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The Language of the Present: Readings and Conversation

With Mai Nguyen, Zeta Paul, Farah Ghafoor, Sue Goyette, Kaie Kellough, and Jennifer LoveGrove

Sunday, November 8, 2026
3:00 pm
to 4:30 pm
Doors Open: 2:30 pm
The Bus Stop Theatre
$10.00

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Description

First, hear readings from new works by Mai Nguyen (Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead) and Zeta Paul (Borderline). Then, find out what the poets are thinking, when Farah Ghafoor (Shadow Price), Kaie Kellough (Interposition), and Jennifer LoveGrove (The Tinder Sonnets) join Sue Goyette (Future Howl) in conversation.

Speakers

  • Mai Nguyen is a Vietnamese Canadian author based in Toronto. Her debut novel Sunshine Nails was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2024, and was selected as one of the best books of 2023 by NPR and CBC. Her second book, Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, has received multiple starred reviews including from Kirkus Reviews, which called it “An astonishing portrait of grief and an ode to the beauty that manages to live in its midst.” She was raised in Halifax, and now lives in Toronto.

  • Zeta Paul (@zetapaulart) is a L'nu/Settler illustrator and interdisciplinary artist. Born and raised in Kjipuktuk, Mi'kma'ki (Halifax, Nova Scotia.) Zeta attended NSCAD University until she decided to put her work into action, she now is focusing on indigenous book illustration, works such as “Muinji Asks Why”, “The Friendship Centre”, and soon to be completed “The Indigenous Kids Book of Canada” and “Borderline.” Zeta aspires to create engaging imagery that is exciting, immersive, and thought provoking, that holds deeper messages about culture and identity.

  • Farah Ghafoor is the author of Shadow Price (House of Anansi, 2025). Named a CBC Best Book of the Year, Shadow Price was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, the Raymond Souster Award and the Toronto Book Awards. Selections of Ghafoor’s debut won the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry, shortlisted for the Far Horizons Award, and longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her work appears in various anthologies, podcasts, radio shows, post-secondary course curriculums, art exhibitions like Who's Afraid of Labour Justice? (2025) and Structural Integrity (2025), as well as in magazines such as The Walrus, The Offing, Brick Magazine, and The Fiddlehead. She lives in Tkaranto (Toronto).

  • KAIE KELLOUGH is a poet, fiction writer, and sound performer living in Montreal. His previous collection, Magnetic Equator, won the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is a writer and vocalist for the group FYEAR and is pursuing graduate work in English at Queen’s University.

  • Jennifer LoveGrove (she/her) is a writer of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, a literary editor and a collage artist. Her most recent book is the critically-acclaimed poetry collection The Tinder Sonnets (Book*hug, 2026). She is also the author of the Giller Prize-longlisted novel Watch How We Walk, as well as three poetry collections: Beautiful Children with Pet Foxes (longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award), I Should Never Have Fired the Sentinel, and The Dagger Between Her Teeth. For the Meet the Presses Collective, she is a member-volunteer and co-curated 2023 Indie Literary Market. She divides her time between downtown Toronto and Squirrel Creek Retreat in rural Ontario.

  • Sue Goyette lives in K'jipuktuk (Halifax) and has published several books of poems and a novel. Her latest collection is Future Howl, (Gaspereau Press, 2025). She is the editor of Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021), The 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology (Anansi, 2017) and The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2013 (Tightrope Books, 2013). Her work has been translated into French, Spanish and German and has been featured in films, subways, buses, spray painted on a sidewalk and tattooed. Her work has been nominated for the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Governor General’s Award and has won several awards including the 2015 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award for her collection, Ocean; J.M. Abraham Poetry Award; the ReLit Award; the Pat Lowther Award for Poetry; the Bliss Carman Poetry Award; the Earle Birney Award; and the CBC Literary Award for Poetry.