Trillium Book Award Author Readings June 16

The Kingston WritersFest Interveiw Series, with Shani Mootoo

 
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Shani Mootoo (Photo Credit: Martin Schwalbe)

The Kingston WritersFest is almost here! Events are selling out, so now is the time to get your tickets. All week long, Open Book will be sharing interviews with festival authors, who will tell us a bit about writing, reading and the one luxury they allow themselves while on tour with a book.

In today's Kingston WritersFest Interview, we speak with Shani Mootoo, author of the Giller Prize longlisted novel Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab (Doubleday Canada), an engaging story about family, gender and identity that moves between Toronto and Trinidad.

Shani will be teaching a Writers Studio workshop, Write Vivid Description, on the morning of Saturday, September 27 at 11:30. As well, on Saturday afternoon at 4:30, Shani joins author Cecil Foster for readings and conversation with writer Wayne Grady at Identity: Either/Or/Neither (Canada Made Me).

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.

Shani Mootoo:

I'll be reading a section from my new novel Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab. I usually choose a section that gives the listener a sense of the writing, of the voice, of the flavour of the novel, so to speak.

OB:

How do you manage the shift between being a solitary writer and a public reader?

SM:

Doing readings and talking about the book in public are actually like coming up for fresh air. It’s a way of celebrating the work that took place in the deep cave of the mind. But the shift is indeed a challenge to make. A particular friend understands the difficulty in accomplishing this switch, and helps me by gently grilling me on the subject of my novel, and on my reasons for writing, and for writing the current novel in particular. This allows me to train my mind on the exterior form of communication — sort of like getting used again to the art of conversation after having been holed up in a 300-page monologue.

OB:

What is one luxury you allow yourself when you go "on tour" with a book?

SM:

I’m fortunate that I have a publisher who understands the rigours of the tour. To help deal with the stress of it all, they put up their authors in rather decent hotels and make sure we eat well, and that there is someone who meets us and takes us to interviews and to events. On my end, I trust in their system and don’t worry too much about schedules and directions and having to get here or there on time. In other words, I let go, and give myself over. That is such a luxury!

OB:

What book will you have with you in your bag while you're attending the Kingston WritersFest?

SM:

I can’t read other people’s work seriously when I must focus on my own. So I tend to read the newspaper or magazines. But next on my list are Where the Air is Sweet by Tasneem Jamal and a biography of an Amazing Canadian Landscape architect. It is called Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Lanscape by Susan Herrington.

OB:

What are you most looking forward to about this year's festival?

SM:

This is my first time at the Kingston Festival, so, in a way, I’m looking forward to everything. In general I love the excitement these festivals foster. Books and writers and readings seem almost quaint nowadays, and I am equally fascinated by the people who love books so much that they want to see the writer and hear the writer’s words in his or her own voice.


Shani Mootoo is the much-loved author of the novels Cereus Blooms at Night, which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, which was longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award; and Valmiki’s Daughter, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Shani was born in Ireland, grew up in Trinidad and immigrated to Vancouver more than thirty years ago. She lives in Prince Edward County.

For more information about Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab please visit the Doubleday Canada website.

Buy this book at your local independent bookstore or online at Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.

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