Double book launch

Bookmark, Charlottetown’s independent bookstore, welcomes Steven Mayoff and Hollay Ghadery for the double launch of their new books at Beaconsfield Carriage House on August 11 at 7 pm. Admission is free and all are welcome. 

Steven Mayoff’s Swinging Between Water and Stone is a collection of poems comprising four sections that represent the four stages of the never-ending reincarnation cycle: birth, life, death, and rebirth. These themes recur in each section, propelling the poems the way smaller wheels turn within larger wheels. Settings, both urban and rural, imaginary and real, domestic and distant, terrestrial and astral, create a kind of existential road trip where the reader comes across signposts that lead to both the familiar and the inexplicable.

 The stories in Hollay Ghadery’s Widow Fantasies deftly explore the subjugation of women through the often subversive act of fantasizing. From a variety of perspectives, through a symphony of voices, Widow Fantasies immerses the reader in the domestic rural gothic, offering up unforgettable stories from the shadowed lives of girls and women.

Steven Mayoff is a Montreal-born writer who has lived on PEI since 2001. His fiction, poetry, and lyrics have appeared in journals across North America and abroad. His books include Fatted Calf Blues, Our Lady of Steerage, Leonard’s Flat, and The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief. He also co-wrote Dion: A Rock Opera, which premiered at Toronto’s Coal Mine Theatre.

Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer based in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines. She is the author of Fuse, a memoir, and Rebellion Box, a poetry collection. Hollay is also a book publicist, Poet Laureate of Scugog Township, and a leader within the League of Canadian Poets.