Jazz Stories: En Direct

Friday, November 4, 2022, 3 pm
4TH SPACE, Concordia University
(1400 Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal) Free, no registration required

In this Holiday Book Fair feature event, author and Radio Canada personality Stanley Péan will discuss his new book Black and Blue: Jazz Stories with host Jason “Blackbird” Selman. They will be joined by Anita Anand (A Convergence of Solitudes), Rana Bose (Shaf and the Remington), and Kasia Van Schaik (We Have Never Lived On Earth) for a musically inspired session of improvised live writing, projected on the 4th Space screens. 

In-person event details: In accordance with public health guidelines, mask wearing is optional, though strongly encouraged. The 4th Space is fully accessible from the Maisonneuve entrance, with an elevator located at metro level for those travelling underground. 

Live streaming details: The event will be live-streamed to the 4TH SPACE YouTube account, no prior registration is required. Tune in at 3 pm on November 4, 2022, to view and participate in the Q&A via the chat function. 

Explore other 2022 Holiday Book Fair events here, and discover more English-language books written, published, or translated in Quebec at ReadQuebec.ca.

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Stanley Péan is the author of eight novels, a couple of essays (mostly about jazz) and eight short story collections, including the upcoming Crépusculaires (Éditions Mains libres, 2022). Since the summer of 2009, he has been piloting the program Quand le jazz est là every week night on ICI Musique, Radio-Canada’s all-music radio network. The original French version of Black and Blue: Jazz Stories was awarded the Prix Victor-Barbeau for best essay by l’Académie des lettres du Québec in 2020. Last Summer, the Festival international de Jazz de Montréal has presented Péan the Bruce-Lundvall Award, given annually to a non-musician who has left a mark on the world of jazz or contributed to the development of the music, through the media, the concert or record industries. Black and Blue: Jazz Stories will be available for purchase at the Véhicule Press table at the Holiday Book Fair, or online here.

Jason “Blackbird” Selman is a Montreal born poet, trumpet player and community worker. He is the author The Freedom I Stole (2007, Cumulus Press), Africa As A Dream That Travels Through My Heart (2016, Howl) and co-editor of the poetry anthology Talking Book (2006, Cumulus Press) which chronicles the writings of Kalmunity Vibe Collective (of which he is a founding member). He works as a teaching artist, conducting poetry workshops in schools across the Montréal area and beyond. His work is grounded in the themes of ethno-musicology, surrealist expression, love and the intersection of masculinity and emotional vulnerability.

Anita Anand is not the Minister of Defense, merely her namesake. She is an ESL teacher, literary translator and author from Montreal. Her first book, Swing in the House and Other Stories, won the QWF-Concordia University First Book Prize. A Convergence of Solitudes is her first novel, which will be available for purchase at the Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore table at the Holiday Book Fair, or online.

Rana Bose is a novelist, poet, playwright and retired professional engineer. He is a founding editor of montrealserai.com. His fourth novel, Shaf and the Remington, was released on September 25, 2022, and will be available for purchase at the Baraka Books table at the Holiday Book Fair, or online here. His third novel, Fog, was awarded the Best Canadian Fiction for 2019, by the Miramichi Reader.

Kasia Van Schaik is the author of the linked story collection, We Have Never Lived on Earth, and the poetry chapbook, Sea Burial Laws According to Country. Her writing has appeared in the LA Review of Books, CBC Books, The Rumpus, Maisonneuve Magazine, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. A postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University, Kasia is currently working on a book of cultural criticism entitled Women Among Monuments and is also co-editing an essay collection, Shelter in Text, which interrogates the relationship between the physical and textual spaces we inhabit. Kasia lives in Tiohti:áke (Montreal).

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