Steven Heighton at Prose in the Park - The Political Swirl Panel

Con Cú
May 22, 2016
2 min read

DATE: June 4, 2016

TIME: 2 pm - 3 pm

VENUE: Parkdale Park, Ottawa, Ontario

Ever been caught up in political events beyond your control? In the Political Swirl panel, Ian Thomas Shaw, the Chair of Prose in the Park, talks to Steven Heighton, John Delacourt and John Kneale about the “political swirl” in their writing and real lives. This is a panel not to be missed. STEVEN HEIGHTON is the author of Every Lost Country, which was an Amazon.ca Best Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Banff Mountain Book Award and a Globe 100 Best Book of the Year in 2010. He is also the author of the novels Afterlands, which has appeared in six countries and was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and The Shadow Boxer, a Canadian bestseller and a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year. His work has been translated into ten languages, and his poems and stories have appeared in the London Review of Books, Poetry, Tin House, The Walrus, Europe, Agni, Poetry London, Brick, Best English Stories, and many others. Heighton has won several awards and has been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Trillium Award, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award. JOHN DELACOURT will be launching his latest novel, Black Irises, at Prose in the Park. He is also the author of Ocular Proof, published by Seraphim Editions. Delacourt is a Toronto writer, who now lives in Ottawa and whose work has appeared in numerous publications in Canada. He is the author and co-creator of several plays produced in Toronto. He studied at the Humber School for Writers after graduating with an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto. JOHN KNEALE is the author of Volcano Rising: An Ambassador’s Diary, a concise, well-written account of what it was like to be Canadian Ambassador to Ecuador during three of that country’s most turbulent years. Kneale served in Ecuador from 1998-2001, and kept a daily diary. With him were his wife and two teenaged daughters. The title refers to the volcano that was a constant threat and exploded literally above their heads in 1999. It also refers to the wave of discontent that is rising among the marginalized Indian populations. He is also the author of Foreign Service, a candid and personal account of his career as a Canadian diplomat. THE MODERATOR - IAN THOMAS SHAW is the founder and current Chair of the Prose in the Park Literary Festival and the President of the Ottawa Independent Writers. He writes under the penname of CON CÚ (owl in Vietnamese). His first novel Soldier, Lily, Peace and Pearls traces the personal traumas of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. Shaw is currently writing his second novel Quill of the Dove, dealing with the Lebanese Civil War and contemporary politics in the Middle East. For more on Prose in the Park, visit our website at www.proseinthepark.com