Before the Truth with Eliza Robertson, Joan Thomas and Elizabeth Renzetti

Hosted by CBC's Lucy van Oldenbarneveld

In Person Fiction

Admission

Free

Friday

Oct , 2014

6:30pm

Eastern

Knox Presbyterian Church

120 Lisgar Street (at Elgin) • Ottawa

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Before the Truth with Eliza Robertson, Joan Thomas and Elizabeth Renzetti

There are no wallflowers here, only stories dancing to their fierce heartbeats right up to the edge of the cliff–and sometimes over.

Zsuzsi Gartner, author of Better Living Through Plastic Explosives

Churchill once said that “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Join us for a conversation on the lies we tell ourselves and others: Lies of omission and convenience, of deception and self-preservation, and the lies required to tell the truth in fiction.

Join us for a taste of Wallflowers, bouquet of unconventional stories from Eliza Robertson, winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize; The Opening Sky, a novel about a family forced to confront a tragedy from their past by Joan Thomas, IMPAC nominee and winner of the Commonwealth Prize for best first book; and Based on a True Story, a tale of the booze-soaked revenge of a washed-up soap opera diva by Globe and Mail columnist Elizabeth Renzetti.

The Authors

Eliza Robertson

Eliza Robertson was born in Vancouver and grew up on Vancouver Island. She attended the University of Victoria and the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2011 Man Booker Scholarship. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and Journey Prize. Her first story collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book award and selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice. In 2015, she was named as one of five emerging writers for the Writers’ Trust Five x Five program. She lives in Montreal.

Elizabeth Renzetti

Elizabeth Renzetti is a bestselling Canadian-British author and journalist. She will release two new books in 2024: Bury the Lead, a mystery novel co-written with Kate Hilton, and a work of non-fiction about gender equality, What She Said: Conversations About Equality. Until recently Elizabeth worked for the Globe and Mail, where she wrote a popular opinion column and feature stories. She has lived in London, Los Angeles, and Berlin, where she worked as a journalist for the Globe and Mail. In 2020 and 2023 she won the Landsberg Award for reporting on gender issues. Elizabeth is the author of Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls, which was a national bestseller. Her first novel, Based on a True Story, was shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Award. She also collaborates with authors on book projects. Elizabeth is a teacher, advocate, and public speaker. She currently lives in Toronto with her husband, two children, and two very badly behaved cats.

Joan Thomas

Joan Thomas's debut novel, Reading By Lightning, won the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book (Canada/Caribbean) and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second, Curiosity, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC award, and was a Quill and Quire Book of the Year. Joan was a longtime contributing reviewer for the Globe and Mail. She lives in Winnipeg. Visit her at www.joanthomas.ca