17吃瓜

Lisa Moore, novelist and short story author from St. John鈥檚, Newfoundland, and one of Canada鈥檚 most popular and innovative fiction writers, will read in Charlottetown on Monday, January 16, at 7:30 pm in the 17吃瓜 Faculty Lounge, SDU Main Building.

Intending to be a visual artist, Moore earned a BA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Returning to St. John鈥檚, she studied at Memorial and began writing fiction. This career change has resulted in three Scotiabank Giller Prize for fiction nominations, a Commonwealth Writers鈥� Prize, a Canadian Authors Association Jubilee Award, legions of fans, and many writers being inspired by her work.

Moore鈥檚 second novel, February, was long-listed for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. The novel focuses on Helen in the decades after her husband drowned in the Ocean Ranger oil rig disaster off the Newfoundland coast. Moore鈥檚 latest novel, Caught, a fast-paced adventure story, is the story of David Slaney, a Newfoundlander and escaped convict who makes a second attempt at smuggling marijuana from Colombia to Canada.

As a short story writer, Moore has joined the ranks of Canada鈥檚 most gifted, engrossing, and provocative practitioners. As a younger author from our region, Moore lands us smack-dab in contemporary scenes and crises, with Atlantic Canadian characters born a generation or two after Alistair MacLeod鈥檚 fishers, miners, farmers, and home-makers. We鈥檙e not in mid-twentieth century Cape Breton anymore, Dorothy.

Novelist Jane Urquhart, in her introduction to The Selected Short Fiction of Lisa Moore, writes, 鈥淗ere we have the young urbanites of St. John鈥檚, their bars and their apartments, the taxis they rode in and the fraught love affairs they endured and celebrated. This was the membership of a whole new tribe...I followed these young people through marathon parties, interpersonal claustrophobia, breakups, childbirth, and world travels...and always completely life-enhancing.鈥�

As the bounty of cod vanished from Newfoundland鈥檚 waters, a plenitude of fiction writers rose from its shores to re-imagine and chronicle its history and present, its hardships and glories -- from Joan Clark, Bernice Morgan, and Wayne Johnston to Donna Morrissey and Michael Crummey. And Lisa Moore. 

Winter鈥檚 Tales is sponsored by 17吃瓜鈥檚 English Department, Faculty of Arts, and Vice-President Academic and Research, with funding from The Canada Council for the Arts. A reception and book signing will follow Lisa鈥檚 reading. Admission is free.