More about how to buy tickets here.
And here is a short video about the festival, just because.
The Victoria Writers’ Festival has also started their ticket sale. I’m participating in two events; the first one is Love Familiar, readings and panel discussion with Dede Crane, Matt Rader, and Shaena Lambert. The second one is their Saturday night event, Rapt, with Angie Abdou, Annabel Lyon, Saleema Nawaz, Sara Peters and Jay Ruzesky.
You can buy tickets for all events here.
*****
It’s hard to believe that The Best Place on Earth‘s six month birthday is coming up! It’s been such a ride. Some lovely reviews and interviews have appeared in the blogsphere recently.
Writer Trevor Corkum (who recently moved to Toronto. Yay!) interviewed me for his blog Currently Living. I really loved his questions, which were thoughtful and intelligent. He also said these kind things about the book:
“Over the summer, I had the privilege of reading The Best Place on Earth, one of the best short fiction collections I’ve read in some time. Ayelet Tsabari’s stories are complex microcosms of the dilemmas experienced by those who face the push and pull of competing and multi-layered identities – nationality, language, and culture chief among them.”
Read the full interview here.
AbeBooks interviewed me for their Author Corner, where they said:
“There’s poetry in the short story of Toronto’s Ayelet Tsabari. The Israeli-Canadian author’s debut collection The Best Place on Earth speaks in a language all its own, and explores the individuals and relationships going on behind climate, politics, wars and more, whether in Israel, or on either Canadian coast.”
Two prolific book bloggers have reviewed The Best Place on Earth on their blogs. Book bloggers are the best. Whenever people talk about how people don’t read anymore, I think about book bloggers and it warms my heart. They make me happy.
Buried in Print wrote a generous write-up about the book. I love her take on the book, and her profound observation about the sense of motion in the stories, and how it juxtaposes with the characters’ struggle with inertia. She also said this:
“The stories in Ayelet Tsabari’s The Best Place on Earth are engaging and evocative, the author’s voice is vibrant and resonant: a thoroughly satisfying combination. “
Lyndy Reads and Reviews is an Edmonton blogger who reads about 250 (!) books a year (see what I mean by prolific? And why I love book bloggers so much?) She decided to review the book in honour of Rosh Hashanah, which was a fabulous holiday gift! Here’s an excerpt from her lovely review,
“There’s an intensity to Tsabari’s stories that probably mimics the experience of life in contemporary Israel. I loved the glimpses they gave into the inner and outer worlds of her characters.”
Finally, Andrew Vowles, one of my writing students (first at the University of Guelph and then at the University of Toronto), interviewed me about literary coincidences, and the line between fiction and nonfiction for CFRU Pioneer Radio, The University of Guelph’s campus radio. You can listen to it here; I start around 14:00 and go for about 10 minutes. Apparently, I ummm and hmmm a lot. His questions were thought provoking though, so some hmmms and ummms were necessary.