Outlaws & Outsiders at Westfest Lit‏

Westfest Lit has a totally new feel this year. For one thing, the event is moving indoors -- to one of Ottawa's cooler restos, Juniper. Because of the quieter indoor venue, we've been able to mess with the format a little. This year's reading will be framed as writers in dialogue, loosely based on the theme Outsiders & Outlaws.

Westfest Lit
Saturday, June 11, 3pm
Juniper, 245 Richmond Rd
Hosted by Lucy van Oldenbarneveld
westfest.ca

Conversation #1: Outlaws
Gabriella Goliger & Patrizia Gentile
Goliger's latest novel (Girl Unwrapped) is set in post-war Montreal, as the novel's protagonist struggles to understand her surging lesbian sexuality, religion and society's attitudes. Gentile's latest book (The Canadian War on Queers), cowritten with Gary Kinsman, is a deeply researched look at the ways the government oppressed gays and lesbians across the country, with a focus on the civil service and the military.

Conversation #2: Outsiders
Jon Paul Fiorentino & rob mclennan
Fiorentino's novel Stripmalling is about outsiders, the economically and socially marginalized, youth, and stark realities of making minimum wage in Winnipeg. Incorporating letters, found material and elements of the graphic novel, Fiorentino's writing enacts the outsidership he writes about. The same can be said of rob mclennan's two novels, White and Missing Persons. Whether tackling the disaffection of the middle class in a fictionalized 1970s Niagara Falls or a working class farming life, gaps in memory and belonging show that we are all, in a sense, outsiders in our own lives.