Vincent Lam | Archive | Vincent Lam, Elaine “Lainey” Lui, George Elliott Clarke and Jill Barber to headline Word on the Street Halifax

Vincent Lam, Elaine “Lainey” Lui, George Elliott Clarke and Jill Barber to headline Word on the Street Halifax

Atlantic Books Today
June 27, 2014

Munro T Sandler he 20th annual Word on the Street festival in Halifax Nova Scotia will take place on Sunday September 21st, in partnership with Waterfront Development and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. This year, the festival welcomes acclaimed Canadian authors Vincent Lam, Elaine “Lainey” Lui, George Elliott Clarke, and Jill Barber.

Vincent Lam will read from and discuss his first novel, The Headmaster’s Wager, about a Chinese compulsive gambler who is headmaster of an English school in Saigon during the Vietnam War. The novel was a finalist for the 2012 Governor General’s Prize. It was longlisted for the 2013 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, longlisted for the 2013 IMPAC Dublin Prize and shortlisted for the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.

The festival will also feature a reading from Elaine Lui’s Listen to the Squawking Chicken, which is a “loving mother-daughter memoir that will have readers laughing out loud, gasping in shock, and reconsidering the honesty and guts it takes to be a parent.”

Targeting audience members of all ages, Word on the Street will include engaging sessions with Jill Barber, featuring her newest children’s book Music is for Everyone as well as George Elliott Clarke who will read from Lasso the Wind.

The Word on the Street also welcomes more than 40 celebrated regional authors, illustrators, artists, and entertainers.

All events and activities at Word on the Street are free. The festival will be held from 11am to 5pm, Sunday September 21st, on the picturesque Halifax waterfront (rain or shine). Authors, exhibitors, and other information can be found online.

Join Word on the Street Halifax on Facebook or @wotshalifax on Twitter . In the coming months, watch this news feed for an update on this year’s Pitch the Publisher sessions, where aspiring authors will pitch ideas for The Next Great Atlantic Canadian Book to publishers from all across the region, sponsored by the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association.