Toronto Reference Library Blog

You are invited to join us on Wednesday, April 19 at 7 pm, in the Atrium of Toronto Reference Library, for Mothers, Sisters and Barbara Gowdy. Gowdy is a critically-acclaimed, prize-winning and best-selling author of seven novels and one short-story collection (We So Seldom Look on Love). She is appearing as part of the spring 2017 eh List Author Series, Toronto Public Library’s celebration of writers from across Canada. She will be introducing us to her latest novel, Little Sister, followed by an interview with Antanas Sileika.

Sileika is a novelist and literary critic who has reviewed for radio and television, as well as print. Past winner of a National Magazine Award, his first novel, Dinner at the End of the World, was published in 1994, followed by Woman in Bronze, a Globe Best Book of 2004, and Underground (in 2011). Buying On Time, a collection of linked short stories published in 1997, was long-listed for Canada Reads as recently as 2016. Born in Weston, Ontario, Sileika studied at University of Toronto, and is currently Director of the Humber School for Writers.  

Gowdy’s first novel, Through the Green Valley, was published in 1988, followed by Falling Angels (made into a major motion picture), Mister Sandman (shortlisted for the Scotia Giller Prize in 1995), The White Bone, The Romantic (longlisted for The Man Booker Prize in 2003), and Helpless (longlisted for The Scotia Bank Giller Prize and winner of the 2008 Trillium Book Prize). She is also a three-time finalist for The Governor General’s Award, The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In 1996, Gowdy won'the Marian Engel Award (given to a female Canadian writer mid-career), and in 2002 she was chosen through a NOW magazine poll of 300,000 writers as Toronto’s Best Author (second to Margaret Atwood). She was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2007, and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2012.

Born in Windsor, Gowdy lives in Toronto, where she moved as a small child.

We send thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of the eh List series, as well as our media partner, The Toronto Star.

Please come back to Toronto Reference Library (Beeton Hall) on Monday, April 24 to meet Ian Hamilton; on Monday, May 8 to meet Elise Levine; and on finally, on Thursday, June 22 to meet Andrew Pyper.

You can find out more about the spring eh List Author Series on our What's On blog, or follow the conversation online using the hashtag: #ehList.