History. Previous Appearances

One of the great pleasures of publishing is receiving the privilege to read those printed words aloud. Phrases born in your head, images you've secretly travelled over a million times, are suddenly out there, escaped, heard. When a roomful of mostly-strangers vibrates with concentration or erupts with a collective gasp, it's magic.

Hearing others read, too. Unadulterated inspiration.

Of course, the flip side, the underbelly, is that one also receives the privilege to endure the occasional humiliation of a reading that, despite all best efforts, just doesn't work. The voice is too thin. A dog barks at the wrong moment. You're reading to your publicist and two elderly women, one of whom might actually be asleep, in a library in Belleville (okay, that didn't actually happen; but it could have!).

Some highlights from Carrie's past couple of years include ... flying to Winnipeg for their Writers' Fest in Sept., 2004, to read with some absolutely amazing slam poets ... every reading performed at Waterloo's Jane Bond Cafe or the Starlight (think: smoky sensuous atmosphere minus actual smoke) ... reading and speaking to students, from high school to university, including at alma maters St. Jerome's College and Rockway Mennonite Collegiate ... sitting in a variety of living-rooms speaking to a variety of book clubs, each memorably unique, and so welcoming ... and perhaps best of all, opening the package containing the first Hair Hat, plopping on the floor with babies climbing over her, and reading to them the first few sentences, snow falling behind brown curtains, a moment delineated out of so many others now lost.