The Vancouver International Writers Festival in partnership with VPL presents
INCITE: AN EXPLORATION OF BOOKS AND IDEAS
Incite is a free series of readings, interviews and on stage conversations featuring established and emerging writers from across the country and beyond.
Irish novelist John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, reads from The Absolutist, Buffy Cram reads from her debut colection of short stories, Radio Belly and Owen Laukkanen shares his debut thriller,The Professionals.
John Boyne
Born in Dublin, Ireland, John Boyne started his literary career with short stories before moving on to novels. His novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was made into a film, has won numerous awards and was a New York Times Bestseller.
Boyne’s latest novel The Absolutist examines the events of World War I from the perspectives of two soldiers.
September 1919: Twenty-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. During the Great War, Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will who, in 1917, laid down his gun on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family. But the letters are not the real reas on for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.
Owen Laukkanen
Owen Laukkanen’s debut novel is The Professionals and he is hard at work on a second novel. When he isn’t writing, he’s a commercial fisherman, dividing his time between Vancouver and Prince Edward Island.
The Professionals follows four friends, recent college graduates, caught in a terrible job market, who begin to joke about turning to kidnapping to survive. And then, suddenly, it’s no joke. For two years, the strategy they devise—quick, efficient, low-risk—works like a charm. Until they kidnap the wrong man.
Now two groups they’ve very much wanted to avoid are after them—the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organized-crime outfit looking for payback. As they all crisscross the country in deadly pursuit and a series of increasingly explosive confrontations, each of them is ultimately forced to recognize the truth: The true professionals, cop or criminal, are those who are willing to sacrifice everything.
Buffy Cram
Buffy Cram grew up on Vancouver Island before traveling, teaching, and writing around the globe. Her stories have appeared in Prairie Fire, The Bellevue Literary Review and the anthology, Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales From Tomorrow, and she received a National Magazine Award for her creative non-fiction. Cram currently splits her time between San Francisco and Berlin.
In Cram’s surreal short story collection, Radio Belly, someone or something has slipped beneath the skins of her already beleaguered characters, rearranging the familiar into something strange and even sinister.
Inhabited, occupied, possessed—suddenly, the world as they knew it is no longer quite recognizable, not to mention safe—if it actually was safe before. But it’s the surprising, often revelatory ways in which Cram’s characters navigate through these strange new landscapes that imbue these stories with complexity, grace and lustre.
INCITE: APRIL 18
7:30pm on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Admission is free*
Alice MacKay room, Central Library
http://www.writersfest.bc.ca/events/inciteapril18
Born in Dublin, Ireland, John Boyne started his literary career with short stories before moving on to novels. His novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was made into a film, has won numerous awards and was a New York Times Bestseller.
Boyne’s latest novel The Absolutist examines the events of World War I from the perspectives of two soldiers.
September 1919: Twenty-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. During the Great War, Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will who, in 1917, laid down his gun on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family. But the letters are not the real reas on for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.
Owen Laukkanen
Owen Laukkanen’s debut novel is The Professionals and he is hard at work on a second novel. When he isn’t writing, he’s a commercial fisherman, dividing his time between Vancouver and Prince Edward Island.
The Professionals follows four friends, recent college graduates, caught in a terrible job market, who begin to joke about turning to kidnapping to survive. And then, suddenly, it’s no joke. For two years, the strategy they devise—quick, efficient, low-risk—works like a charm. Until they kidnap the wrong man.
Now two groups they’ve very much wanted to avoid are after them—the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organized-crime outfit looking for payback. As they all crisscross the country in deadly pursuit and a series of increasingly explosive confrontations, each of them is ultimately forced to recognize the truth: The true professionals, cop or criminal, are those who are willing to sacrifice everything.
Buffy Cram
Buffy Cram grew up on Vancouver Island before traveling, teaching, and writing around the globe. Her stories have appeared in Prairie Fire, The Bellevue Literary Review and the anthology, Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales From Tomorrow, and she received a National Magazine Award for her creative non-fiction. Cram currently splits her time between San Francisco and Berlin.
In Cram’s surreal short story collection, Radio Belly, someone or something has slipped beneath the skins of her already beleaguered characters, rearranging the familiar into something strange and even sinister.
Inhabited, occupied, possessed—suddenly, the world as they knew it is no longer quite recognizable, not to mention safe—if it actually was safe before. But it’s the surprising, often revelatory ways in which Cram’s characters navigate through these strange new landscapes that imbue these stories with complexity, grace and lustre.
INCITE: APRIL 18
7:30pm on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Admission is free*
Alice MacKay room, Central Library
http://www.
