Black Moss Night at Biblioasis

Happy Monday, folks! Here are a few bits and bytes to tide you through this (extremely blustery) February afternoon.

1. We're happy to announce that this Sunday we're having an informal celebration in honour of Black Moss Press here at the bookshop. 6 p.m. Join us as we raise our glasses to this legendary local institution and the authors that make it special. RSVP on Facebook today!

2. Ray and I made it back safely from the WDET studios this morning. As a little memento? The attached. Craig Fahle remains as awesome and impressive as ever (and in this picture Ray may or may not be reading an article about Girls.) You can listen to the episode, called "Stories of the Underground Railroad," online here.

3. We've had a new interview with Alexander MacLeod go up on the Numéro Cinq blog. Check out Benjamin Woodard's questions on physicality, layering, research, construction, and more.  Plus there's that funny picture of Alex knee-deep in what I'm fairly certain is a septic tank.

4. Today's February Freebie, in celebration of the Black Moss event on Sunday night, is Marty Gervais' Ghost Road and Other Forgotten Stories of Windsor. Visit our FB page, like that status update, share it, enter, and win!

K. That's it. That's plenty! Till tomorrow.

Artists of Colour Exhibit: The Stories We Tell

Morning, folks, and happy Friday. A few announcements for our Windsor-area friends:

One: that today is the first day of the Artists of Colour Exhibit over at MacKenzie Hall, which has been happening annually for some time & is usually a pretty good show. Ray Robertson is speaking there tomorrow from 1-2 but I wanted to post the invitation to their opening & the general exhibit poster. See below.

Two: Ray's talking the shrink talk (okay, talking about depression, philosophy, and the writing life) at the university on Tuesday. Katzmann Lounge, Vanier Hall, 2 PM.

Three: It's very snowy out. Shovel, people. For the love of Wesley.

Four: For those of you who are as in awe of Craig Fahle as I am, brace yourselves for a real thrill. On Monday morning Ray and I are barrelling through the tunnel toward midtown Detroit, where we'll cross for the very first time through the holy doors of WDET. (Alex MacLeod was on there a few years ago but it's my first time in the building. And gosh, if I may say, am I excited.) This is the man who back in Sept. 2011 cancelled half an hour of regularly scheduled programming to excoriate the media for not raising an ENORMOUS STINK when Michele Bachmann claimed, on national television, that the HPV vaccine was causing mental retardation. Fahle lined up doctors and experts to debunk her assertion and told every single one of his silent colleagues that, when the media fails to acknowledge their moral obligation to correct lies perpetuated by people of influence, that they're in violation of a public trust. And he was spitting mad. Hoo hoo! Glorious.

(Ray: I don't think he's going to get that mad at you.)

(I don't think.)

Anyhow! Check out the Artists of Colour exhibit when you have a chance. Tune in to WDET (101.9 FM) on Monday at 10:30 to hear Ray along with underground railroad historian Kimberly Simmons. And if you're interested in more Detroit-area black history events, there's a comprehensive calendar online at blacdetroit.com.