25th Trillium Award

Focus On: IFOA Ontario, with Alexander Maksik

 
Share |
Alexander Maksik (photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan)

IFOA Ontario is a literary festival like no other, bringing writers from Canada and around the world to cities and towns throughout the province for readings and discussions at local bookstores, libraries and community centres.

If you live in Windsor, Burlington, Owen Sound, Thunder Bay or any of the ten other IFOA Ontario locations, your favourite authors will be coming right to your doorstep between October 19th to November 3rd. All month long, Open Book: Ontario will share feature interviews with writers who are busy packing their suitcases to get on the road.

Today, Open Book hears from critically acclaimed writer Alexander Maksik, whose first novel, You Deserve Nothing, was published internationally and is being translated into seven languages. Alexander joins IFOA Ontario to read from his newest book, A Marker to Measure Drift (Bond Street Books), in Parry Sound on Wednesday, October 23.

Alexander will be joined by Janet E. Cameron, Lewis DeSoto and Nicole Lundrigan. For more information about IFOA Ontario: Parry Sound, visit our Events Page.

Open Book:

Tell us which books from the IFOA festivals you most look forward to reading.

Alexander Maksik:

I'm very much looking forward to reading Anthony De Sa's novel, Kicking the Sky (Doubleday Canada), which I've heard wonderful things about. Also, I'm a great fan of Aminatta Forna and will read whatever she writes.

OB:

What is your preferred method of travel for a reading tour and why?

AM:

If I could travel everywhere by train, I'd tour forever. I find that forward movement, the landscape racing past, the rhythm, the sound is all conducive to writing. There's a peace and civility to train travel that is entirely absent from airports and jets. I'd be happy never to get on another airplane again.

OB:

What is one luxury you allow yourself when you go "on tour" with a book?

AM:

Not writing.

OB:

What book (aside from your own) will you have with you in your bag while you travel to the location of your IFOA Ontario reading?

AM:

Jean-Claude Izzo's Total Chaos.


Visit litontour.com for more details about IFOA Ontario.



Alexander Maksik's debut novel, You Deserve Nothing, was published to rave reviews. A graduate of the Iowa Writers? Workshop, his writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Harper?s, Tin House, Harvard Review and The New York Times Magazine. Maksik presents A Marker to Measure Drift (Random House Canada), in which Jacqueline escapes Charles Taylor?s war-torn Liberia to Greece. Exiled from her former life of privilege as the daughter of a high-ranking government official, she finds herself fighting for her survival and sanity after witnessing the atrocities committed in her home country.

For more information about A Marker to Measure Drift please visit the Random House Canada website.

Buy this book at your local independent bookstore or online at the publisher, Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.

Post new comment

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.

Advanced Search