Saint Mary’s Reading Series
The SMU Reading Series brings writers to campus to share their work with students, staff, faculty, and our wider community. Admission is free and all are welcome.
Our 2023/24 season is supported by Arts with Impact, the League of Canadian Poets, and Bookmark Halifax
Upcoming events:
The SMU Reading Series welcomes poets
Gavin Barrett & Jennifer LoveGrovefor our last reading of the 2023/24 season:
Monday, March 25, 2024, 7 p.m.
Atrium building, Room 101, SMU campus
Born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and based in Toronto, Gavin Barrett is the author of Understan (Mawenzi House), a CBC Books recommendation. He is the founder and series curator of the Tartan Turban Secret Readings, a Toronto reading series that focuses on giving IBPOC writers a stage.
Jennifer LoveGrove is a poet and novelist. Her next collection of poetry, The Tinder Sonnets, is forthcoming in 2025 with Book*hug Press.
Presented with the support of the Department of English Language and Literature, the League of Canadian Poets, and Bookmark.
Click here to view the event poster
Past events:
Reading + Q&A with SMU's 2024 Writer in Residence Casey Plett
Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 7 p.m.
Atrium building, Room 101, SMU campus
Introduction by Nolan Natasha, author of I Can Hear You, Can You Hear Me?
Casey Plett is the author of On Community, A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, and A Safe Girl to Love; the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers; and the publisher at LittlePuss Press. She has written for the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, the Guardian, Globe and Mail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the Winnipeg Free Press, and other publications. She is a winner of the Amazon First Novel Award and the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award; her work has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Presented with the support of the Department of English Language and Literature, the Irish Studies Program, Arts with Impact, and Bookmark.
Click here to view the event poster
An Evening of Poetry
with Sylvia D. Hamilton and Nanci Lee
The SMU Reading Series welcomes two award-winning local poets for our final event of the fall season.
Sylvia D. Hamilton is a writer, filmmaker and artist whose book Tender ‘chronicle[s] the experience of Black people, especially of Black women, in their quest for self-determination and their desire to live full, complex, unencumbered lives.’
Nanci Lee is a Syrian-Chinese poet and educator whose book Hsin is ‘a booksong of grief and celebration’.
Thursday, November 30, 7 p.m.
Atrium building, Room 101, SMU campus
Brought to you by SMU’s Dept. of English Language and Literature and the Irish Studies Program, with the support of Bookmark and the League of Canadian Poets
Click here to view the event poster
An evening with Michael Crummey and Holly Hogan
Join the award-winning writer and the acclaimed biologist as they launch their new books THE ADVERSARY and
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE: Ocean Dispatches from a Seabird Biologist
Wednesday, October 25, 7 p.m.
Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
Presented by Bookmark, Knopf Canada and Saint Mary’s Reading Series
Click here to view the event poster
‘Poetry as Praxis’
Ed Madden: a reading in conversation with Seán Kennedy
Brought to you by Arts with Impact in collaboration with the SMU Reading Series
Tuesday, October 3rd, 7 p.m.
Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
Ed Madden teaches creative writing, LGBTQ studies, and Irish literature at the University of South Carolina, and is Poet Laureate of the City of Columbia. He is the author of many collections of poetry including A pooka in Arkansas (Word Works, 2023).
The Art Gallery’s exhibition Kaleidoscope will be on display.
SMU Reading Series Poster October 2023