Old School: Back it up at the Truck

Don't miss Old School: Back it up at the Truck!

Featuring readings by: Brea Burton, Emily Cargan, Carmen Derkson, Jill Hartman, Natalie Simpson, Lindsay Tipping, and Julia Williams!

When: Saturday, April 19, 2008
Doors open at 7:00
Reading starts at 7:30

Where: The Truck Gallery
The Grain Exchange (Lower Level)
815 -1st Street SW

Cost: Free!

Licensed: Hell yeah!

Brea Burton would like to report she is saddened by the fact that she can no longer wear jeans and Converse runners with skulls on them to work. She has recently become a downtown lemming, a strange little animal that feeds mostly on chai lattes and stale Easter candy. Her cubicle is small and dimly lit but her heart is big and her spirit bright. Sometimes, she makes jokes about ergonomically correct staplers and cleans under her nails with misshapen paper clips.

Calgary-based Mary Emily Cargan is now under new ownership, following the successful take-over of MEC Enterprises Inc. (formally D-Ed) by Turfcutters International of London and New York. Activist shareholders supported Turfcutters’ hostile bid for MEC Ent., which had shown poor returns for quarters two and three of 2007 predicated on last year’s sharp drop in bog futures. Heavily invested in bog futures, Turfcutters’ take-over of MEC Ent., a specialty player in detritus distribution systems, promises to steadily return shares to their former market value. Investors have so far reacted favourably to the newly installed Board of Directors and their projected restructuring of the company.

Carmen Derkson writes nomadic poetry.

According to Canada Council guidelines, Jill Hartman is a mid-career-writer. Does that mean her career will be over in 5 more years? Aw, who’s she kidding, she’s been at it for at least ten now. A lot can happen in ten years. Or not. Well, here’s to the next ten—it’s all downhill from here. Or uphill. Or maybe this is her hump-year.

Lately, Natalie Simpson spends her days annoying the cat, completing the bar, writing about writing, sporadically blogging, and publishing chapbooks through edits all over press. Her previous accomplishments include poems in Post-Prairie, Shift & Switch, Queen Street Quarterly, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, and filling Station. Her recent publications include accrete or crumble (LINEbooks 2006) and Dirty Work (aboveground press series #4).

Lindsay Tipping did a lot of writing in Calgary before running away to become a TV star, horoscope writer and music promoter in China. She has been published in filling station, dandelion, house press and various ESL textbooks across Asia. She lives in Toronto...for now. She likes messing with confessional literature. She like lies that are more fun than truth. She likes that place between story and reality where the reader starts to wonder, "Did Lindsay really stab some guy in the heart in a back alley?" Don't worry, she didn't stab anyone.

Julia Williams writes poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in The Capilano Review, The Literary Review of Canada, Matrix Magazine and CV2, and was selected for the anthology Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry. Her first book of poetry, The Sink House, was published by Coach House Books in 2004. She lives in Calgary.