Women & Men: Red Silk & The Long Slide
Rishma Dunlop & Priscila Uppal, editors of Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (The Mansfield Press)
Come hear a “round table” conversation led by Margaret Christakos with editors Rishma Dunlop and Priscilla Uppal and poets from their new anthology Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets. Dunlop and Uppal along with poets Sandeep Sanghera, Soraya Peerbaye, Sonnet L’Abbé and Kuldip Gill will discuss the hybridity and differences that influence the shaping of South Asian women’s identities, and the immigrant and diasporic experiences that gives rise to the poetry of these women.
As rich and exuberant as its title, Red Silk is an important contribution to the growing body of South Asian Canadian literature. Ably edited by Rishma Dunlop and Priscila Uppal, Red Silk gathers some powerful South Asian female, and feminist, voices from the Canadian literary scene. These poets explore the complexity, diversity and heterogeneity of South Asian Canadian identity by examining their relationships, as women, to the South Asian cultures that they live in their bones, memory and daily lives. These poems enact how an ordinary household object, a word, a smell, a gesture can all trigger a cascade of memories and responses soaked in cultural significance, and mark one as South Asian. Red Silk collects works by Hiro Boga, Rishma Dunlop, Kuldip Gill, Sonnet L’Abbé, Danielle Lagah, Soraya Mariam Peerbaye, Sharanpal Ruprai, Sandeep Sanghera, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Proma Tagore, and Priscila Uppal.
Priscila Uppal is a 29 year-old poet and fiction writer born in Ottawa and currently living in Toronto. She has published four collections of poetry with Exile Editions, most recently Live Coverage. Her first novel, The Divine Economy of Salvation, was published by Doubleday Canada in 2002. She is also a Professor of Humanities and Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at York University.
Rishma Dunlop is a poet, dramatist, fiction writer, essayist and professor at York University. Her most recent works are a book of poetry titled Reading Like a Girl and a CBC radio play titled The Raj Kumari’s Lullaby.
Margaret Christakos is an award-winning Toronto-based poet and fiction writer working this year as Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor. Her most recent poetry book, Excessive Love Prostheses, followed on a collection with Mansfield Press in 2000, called Wipe Under A Love.
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James Grainger, author of The Long Slide (ECW Press)
James Grainger’s much anticipated debut story collection, The Long Slide, presents portraits of men adrift — in their own fantasies, failures, and confusing successes. Poignant, comic and rueful, Grainger’s urban tales follow the exploits and inner lives of young men dealing with the baggage of modern life — love, sex, drugs, work, class, hangovers. Come see a screening of the short film, Richard is Beautiful, based on Grainger’s short story “My God, Richard is Beautiful”. Staring and co-directed by Ross McKie and Debra Feldstead, Richard Is Beautiful follows the drifting, post-coital exchanges between a young man and the woman he has just slept with–his close friend’s girlfriend. After the screening, Grainger, MacKie and Feldstead will join Pages proprietor Marc Glassman on stage for a discussion of the collaborative process of adapting fiction for film.
James Grainger is the review editor of Quill & Quire and a book columnist for Toronto Star. He has been a books commentator on CBC Radio One, CBC Newsworld, and Book Television, and he has participated in the Harbourfront reading series as an interviewer and author. His memoir “The Last Hippie” appeared in the anthology, AWOL: Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds. He was born and lives in Toronto, and is a devoted Leafs fan.
Debra Felstead made her directorial debut with the film Stronger, an adaptation of the Strindberg play which was an official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival and The World Film Festival in Montreal among others. Richard is Beautiful, is her second film. Coming from an acting background, Felstead was trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse School in New York and has made an array of film, television and theatrical appearances. Debra is also a producer for The WinWin Picture Company and The On The Fly Film Festival.
Ross McKie is an award-winning actor, writer and story editor living in Toronto. His recent credits include Olivier Assayas Cannes 2004 honoured film Clean and a Gemini considered performance on CTV’s The Eleventh Hour. This year his short film Eyesore was screened at the On The Fly 5 festival and he recently adapted the Canadian novel Moody Food for the screen. McKie is currently writing a short for production in early 2005 with The WinWin Picture Company.
