Literary Circle - Bravo TV taping. Free. Giller Prize short list

Stephen Weir here
This is an invitation for late Friday afternoon. Tomorrow. Books. Giller. Bravo TV. Toronto.
The thing about most authors is that they are great writers but in person .... yawn. However, when you have a seasoned interviewer, like Seamus O'Regan, who can ask the hard question, suddenly an hour with five top authors becomes the high point of the week...!
Tomorrow afternoon, 5:30. Seamus O'Regan (Canada AM) will be interviewing the five short-listed Giller Prize authors.
I was at the last taping it was an unforgettable hour of literature (seriously). It is at the Masonic Temple (Yonge at Davenport). It is free but seating is limited. Email gillercircle@ctv.ca.
I will be there. Hope you can make it.
The 5 authors and their books are:
David Bergen THE MATTER WITH MORRIS, Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Alexander MacLeod for his short story collection LIGHT LIFTING, Biblioasis Sarah Selecky for her short story collection THIS CAKE IS FOR THE PARTY, Thomas Allen Publishers
Johanna Skibsrud for her novel THE SENTIMENTALISTS, Gaspereau Press Kathleen Winter for her novel ANNABEL, House of Anansi Press

A Night of Literary Non-Fiction

IAN BROWN to headline IFOA's REAL LIFE: A Night of Literary Non-Fiction

Friday, Oct. 29th at 8:00 p.m.
Lakeside Terrace, York Quay Centre at Harbourfront

Winner of The Charles Taylor Prize now Canada's most highly acclaimed non-fiction author

TORONTO, Oct. 21 /CNW/ - Multiple book award winner Ian Brown is the most successful literary non-fiction writer Canada has ever produced. In 2010, his book, The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son (Random House Canada), swept all of the major non-fiction prizes in the country. In addition to winning the 2010 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, Brown's book won the B.C. National Book Award and the Trillium Book Award, and the accolades keep coming: the book is shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award, to be announced in November.

WHO:
Author Ian Brown, winner of the 2010 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, appears at Harbourfront's esteemed International Festival of Authors. Ian Brown joins fellow non-fiction writers Charles Foran, Charlotte Gray and poet Meaghan Strimas. Each will read from their most recent works. The evening is hosted by non-fiction author Larry Gaudet.

WHAT:
Ian Brown will read from his award-winning book The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for his Disabled Son.

Born with a genetic mutation so rare that perhaps 300 people around the world live with it, Ian Brown's son, at age twelve, weighs only 54 pounds, wears diapers, can't speak and needs to wear special cuffs on his arms so that he can't harm himself. "Sometimes watching him," Brown writes, "is like looking at the man in the moon - but you know there is actually no man there. But if Walker is so insubstantial, why does he feel so important? What is he trying to show me?" The author's journey takes him into deeply touching and troubling territory. "All I really want to know is what goes on inside his off-shaped head," he writes, "But every time I ask, he somehow persuades me to look into my own."

WHY:
This is the IFOA's signature Non-Fiction event. Charles Taylor Prize winner Ian Brown, Charles Taylor Prize Founder Noreen Taylor and Charles Taylor Foundation trustee, Dr. David Staines are available for interviews before and after the event.

WHEN: Friday, October 29, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.

WHERE: Lakeside Terrace, York Quay Centre, Toronto

TICKETS: $18.00 Available online in advance. Seating is limited. www.readings.org

Previous Winners of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction:
2000 Wayne Johnston for Baltimore's Mansion: A Memoir
2002 Carol Shields for Jane Austen
2004 Isabel Huggan for Belonging: Home Away from Home
2005 Charles Montgomery for The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia
2006 J.B. MacKinnon for Dead Man in Paradise
2007 Rudy Wiebe for Of this Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest
2008 Richard Gwyn for John A.: The Man Who Made Us
2009: Tim Cook for Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917-1918, Volume Two
2010: Ian Brown for The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son

The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction is presented annually by the Charles Taylor Foundation with support in 2010 from its partners: AVFX, Ben McNally Books, BookTelevision and Bravo!, Canada Newswire, CTV, The Globe and Mail, Le Meridien King Edward Hotel, Quill & Quire publications, and Windfields Farm.

For more information about The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, and Ian Brown's award winning book, please follow links at www.thecharlestaylorprize.ca and follow on Twitter @taylorprize.

For further information:

Media are requested to confirm their attendance and/or interview requests with Stephen Weir & Associates:

Stephen Weir: 416-489-5868 cell: 416-801-3101 stephen@stephenweir.com
Linda Crane: 905-257-6033 cell: 416-727-0112 cranepr@cogeco.ca