writing, workshops, and readings. Jade’s debut novel, Anomia, adapted from their Governor General’s Gold Medal-winning thesis, will be released by Palimpsest Press in Spring, 2024.

https://jadewallace.ca/

https://palimpsestpress.ca/shop/

Our featured author in this episode is Jason McBride. We’re bringing you the recorded highlights of a recent book event, a talk by McBride titled: Autobiography, Autofiction, Autoeroticism. It took place  in downtown Windsor and was hosted by The University of Windsor’s Humanities Research Group. 

In his talk, Jason McBride discussed his first book, Eat Your Mind: The Radical Life and Work of Kathy Acker, the result of a ten-year project that produced a biography of the punk-rock era experimental novelist. Kathy Acker’s novels have been described as “visionary” and “transgressive,” with titles that include Blood and Guts in High School; Empire of the Senses; and Pussy, King of Pirates. She wrote about love and the limitations of language, as well as gender, sex, capitalism and colonialism.

Jason McBride is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, The Believer, The Village Voice, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Hazlitt, and many others. He lives in Toronto, and he recently wrote a piece on Windsor for an article in Maclean’s called THE GREAT ESCAPES: 10 Places in Canada to Visit Right Now. 

The event and the recording took place at the University of Windsor’s School of Creative Arts. We’d like to thank Jason McBride, the author, as well as Dr. Kim Nelson, Director of the Humanities Research Group, and Trevor Pittman from the School of Creative Arts for their assistance in putting this podcast together. 

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Eat-Your-Mind/Jason-McBride/9781982117023

https://macleans.ca/culture/travel/best-places-to-travel-in-canada/

Carlos Anthony is a screenwriter, producer, and novelist who addresses the historically silenced experiences of Black men. With a background in Advertising and Marketing, he learned effective communication and storytelling. Through diverse work experiences, he empathized with individuals from various backgrounds, observing the impact of factors like education, class, culture, and immigration status on masculinity. As a survivor of loss, abuse, and addiction, Carlos draws from his personal struggles, using art as a healing tool to break generational curses. He lives in Windsor, Ontario with his family and is involved in various initiatives, including directing operations at the Windsor Black International Film Festival and co-founding the Millennial X filmmaking program. Carlos' creative work spans web series, short films, best-selling novels, essays, and viral short story series, exploring themes such as Black adolescence, fatherhood, relationships, addiction, and more. Shades of Black, published in 2023 by James Lorimer & Company, is his first novel.
https://formaclorimerbooks.ca/contributor/carlos-anthony/

George Singleton is a Southern author who has written ten books of short stories, two novels, an instructional book on writing fiction and a collection of essays. He was born in Anaheim, California and raised in Greenwood, South Carolina. In 2011 he was awarded the Hillsdale Award for Fiction by The Fellowship of Southern Writers. Singleton was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers in April 2015, and was awarded the John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence in 2016. His latest collection of short fiction is The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs from Dzanc Books of Michigan.
https://www.dzancbooks.org/all-titles/p/nonprofit-martyrs

Also in this episode: 
we want to briefly highlight an upcoming annual event in the Windsor literary community. It’s the annual book launch evening for the Publishing Practicum program at the University of Windsor. It’s a unique educational program where thirty students collaborate each year to edit, publish and launch a book. 

This year, the Practicum is publishing two books with Black Moss Press, both poetry anthologies about our local communities. Where the Map Begins explores our roots through the neighbourhoods of Windsor. The anthology What Time Can’t Touch captures the spirit of Amherstburg through its history. Look for a full episode on the Publishing Practicum and these two anthologies  in an upcoming episode of All Write in Sin City. 

If you’re looking to hear some talented local poets, the launch celebration for both books will take place on April 2nd at Mackenzie Hall, starting at 7 p.m. Admission is free. Now, we have two selections of the poetry in the books read by their authors. 

First, we have Peter Hrastovec. He is a Windsor-born University of Windsor law and literature grad, with three published poetry books, his most recent being There Will Be Fish (Black Moss Press, 2022). Previous books include Sidelines and In Lieu Of Flowers. He also contributed to the anthologies Because We Have All Lived Here and In The Middle Space with the University of Windsor Publishing Practicum. He is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Windsor. Peter teaches and practices law. He and his wife, Denise, have three children and four grandchildren.

Peter reads his poem, Kanata House, from the Windsor anthology, Where the Map Begins.

 Rawand Mustafa, is a Palestinian Syrian writer living in Windsor, Ontario. She received her MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor. Rawand draws inspiration from social justice causes, and she is particularly impassioned by the struggles and resilience of Palestinians living in exile or under occupation.

Rawand reads her poem, Outside In, from the Amherstburg anthology, What Time Can’t Touch.

Ben Robinson is a poet, musician and librarian. His most recent publication is Without Form from The Blasted Tree and knife | fork | book. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. His first book is The Book of Benjamin from Palimpsest Press.
You can find him online at benrobinson.work.

https://palimpsestpress.ca/our-authors/ben-robinson/

Catherine Leroux is the author of three highly praised novels and an innovative sequence of short stories. Her first novel, La marche en forêt (2011), was a finalist for Quebec’s Booksellers’ Prize. Her bestselling second novel, The Party Wall, a translation of Le mur mitoyen, won the France–Quebec Prize in the original and, in translation, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Award. In the United States, The Party Wall was a prestigious Indies Introduce selection. Leroux’s story sequence, Madame Victoria, won Quebec’s Adrienne Choquette Prize and was a finalist for the Booksellers’ Prize. Her novel, L’Avenir, won the Jacques Brossard Prize and was a finalist for the Imaginary Horizons Prize. Catherine Leroux works as a translator and editor in Montreal. She was awarded the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation. L’Avenir has now been translated into English by Susan Ouriou as The Future. Published by Biblioasis, The Future was released in the fall of 2023.  It is now short listed for CBC's Canada Reads championed by author Heather O'Neill.
https://biblioasisbookshop.com/item/N8KJ1y9ScrwyM7ez4DnvLw/lists/L9Zzzb3Vt5iU
https://www.cbc.ca/books/meet-the-canada-reads-2024-contenders-1.7073689

Miriam Wright is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Windsor. She teaches Canadian history, and her recent work has focussed on race and sports in Canada as well as on Chinese immigration to Newfoundland and Labrador. Miriam is one of the researchers behind the award-winning Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” Harding & the Chatham Coloured All-Stars project. Her new book, released by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Fall 2023, is Sporting Justice: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars and Black Baseball in Southwestern Ontario, 1915-1958.
https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/S/Sporting-Justice

Casey Plett is the author of 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, the Globe and Mail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the Winnipeg Free Press, and other publications. 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. On Community is the latest in the Field Notes series published by Biblioasis, and was released in 2023.
On Community  has been named one of CBC's "30 Canadian books to read in winter 2024." https://www.cbc.ca/books/30-canadian-books-to-read-in-winter-2024-1.7073501

https://caseyplett.wordpress.com/
https://www.biblioasis.com/shop/new-releases/on-community/

Arjun Bedi is a second generation Indian-Canadian writer. He was born and raised in Mississauga. Formally educated in Philosophy, with an eclectic set of experiences to follow, his aim has always been to interact with the world in a way that keeps his curiosity alive. The Blood of Five Rivers is his first novel and is published by Palimpsest Press.
https://palimpsestpress.ca/our-authors/arjun-bedi/