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Art & Books

Authors fest takes off

Looks like the International Festival of Authors has found its mojo. Harbourfront has been rocking for the past few days, thanks to its major, heavy-hitting events.

Wednesday night’s staged encounter between David Mitchell and William Gibson, was a knockout, with Mitchell reading from a work in progress, adding to the thrills.

He was obviously just testing the stuff out. At one point he stopped mid-paragraph to announce, “That was a rubbish sentence,” and asked the audience if they had any ideas how to improve it.

Last night Jonathan Franzen packed the Fleck Dance Theatre but I was happy to be at the Lakeside, where Andrea Levy (The Long Song), Adam Gopnik (Steps Across The Water) and Patricia Engel (Vida) talked about Coming Of Age Through Storytelling.

Gopnik was extremely entertaining, getting off the most one-liners. When asked what book influenced him most as a young reader, he allowed, “The truthful answer is probably Goldfinger, but I’ll just shove that under the rug and say Marcel Proust.”

Levy shocked the audience by announcing that she learned to write by watching television – good TV, she assured us, referencing the BBC – because it gave her a strong sense of structure. She actually didn’t read a book all the way through until she was 23 years-old – and the book was Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room.

But the big surprise of the night was debut novelist Engel, who enchanted the audience with her openness as she talked about her strong sense of isolation and displacement as a kid. She addressed the question of writing from a child’s perspective by explaining that the process of growing up is really the process of gaining “the vocabulary of judgement.” By the time you go to college, she said, you’re filled with self-doubt and you’ve mastered the art of being critical. Writing, she said, is the arduous process of getting back in touch with your imagination – minus the judgement.

The authors festival head into its final weekend with major events still to come. I can’t wait to host tomorrow’s (Saturday, October 30) round table with genius debut novelist Eleanor Catton, Brando Skyhorse, whose books is as good as his name, and UK star – and Giller jurist – Ali Smith.

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