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Wed May 1, 2013
In the Underbrush: The Literary Tribes of Windsor
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The Speakeasy Reading SeriesA chattery, fist-pounding, pint-guzzling good time
Submitted by clelia on March 21, 2011 - 1:07pm
There’s a new reading series on the scene — Speakeasy, brought to you by Ayelet Tsabari and Eufemia Fantetti of the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Guelph. Hosted by the Magpie Tavern at 831 Dundas Street West in Toronto, Speakeasy is a monthly event in which MFA students, instructors and alumni alike can showcase their work. It’s a hot place for agents, editors, publishers and all manner of language aficionados to get a healthy dose of literary talent of both the established and up-and-coming variety. Some of the writers who have read at Speakeasy include Catherine Bush, Russell Smith, Michael Winter, Meaghan Strimas, Paul Vermeersch and Nancy Jo Cullen, along with numerous other students and graduates of the program. I recently spoke with Ayelet and Eufemia about the series, its inception and where it can go from here. Ayelet explained how the series began:
Speakeasy launched on October 3rd 2010, and attendance has been steadily increasing with each event. You don’t have to be involved in the University of Guelph’s MFA program to attend: the series is open to anyone, from prospective students to those interested in hearing some of Toronto’s best writers read their work aloud. At the inaugural Speakeasy, Catherine Bush treated the audience to a sneak-preview of her soon-to-be-published novel The Thief — a nice surprise for anyone who’d happened to pop into the Magpie for a Sunday pint. I asked Ayelet and Eufemia how they decided on a venue. “We wanted a location that was unassuming and comfortable,” they said. “The type of place you could imagine a group of writers pounding their fists on the tables while debating the merits of semicolons. We had attended book launches there and found it had the perfect blend of location and atmosphere. Although Speakeasy takes place in an intimate setting, we try to create a space that is welcoming and open to everybody.” In February, however, the series experienced a near-case of writer’s block — literally — when it was discovered, a mere three hours before the scheduled reading time, that the Magpie had been double-booked. Ayelet and Eufemia recounted the scramble that ensued.
The misunderstanding has since been resolved, and the next Speakeasy event is set to take place on Thursday March 31st at 7:30pm — at the Magpie! Good thing, too, because the series and venue are a great match linguistically: one of the slang definitions of a "magpie" is "an incessantly talkative person, or chatterbox," otherwise known as an "easy speaker." The best part is, the chatter you get to hear at a Speakeasy event is always of the highest literary quality! Scheduled readers for the March event are Karen Connelly, student Matthew Henderson, and alumni Sheniz Janmohamed and Tanis Rideout. It’s sure to be a chattery, fist-pounding, pint-guzzling good time — even if they have to move the event to a giant bird’s nest on the roof.
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