The programme began at 3:00 pm with a reading by Asa Boxer, followed by performances by Fish Quill, and then a light finger-food supper and wine, allowing guests to mingle and exchange ideas.

Asa Boxer

Asa Boxer’s debut book, The Mechanical Bird (2007), won the Canadian Authors Association Prize for Poetry, and his cycle of poems entitled “The Workshop” won the 2004 CBC Literary Awards. His work has been anthologized in various collections, including The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry, the Oxford-Poetry Broadside Series and The Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2009 and 2012. His writing has appeared in various magazines in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and Belgium.  His poems, articles and reviews have appeared in Poetry London, Poetry Ireland, The Dark Horse, Arc Poetry Magazine, The Malahat Review, Books in Canada, Maisonneuve, and Canadian Notes & Queries. His latest books are Skullduggery (Signal, 2011) and Friar Biard’s Primer to the New World (Frog Hollow Press, 2013). Boxer is also founder and manager of the Montreal International Poetry Prize.

Fish Quill

Abigail Lapell is a Canadian folk noir singer-songwriter. Drawing from traditional folk, indie and punk rock influences, her music is at once fresh and familiar—intuitive melodies, sparse-plucked guitar and a voice like autumn smoke.

Dana Sipos is interested in alternative touring means and has toured by bicycle and tall-ship, and can’t wait to tour by canoe. She is a poet and song-crafter and recently released her third album described by Folk Roots Radio as “hauntingly beautiful, ethereal, mesmerizing and captivating.” 

Mira Pinkus is a poet-musician who is known to sing poetry without words and write melodies in silence. Her poetry, often balancing the highly abstract with the immediate and sensuous, has appeared in Red Claw Press and Fringe.

Bobby Gadda is an interdisciplinary interactive performance artist, best known for building and riding a freaky tall bike across North America. He is a classically trained flautist as well as an un-classically trained banjo player.

Alix Aylin is a self-taught trumpet player, having learned along the way on several bicycle trips through Canada, the US and Mexico.  She is an avid long distance tourer, seeking out inspiration in the vastness of landscapes accessible only by human powered vehicles.