Glad Day Bookshop

The Speakeasy Reading Series is back for our final reading of 2019! Don’t know what Speakeasy is? It’s a monthly event hosted by the Guelph Creative Writing MFA Program, featuring readings from students and alumni, as well as local (or visiting) writers!

Featured Readers:

CARRIANNE LEUNG (she/her) is a fiction writer and educator. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Equity Studies from OISE/University of Toronto. Her debut novel, The Wondrous Woo, published by Inanna Publications was shortlisted for the 2014 Toronto Book Awards. Her collection of linked stories, That Time I Loved You, was released in 2018 by HarperCollins and in 2019 in the US by Liveright Publishing. It received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, and was named as one of the Best Books of 2018 by CBC, That Time I Loved You was awarded the Danuta Gleed Literary Award 2019 and was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards 2019 and long listed for Canada Reads 2019. Leung’s non-fiction work has also been appeared in The Globe and Mail, Room Magazine and Open Book Ontario.

LEANNE TOSHIKO SIMPSON (she/her) is a Yonsei writer from Scarborough. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 17, she writes about the gaps within Canada’s mental health system. You can find her work forthcoming or published in The 2019 Journey Prize Stories, Room Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, and Unpublished City II. She was named Scarborough’s Emerging Writer of 2016 and recently finished a novel about mental illness for her MFA at the University of Guelph. Leanne is proud to teach creative writing at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and InkWell Workshops. (Photo credit: Soko Negash)

PREETI KAUR DHALIWAL (she/her) is a Punjabi critical race feminist, lawyer, writer and facilitator who grew up on the west coast between Surrey and North Delta, unceded Coast Salish territories. She left her legal career to complete a Master of Laws where she used theatre, creative writing and performance art to investigate how law lives in the body. Now pursuing her MFA at the University of Guelph, she examines the subjective and experiential “I” through themes of touch, race, trauma and sexuality. Her writing has appeared in the Festival of Literary Diversity's program (FOLD), alt. theatre magazine, PRISM international, Looseleaf, No Foundations, and a few other places. She now teaches, writes and plays in Tkaronto.

BRITTA BADOUR (she/her) is a Kingston-born, Toronto-based poet, emcee and artist educator. Her poetry has featured in notable spheres such as CBC Arts: Poetic License, TEDx, The Walrus Talks, Art Gallery of Ontario and various poetry scenes across North America. Britta is currently working towards an MFA in Creative Writing at University of Guelph. ~

• Glad Day Bookshop has an accessibility ramp at its entrance, and a gender neutral, wheelchair accessible washroom. The venue sells tea and coffee as well as alcoholic beverages, and BOOKS! It is also the world's oldest surviving LGBTQ bookstore and Tkaronto's oldest surviving bookstore! We are SO EXCITED and honoured to be hosting Speakeasy here this year!

** Please avoid wearing scented products (i.e. perfumes, colognes, scented hair products) or clothes that have scented products on them in order to make the space more accessible.

Last but not least, Speakeasy is a PWYC reading (i.e. no one will be turned away for lack of funds and no one will be asked for cash at the door). All proceeds go to the readers and the ven