Mark your calendars......

Wow, when we stepped back and looked at our events calendar for the month of May we got pretty excited!

We have the launch of a book chronicling a woman's journey through breast cancer treatment and recovery, the already much-hyped Pasha Malla & Andrew Hood event, a Coach House Books appreciation night, Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster, and the top spot on Hugo Chavez's book club reading list, Eduardo Galeano.

Here are all of the details:

Launch of Not Done Yet by Laurie Kingston
Thursday, May 7 at 7:00 p.m.
First Ave. Daycare
73 First Ave. (entrance through O'Connor St. parking lot)

Not Done Yet opens a window on one woman's journey through breast cancer treatment, recovery, recurrence, and beyond. When she found a lump in her breast in December 2005, Laurie Kingston was thirty-eight, with an active life, a family, and a demanding job. A diagnosis of breast cancer was nowhere on her radar screen. But when that diagnosis was confirmed months later, Laurie began writing a blog. She wanted to process her reactions and express what she was feeling. Above all, she wanted to write about her experience in her own way.

Spanning a two-year period, the entries are written matter-of-factly, in clear and engaging language. They take the reader from first diagnosis and what that meant personally and professionally, to preparing for treatments, learning how to ask questions of hospital caregivers, and coping with the physical hardships of undergoing chemotherapy.

Not Done Yet will speak to those who are going through the same experience, those who know someone who is, or anyone who has wondered about living joyfully when life has been turned upside down.

Pasha Malla and Andrew Hood
Saturday, May 9 at 7:00 p.m.
Royal Oak on the Canal
221 Echo Dr.

You already know all about it....so just join us for a great evening!

Coach House Books appreciation night
Launch of first novel by Carla Gunn and a reading by Mike Blouin
Wednesday, May 13 at 7:00 p.m.
Octopus Books
116 Third Ave.

Please help us celebrate the work of one of our favourite publishers, Coach House Books, with two of their talented writers. Carla Gunn will be launching her first novel, Amphibian, and Mike Blouin, author of Chase & Haven, will be reading.

Mike Blouin's novel Chase and Haven is a haunting story – inventively told and deeply felt – of suffering and love, made of thousands of small impressionist facets that refract the quiet spectrum of the beauty and the detritus of two entwined lives.

Blouin has been the recipient of the Diana Brebner Prize for Poetry from Arc, Canada’s National Poetry Magazine, as well as the Lillian I. Found Prize for Poetry from Carleton University, and his work has been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award. He is the author of the collection of poetry I’m not going to lie to you (Pedlar, 2007). He resides in Oxford Mills, a rural community near Ottawa.

Carla Gunn's first novel, Amphibian, is a polished and engaging book and its nine-year-old narrator, Phin, is a symbol of our times.

Gunn’s work has been published in the Globe and Mail, the National Post and heard on CBC radio. Along with writing, she teaches psychology in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

John Bellamy Foster
Thursday, May 28 at 7:30 p.m.
The Glebe Parent's Daycare 
10 Fifth Ave

Don't miss this opportunity! John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written a long list of books focusing on political economy, environmental sociology and Marxist theory. He views the crisis of capitalism in three terms: economy, ecology and empire.

His books include The Great Financial Crisis, Naked Imperialism, Critique of Intelligent Design, Marx's Ecology and many more. We will be launching his new book, Ecological Revolution: Making Peace With the Planet. Please join us!

Eduardo Galeano
Sunday, May 31 at 7:00 p.m.
Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts and Humanities
314 Saint Patrick Street (at Cumberland)

If you hadn't heard of Galeano a few months ago, you certainly did recently when Hugo Chavez presented Obama with his book Open Veins of Latin America and it promptly shot up the bestseller list.

Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His best-known works include Memoria del fuego (1982-1986, Memory of Fire) and Las venas abiertas de América Latina (1971, The Open Veins of Latin America), which have been translated into some 20 languages. Galeano defies easy categorization as an author. His works combine documentary, fiction, journalism, political analysis, and history. The author himself has denied that he is a historian: "I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia."

We hope to see you there! You won't want to miss it.

Also, please see a shout out for farmer's market volunteers below.......

The Main Farmers Market is a community-building initiative by
Sustainable Living Ottawa East (SLOE) to bring locally-grown farm
produce to Old Ottawa East. Market Day is every Saturday; 9am-2pm at
223 Main Street, next to St. Paul’s University.  We will have up to
thirty vendors every week, all offering products that are
self-produced within one hundred miles of Old Ottawa East.

The market season begins May 9, and we are looking for enthusiastic
volunteers who are interested in creating a more sustainable community
to join our volunteer team.  Do you have an hour or two to spare on a
Saturday?  Would you enjoy spending it outdoors in a friendly market
setting?  We need help with:

Venue Support (8:00-9:30am or 2:00-3:00pm)
Assist the market manager in erecting/removing signage and market facilities
Some lifting required

Face Painters (9:00-11:00am or 11:00am-1:00pm)
Creative volunteers with artistic flair needed to paint faces

Survey interviewers (10:00am-12:00pm)
Administer occasional feedback surveys to customers

For more information please contact:
James Braun
Volunteer Coordinator
(613) 850-7196
volunteermainmarket@gmail.com

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