Book lovers, it’s time for the PEC Authors Fest

By Ashliegh Gehl

Book talk will be on the menu at the Portabella Restaurant in Picton tonight where the annual Authors Festival Dinner is being served.

Author Charles Foran, winner of the 2011 Charles Taylor Prize for non-fiction, will be reading from his biography Mordecai: A Life. Special guest Noah Richler, the son of Mordecai Richler, will join Foran in speaking about the biography at 6:30p.m.

The Authors Festival Dinner is a prelude to the Prince Edward County Authors Festival, a four-day event where book lovers can meet well-respected, award-winning authors.

On Thursday, Foran is hosting the writing class, “Telling Lives: How to Build a Biography,” at 2:00p.m. at Books & Company. The class is limited to 12 people. Admission costs $30.

Poetry in the Pub starts at the Acoustic Grill at 7:00p.m. Writers Dennis Lee (YesNo, Un, Riffs), Susan Perly (Love Street), Heather Cadsby (Could be), John Oughton (Time Slip) and 2010 Governor General Award Winner Richard Greene (Boxing the Compass) will be there. Pub admission is $10.

Friday morning, schools around the county are bringing students to the Regent Theatre at 10:00a.m. to hear famous children’s author Dennis Lee (Alligator Pie, Garbage Delight, The Cat and the Wizard).

Friday afternoon children’s author and illustrator Ruth Ohi will be at the Wellington Public Library at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Richard Greene (Boxing the Compass) is giving a poetry workshop at Books & Company at 3:30p.m. And at 5:30 p.m. Wayne Grady and Marilyn Simonds (Breakfast at the Exit Café and Simonds’ A New Leaf), and Iain Reid (One Bird’s Choice) will be reading at Books & Company.

Saturday non-fiction writer Joel Yanofsky will read from his memoir Bad Animas – a father’s accidental education in autism. Followed by a Breakfast Panel discussion on memoirs and biographies with Yanofsky, Grady and Simonds. It starts at 9:00a.m.

It’s a dip into fiction at 11 a.m., with writer Richard Cumyn (The Young in Their Country and Other Stories), Kristen den Hartog (And Me Among Them), David Homel (Midway) and Matthew J. Trafford (The Divinity Gene). Michael Riordon (Our Way to Fight) slips in at 1:30p.m. to 3:00p.m. And the authors’ festival wraps up with The County Reads debate starting at 3:30p.m.

Admission to Friday and Saturday readings is $10 per session.