by Ellie Barton
Our Authors Talk Editing event last spring was so popular that we’ve decided to launch an annual series. Our guest on Wednesday, April 12, will be Diane Schoemperlen, an award-winning Kingston author of twelve books of fiction and non-fiction. Diane will be interviewed about her editing and writing life by twig coordinator Ellie Barton.
Diane is the author of seven collections of short fiction, three novels, a novella, and two works of creative nonfiction.
In her latest book, This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications, she takes a close and candid look at her relationship with a federal inmate serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. This memoir was longlisted for the BC National Book Award and shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize.
Her other fiction includes Red Plaid Shirt: New and Selected Stories, In the Language of Love, Our Lady of the Lost and Found, and At a Loss For Words. Her collection of illustrated stories, Forms of Devotion: Stories and Pictures, won the 1998 Governor General’s Award for English fiction. Diane’s work has been adapted for the stage and also translated into French, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Chinese. She received the 2007 Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada.
Diane runs her own manuscript evaluation and editing service, specializing in short fiction and novels. Her latest project, a book of short stories by Ottawa writer Barbara Sibbald, will be published this spring by The Porcupine’s Quill. Diane is a member of Kingston Wired Writers, an association of internationally published writers who offer mentoring, manuscript evaluation, and editing. She has worked on manuscript at all stages of editing, from substantive and line editing to finessing grammar and punctuation.
Diane also mentors students on book-length manuscripts as a faculty member of the Humber School of Writing correspondence program. She was recently writer-in-residence at Queen’s University in Kingston and at St. Mary’s University in Halifax.
Diane will have books for sale—bring cash and take home a signed copy!
For more about Diane, visit her website: www.dianeschoemperlen.com.
Come Join Us!
Wednesday, April 12
7 to 9 p.m. Doors open at 6:30.
Ongwanada Resource Centre, 191 Portsmouth Ave., Kingston
Both Editors Kingston members and non-members welcome.
Free.