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Diaspora Dialogues is thrilled to be partnering with Word on the Street this June for the return of the Word on the Street book and magazine festival. We’ve put together two amazing panels celebrating the debut releases by alumni of our mentoring programs and discussing the importance of representative children’s literature.

Join Diaspora Dialogues Saturday, June 12th, 12-1pm, as we celebrate three stunning debut novels by alumni of our mentoring programs: Dawn Promislow, Wan (Freehand Books, May 1), Sheila Murray, Finding Edward (Cormorant, June 15) and Reema Patel, Such Big Dreams (Penguin Random House Canada, May 10). Moderated by journalist Aparita Bhandari. In partnership with Word On The Street Toronto.

Register HERE.

Join Diaspora Dialogues as we explore the importance and value of representative children’s literature, and the opportunity and viability of #Kidlit as creative pursuit for writers. Sunday, June 12, 10am-11am, with Salma Hussain, The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan (Penguin Random House Canada, May 3), Catherine Hernandez, Where Do Your Feelings Live (Penguin Random House Canada, May 15) and Nadia Hohn. Moderated by author Derek Mascarenhas. In partnership with Word On The Street Toronto.

Register HERE.

View award-winning author and critically acclaimed screenwriter Catherine Hernandez in a special one hour workshop recorded on May 30th focused on screenwriting. Catherine wrote the screenplay for her novel “Scarborough” and will use the film and a case study to guide participants through the process and techniques to screenwriting. This video will be available for viewing for one month, until August 19th 2022.

Catherine Hernandez (she/her) is an award-winning author and critically acclaimed screenwriter. She is a proud queer woman who is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent and married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough (Arsenal Pulp Press), won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript; was a finalist for several awards including Canada Reads 2022. Her children’s books include M Is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book (Flamingo Rampant) and I Promise (Arsenal Pulp Press). She wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough, produced by Compy Films and levelFILM, which was nominated for 11 Canadian Screen Awards and won 8 including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second novel, Crosshairs, (HarperCollins Canada, Atria Books US, Jacaranda Books UK), was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and made the CBC’s Best Canadian Fiction, NOW Magazine’s 10 Best Books, Indigo Best Book, Audible Best Audiobooks and NBC 20 Best LGBTQ Books list of 2020. She is currently working on a few television projects and two novels.

Join us on April 28 at 6:30 pm as Melanie Florence leads this one hour workshop on the evolution of a picture book from an idea to a finished manuscript, speaking on: where to find an idea, how to figure out if the idea will work as a picture book and then how to write a good picture book.

Melanie Florence is an award-winning writer of Cree and Scottish heritage based in Toronto. She was close to her grandfather as a child, a relationship that sparked her interest in writing about Indigenous themes and characters. She is the author of Missing Nimama, which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the 2017 Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award and was a finalist for the 2017 First Nation Communities READ award. Her most recent picture book, Stolen Words, won the 2018 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, was a 2018 Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award finalist and was given a starred review by Kirkus, who listed it as one of the best picture books of 2017 to give readers strength. Her other books include the teen novels Just Lucky, He Who Dreams, Dreaming in Color and her upcoming collaboration with Richard Scrimger called Autumn Bird and the Runaway. Her first middle grade novel, a ghost story called Legends of Funland, will be out in 2022.

Join us on April 23 at 2pm for the online presentation of Crossing Into Lullaby written by Dian Bridge, presented by Obsidian Theatre.

Register for FREE here.

About the Play

Crossing into Lullaby revisits the telling of a true-to-life family story of a mysterious undiagnosable childhood sickness, that binds the living to the dead. In a creative exploration of the space between history and myth, creator Dian Marie Bridge combines voice-work and electronic soundscapes to look into the desperation that can come with knowledge of how closely we live with death, and its impacts on  the bindings of unspoken fears, attempting to lay them all to rest.

Bio

Dian Marie Bridge is an award winning theatre maker, writer, director and creative producer.  She is currently the Associate Artistic Director at Luminato Festival Toronto, Artist in Residence at Necessary Angel Theatre. She holds a degree in Theatre Arts and Dramatic Literature from Brock University, and attended the University of Minnesota’s Theatre and Dance program. Two decades of practice has afforded Dian work with arts organizations nationally and internationally. 

Dian is the recipient of the inaugural Strombergs Family Realization Fund, through Nightwood Theatre, the Stratford Festival’s Elliott Hayes Guthrie Award for Playwriting, and SummerWorks’ RBC Professional Award. Dian was also a part of the Stratford Festival’s inaugural Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction. Her mentorship experience includes the Paprika Festival, AMY Project, Speak Sudan, B Current’s RaizinArtz, Only One You workshops, and the Boys and Girls Club of Vancouver. 

Credits

Crossing into Lullaby was made possible with the support of 

The Strombergs Family Realization Fund, through Nightwood Theatre

Ontario Arts Council

Toronto Arts Council

Canada Council for the Arts

FROM BREATH TO AIR a play by K.P. Dennis, presented by Obsidian Theatre.

About the Playwright:

K.P Dennis a Black, non-binary, multi-disciplinary artist, director, producer, and activist based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. They were the 2016 Youth Poet Laureate of Victoria, the 2017 recipient of the VACCS Community recognition Award, and in 2020 they received the Witness Legacy Award for Social Purpose and Responsibility Through Art. Their work explores future building through a queer afro-surrealist lens, using magic and fantasy to explore what we will have to do, and who we have to become, to liberate our futures.

About the Play:

Esther is a Dream Weaver. Their job is to create new futures for generations to come. But when there are no more stars in the sky, and all paths lead to the same End, Esther and the audience must learn how to create new possibilities beyond anything they have ever done.

FREE registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__SpmXn1LTGqvLOefJuoSNg