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A Class Act: Readings and Conversation

Presented by Starboard Wealth Planners

With Jaime Burnet, Feisal G. Mohamed, Michelle Hébert, Kate Cayley, Sharon Bala, and Bart Vautour

Thursday, November 5, 2026
7:00 pm
to 9:30 pm
Doors Open: 6:30 pm
The Bus Stop Theatre
$15.00

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Description

The evening begins with readings from Jaime Burnet (Milktooth), Feisal G. Mohamed (Nowhere is Safe in Gaza), and Michelle Hébert (A Good Girl’s Guide to Lying). Then Kate Cayley (Property) and Sharon Bala (Good Guys) join poet and professor Bart Vautour in conversation about their new books, and about money, class, and what happens when doing good goes bad. Presented by Starboard Wealth Planners.

Speakers

  • Jaime Burnet's first novel, Crocuses Hatch From Snow, was published by Vagrant Press in 2019. Crocuses was shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the ReLit Award. Jaime’s second novel, milktooth, was published by Vagrant in April 2025. Milktooth was longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, and won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Jaime lives with her wife and kids in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Mi’kma'ki/Nova Scotia, where she writes, makes music, and practices labour, employment, and human rights law.

  • Feisal G. Mohamed is a professor of English at Yale University. A past president of the Milton Society of America, his most recent books are 'Sovereignty' (2020) and 'Resistance' (in press). In addition to academic venues, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, Dissent Magazine, the Chronicle Review, The Yale Review, The American Scholar, Huffington Post, Boston Review, and on the website of The New Republic.

  • Michelle Hébert writes fiction and nonfiction with common threads of women's relationships with the world and each other, mental health, and finding joy where it seems there's none to be had. Her debut novel, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, was a Toronto Star 2024 ‘Must Read’ and a 49thShelf.com ‘Book of the Year’. Her latest book, A Good Girl's Guide to Lying: Losing My Memory, Searching for Truth, & Confronting Complex Trauma, is a mystery disguised as a memoir. With dark humour and a structure that mimics her fractured memories, she immerses readers in her own experience of complex trauma and inspires them to question whose truth is valued in our society. Michelle has degrees in social work and creative writing and coaches writers using trauma-informed practices. She lives in Halifax with four cats and a dog who thinks she's a cat.

  • Kate Cayley’s first novel, Property, is published by Coach House Books. She has also published two short story collections and three collections of poetry, and her plays have been performed in Canada, the US and the UK. She has won the Trillium Book Award, an O. Henry Prize, and the Mitchell Prize for Poetry, and been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Amazon First Novel Award, and the CBC Short Story Prize. She lives in Toronto with her family.

  • Sharon Bala's second novel, Good Guys, was published in 2026. Publishers Weekly calls it “quietly profound” and a “blackly comic tale.” Her best-selling debut novel, The Boat People, won a Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was short listed for several awards and is in translation in four languages. Sharon is the Creative Non-Fiction editor at Riddle Fence Magazine and a member of The Port Authority, a St. John's writing group.

  • Bart Vautour is a writer, editor, researcher, and teacher in the Department of English. His work examines the multiple lives of texts through both creative and critical approaches. He is the editor of The Dalhousie Review. In 2019 he published a collection of poems, The Truth About Facts, and his novel, Strewnfields, will be published in 2027.