The 2009 Scream Literary Festival

“Only in extinction is the collector comprehended.”

– Walter Benjamin, Unpacking my Library: A Talk about Book Collecting (in Illuminations).

The book is dead and we’re inviting all of its friends to help us to bury it. This year the Scream, Canada’s strangest literary festival, will explore the imminent demise of books, book culture and all that readers hold dear. In the face of its decaying vestiges we celebrate its life, its death and the spectre of its future. Join us from July 2nd to 13th in offering our elegies, predictions, ululations and dreams of technological salvation.

Begin your post-mortem with a musical revue, led by horror-lit luminaries Tony Burgess (Pontypool) and Derek McCormack (The Haunted Hillbilly). Descend into our gallery and mausoleum, where decaying books stand resolute against the future. Wander with us through the streets of Toronto as we reveal the graves of beloved bookstores. Celebrate the poetry of Dennis Lee at our book-length dinner, when he revisits his masterwork Civil Elegies alongside his most recent and visionary books Un and yesno. Finally, reaffirm your love for poetry on July 13th with our 17th annual Scream in High Park Mainstage, featuring an ebullient line up of performers.

The Scream Literary festival culminates in the event that started it all. This is your opportunity to hear the country’s best literary talent together on one stage. Canada’s largest outdoor reading returns with another stellar lineup of poets and fictioneers, including: leading Canadian poet Margaret Christakos, newcomer Jeramy Dodds (whose Crabwise to the Hounds was shortlisted for both the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Trillium Award for Poetry), noted novelist Andrew Pyper (The Killing Circle), Adam Sol (whose Crowd of Sounds won the 2004 Trillium Award for Poetry), and a surprise visit by Icelandic sensation Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl reading with Paul Dutton (of Four Horsemen fame).

Oana Avasilichioaei
Wakefield Brewster
Margaret Christakos
Peter Culley
Jeramy Dodds
Paul Dutton and Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
Lisa Foad
Susan Holbrook
Ryan Kamstra
Shani Mootoo
Andrew Pyper
Adam Sol

Full directions and author bios here

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