Current Season
The SMU Reading Series presents two of Halifax’s premiere children’s authors, author-illustrators, & storytellers for all ages —
JACK WONG & SYDNEY SMITH
Thurs. 21 Nov. 2024, 7 p.m. | Atrium room 101 (SMU Campus)
Admission free. All welcome!
Jack Wong (黃雋喬) was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver. In 2010, he left behind a life as a bridge engineer to pursue his Bachelor of Fine Arts at NSCAD University in Kjipuktuk/Halifax; he has called the east coast of Canada home ever since. Working as a children’s author/illustrator, Jack seeks to share his winding journey with young readers so that they may embrace the unique amalgams of experiences that make up their own lives. Jack’s award-winning picture books include When You Can Swim (Scholastic), The Words We Share (Annick Press), and All that Grows (Groundwood).
Sydney Smith is the author/illustrator of the Kate Greenaway awarded Small in the City (2019), and Do You Remember? (2023) and the illustrator of My Baba's Garden and I Talk Like a River, written by Jordan Scott (2020), Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson (2015); The White Cat and the Monk by Jo Ellen Bogart (2016); and Town Is By the Sea by Joanne Schwartz (2017), which was awarded the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal and the 2018 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Sydney has received the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen award for Illustration. He currently lives in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, with his family.
This special event is presented in collaboration with Woozles, Halifax’s beloved children’s bookstore.
The SMU Reading Series presents
SUE MURTAGH
reading from her debut story-collection We're Not Rich,
& in conversation with Alexander MacLeod
Wed. 23 October 2024 | 7 p.m.
Atrium 101 | SMU Campus
‘all the big, too-human catastrophes coupled with the searing moments of sweet clarity that get us through.’ —Lisa Moore, author of This is How We Love
Sue Murtagh (she/her) lives in Halifax. Her writing has appeared in The Nashwaak Review, Grain, carte blanche, the Humber Literary Review, The New Quarterly and Yolk Literary. She won the Budge Wilson Short Story Prize in 2016 with a story written in a creative writing course at Saint Mary's University. In 2020, she apprenticed with Alexander MacLeod through the WFNS Alistair MacLeod mentorship program. She then graduated with distinction in 2022 from the Humber School of Writers, working with Danila Botha. We're Not Rich is her first book.
Admission free. | All welcome.
Presented in collaboration with Nimbus Publishing, Bookmark, and the Department of English Language and Literature.
The SMU Reading Series is back for the fall season with a kick-off musical event at the Halifax Public Library, Central Branch:
Wed. 16 Oct. 2024 at 7 p.m., in the Paul O’Regan Hall
THE SIGN OF JONAS, an apocalypse folktale
by Luke Hathaway & Benton Roark; performed by Benton Roark & Mother Country
Sparse in construction, timeless in imagery, arcane in meaning, mythological in characters and narrative, The Sign of Jonas is an apocalypse folk tale — a story of personal and cultural collapse, and regeneration.
Join us as we bring to life this song cycle lost and found. The fragments of text speak of journeys, of death and rebirth, of decay and regrowth; the music, blending Baroque polyphony, art song, old-timey, and ambient styles, is a ceremonialized cycle of part songs, responsorials, rounds, and incantations.
This event is free and open to the public; supported by the Halifax Public Library, the SMU Reading Series, ANIMA, & Arts for Everyone.