The Kingston WritersFest is finally here! Kicking off Wednesday night and continuing through Sunday evening, WritersFest will be bringing authors and book lovers together in Kingston. All week long, Open Book has been sharing interviews with festival authors, who have told us a bit about writing, reading and the one luxury they allow themselves while on tour with a book.
In today's final Kingston WritersFest Interview, we speak with Miriam Toews, an award-winning author whose newest book, All My Puny Sorrows (Knopf Canada), a touching and heartbreaking story about two sisters, has been longlisted for the Giller Prize.
Miriam will be joining novelist Heather O'Neill on Sunday, September 28 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Sisters and Brothers. The two will read from their latest novels and discuss writing about siblings and family difficulties.
For more details, please visit the Events page. You can purchase your tickets here.
Open Book:
Tell us about what you’ll be reading at this year’s festival.
Miriam Toews:
Something from All My Puny Sorrows.
OB:
How do you manage the shift between being a solitary writer and a public reader?
MT:
I shower and put clothes on.
OB:
What is one luxury you allow yourself when you go "on tour" with a book?
MT:
Sometimes I order a steak from room service, for strength. And roaming charges so I can be in touch with my family.
OB:
What book will you have with you in your bag while you're attending the Kingston WritersFest?
MT:
Not sure. Maybe Elena Ferrante’s new book.
OB:
What are you most looking forward to about this year's festival?
MT:
Seeing real people. People who like my stuff. It makes me feel good, sort of useful.
Miriam Toews is the author of five previous bestselling novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness (Canada Reads 2006, Canada Reads Canadian Bestseller of the Decade 2010), The Flying Troutmans and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is a winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Writers Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. She lives in Toronto.
For more information about All My Puny Sorrows please visit the Knopf Canada website.
Buy this book at your local independent bookstore or online at Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.
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