Bonnechere Authors Festival

The Bonnechere Authors Festival will soon be here. The authors and dates for this year’s Festival have been confirmed for the following Wednesdays in July:

July 4 Elisabeth Harvor
July 11 Kristin den Hartog
July 18 Mary Jane Maffini & Barbara Fradkin
July 25 Charlotte Gray

As noted in the December newsletter, Elisabeth Harvor’s books include novels All Times Have Been Modern and Excessive Joy Injures the Heart, as well as short story collections If Only We Could Drive Like This Forever and Let Me Be The One. Kristin Den Hartog has written Water Wings, The Perpetual Ending and Origin of Haloes.

Charlotte Gray received stellar reviews for her 2006 book, Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell. She has also written about Canadian pioneers Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Trail (Sisters in the Wilderness) and native poet and feminist Pauline Johnson (Flint & Feather).

The evening of July 18 will be a special event. Gillian Danby will host The Mysterious Affair in the Arnprior Garden in her own fabulous garden. Mystery writers Mary Jane Maffini and Barbara Fradkin will share the stage. As well as their own novels, both have published in The Ladies Killing Circle collections.

Mary Jane Maffini, former librarian and coowner of Prime Crime Mystery Bookstore in Ottawa, now has three series. Watch for Organize Your Corpses in May, or catch up with Camilla MacPhee or Fiona Silk in The Dead Don’t Get Out Much and Death of a Lounge Lizard, the most recent titles in those series.

Barbara Fradkin is an Ottawa psychologist whose work with children and families provides inspiration for her complex psychological stories. Her five detective novels feature Ottawa Police Inspector Green. Fifth Son and Honour Among Men are her two most recent books.

Children’s author Lesley Airth, author of What We Remember, a collection of true stories about children who were affected by war, will read at the Bonnechere Union library on the afternoon of July 18.

All evenings except July 18 will be held at St. James Church in Eganville, as in the past. Ticket prices for 2007 will remain at $15 per single evening and $50 for the series of four evenings. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Come for dessert, coffee, book browsing, and conversation. Readings start at 8:00 p.m.

Marketing Project

Literacy Plus’s marketing project has been a great success. Exposure on radio (Star 96 FM and myFM) and television (A-Channel) connected us to a wider public: we’ve had many reports of ads seen and heard, and we had 19 new students enroll in January and February. Stone Fence Theatre volunteers kindly helped out with the TV ad. Custom Printers in Renfrew designed rack cards and posters, which are now going into circulation. They also created a new logo to represent Literacy Plus (see page 1).


We are grateful to all our partners in this venture, especially Renfrew County Community Futures Development Corporation for their funding. The publicity has been and will continue to be of great benefit to Literacy Plus and to the students who learn about and take advantage of our programs.

Thank you!

Literacy Plus thanks the Northern Credit Union in Barry’s Bay for their recent donation of $200. Generous donations such as this are a great help as we increase our services to meet the needs of students