Founded by David O’Meara and Chris Swail in 1999, Plan 99 is entering its 12th season. All readings take place at 5:00 pm at the Manx Pub (370 Elgin St).
Saturday, September 29th: Don McGrath and Michael Lithgow
Donald McGrath grew up in a fishing village on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, leaving at nineteen to study at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He has been a longshoreman, factory worker and waiter, and currently works as a translator in Montreal. He has published the poetry collection, At First Light (1995) and has just released The Port Inventory with Cormorant Books. His poems have appeared widely in periodicals, and one was selected for the longlist Web anthology of this year’s Montreal Poetry Prize.
Michael Lithgow was born in Ottawa and settled in Vancouver in the mid-80s, where he was active in community radio and television, theater, freelance writing, and poetry. Before returning to school to pursue studies in communications, he worked as a paralegal in First Nations law. His poems have appeared in numerous Canadian magazines and in Cormorant’s anthology, Undercurrents: New Voices in Canadian Poetry. He currently lives in Chelsea, Quebec, where he is finishing a Ph.D and teaching at Carleton University. Waking in the Tree House is his first collection.
Saturday, October 27th: Fiction Cabaret with Pasha Malla, Missy Marston & C.S. Richardson
(An Ottawa International Writers Festival/ Plan 99 event)
Pasha Malla burst onto the literary scene in 2008 with the publication of his debut short story collection, The Withdrawal Method, which won the Trillium Book Award and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His new book, a novel, is called People Park.
Missy Marston’s writing has appeared in various publications, including Grain and Arc Poetry Magazine. She was the winner of the Lillian I. Found Award for her poem, “Jesus Christ came from my home town.”The Love Monster is her first novel. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
As an award-winning book designer and now author, CS Richardson has worked in publishing for over twenty years. He is a multiple recipient of the Alcuin Award (Canada’s highest honour for excellence in book design) and his work has been exhibited at both the Frankfurt and Leipzig Book Fairs. The End of the Alphabet, his first novel, has been sold in ten countries. His second, The Emperor of Paris, tells the story of an illiterate Parisian baker who falls for a bookish art restorer.
Sunday, October 28th: Poetry Cabaret with Matthew Tierney, Marcus McCann & Nyla Matuk
(An Ottawa International Writers Festival/ Plan 99 event)
Matthew Tierney is the author of two previous books of poetry. His second, The Hayflick Limit, was shortlisted for a Trillium Book Award. He is a former recipient of the K.M. Hunter Award, and has placed his poems in numerous journals and magazines across Canada. He lives in Toronto. His new book, Probably Inevitable, is published by Coach House Press.
Marcus McCann is a poet and journalist. He grew up in Hamilton. From 2006-2011, he worked at Xtra, where he held various posts including managing editor of both the Toronto and Ottawa editions. He’s the author of two books of poems, Soft Where and The Hard Return, and a number of chapbooks. He was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert and Robert Kroetsch awards, and in 2009, he won the John Newlove Award. He now lives in Toronto.
Nyla Matuk’s first book of poems, Oneiric, was published in 2009 by Frog Hollow Press. A second, Sumptuary Laws, has just been published in 2012 with Signal Editions. Poems have appeared in The Shore magazine, Misunderstandings magazine, ARC Poetry and PRISM International. Her poems are also online in the Archive of Poets at Greenboathouse Books. Short fiction and essays have appeared in the literary journals Event, Room of One’s Own, Descant and in Alphabet City’s Food and Trash issues.
Saturday, November 10th: Debut Fiction with Scott Fotheringham & Alice Peterson
Scott Fotheringham used his experience as a research scientist in New York to write this novel. He holds a PhD from Cornell University in molecular genetics, and a BSc from the University of Guelph. He left Manhattan and a life in science to live in the country. He now lives and writes near Ottawa, after a sojourn near Halifax. The Rest is Silence is his first novel.
New Zealander-Canadian Alice Petersen was the 2009 winner of the David Adams Richards Award, offered by the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick. Her stories, published in Geist, The Fiddlehead, Room, and Takahe, have variously been shortlisted for the Journey Prize, the Writers’ Union of Canada competition, the CBC Literary awards, and the Metcalf Rooke Award. Petersen lives in Montreal with her husband and two daughters. All the Voices Cry (Biblioasis, 2012) is her first collection.
Saturday, November 24th: Debut Poetry with Carey Toane & Stewart Cole
Carey Toane is a journalist, poet and librarian-in-training. Her poems and translations have appeared in Canadian journals and anthologies since 2007. She is the co-founder of the mechanical journal Toronto Poetry Vendors, and the original host of Toronto reading series Pivot at the Press Club. Originally from Alberta, she has also lived in Finland, the Middle East and New York City. She is currently taking a master’s degree in library and information science at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Her first collection of poetry, The Crystal Palace (Mansfield Press) is out this fall.
Stewart Cole’s poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Fiddlehead, Prism International, Quill & Quire, Books in Canada, and Studies in Canadian Literature. His chapbook Sirens was published by Cactus Press in 2011. He grew up in the Rideau Valley south of Ottawa and has since lived in Victoria, Montreal, and Fredericton. He now lives in Toronto. His first book is Questions in Bed (Goose Lane Editions, 2012).