Ian Rankin

Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into twenty-two languages and are bestsellers on several continents. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews and Edinburgh. A contributor to BBC2's 'Newsnight Review', he also presented his own TV series, 'Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts'. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

CBC's Alan Neal hosts Ian Rankin on his newest crime series at the Fall Edition 2009. Listen online at Spokenword.org.

The Famous Moose Call

Joseph Boyden was in the Fall Edition 2008 with his newest book Through Black Spruce (which claimed the Giller shortly afterward.) In his reading, he was convinced (or persuaded) to demonstrate his moose call. We've lost the audio of the reading, but photographer John W. MacDonald had a microphone in his camera and managed to capture a classic "Can-Lit" moment.

The Moose Call

Dan Falk: In Search of Time

Time is at once intimately familiar and yet deeply mysterious. It is thoroughly intangible: We say it flows like a river — yet when we try to examine that flow, the river seems reduced to a mirage. No wonder philosophers, poets and scientists have grappled with the idea of time for centuries. The enigma of time has also captivated science journalist Dan Falk, winner of the Science in Society Journalism Award and the American Institute of Physics’ Science Writing Award, who sets off on an intellectual journey In Search of Time. Join us for an exploration of our deep desire to track time’s cycles, the mysteries of memory, the beginning and the end of time, and our latest theories about time travel — and the paradoxes it seems to entail.

Dan Falk goes In Search Of Time (Part 1)

Dan Falk goes In Search Of Time (Part 2)

John Ralston Saul: A Fair Country (Fall 2008)

Are you ready for three radical truths about Canada? In A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada, John Ralston Saul, Canada’s leading public intellectual, unveils what he calls three founding myths: 1) We are a Métis Civilization; 2) “Peace, Order and Good Government” has always been an interloper in Canada; 3) We are burdened with an elite that doesn’t identify with Canada and so does not wish to govern the country. Join us for a conversation on recognizing Canada as it is in order to rethink its future.

A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada

Poetry Cabaret, Fall 2008

Monty Reid, winner of the Lampman-Scott Award, returns with The Luskville Reductions, a long poem that records a year in the life of a small Quebec town.

Listen to his reading here.

Dannabang Kuwabong makes his Festival debut with his fourth poetry collection, Caribbean Blues and Love’s Genealogy, which emerges from an historical reconnection with the poet’s African ancestors who were taken to the Caribbean.

Listen to his reading here.

Meredith Quartermain, winner of the BC Book Awards Prize for Poetry, makes her debut with two bold new collections: Matter, which unearths the relations between humans, language and the planet, and Nightmarker, which explores the human city.

Listen to her reading here.

Meredith Quartermain appears thanks to the Writers' Union of Canada.