CANADA DIVERSE

Shari Lapena, Ronna Bloom, Sylvain Neuvel

Monday, March 19, 6pm | 60 RMB

Three unique voices from Canada will read from their very diverse work and discuss their respective and divergent literary paths. Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door and A Stranger in the House. The Couple Next Door was a #1 Sunday Times Bestseller and the biggest selling adult fiction title in the UK in 2017. It was a New York Times Bestseller and the #1 bestselling fiction title in Canada in 2016. Ronna Bloom is a writer, psychotherapist, teacher, and author of six books of poetry, most recently The More. Ronna is currently the Poet in Community at the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence at Mount Sinai Hospital and in the Sinai Health System. In these roles she offers students, health care professionals, patients, and visitors opportunities to articulate their experiences through reflective writing and poetry. Sylvain Neuvel is the author of the science fiction trilogy the Themis Files. Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker recently invited Sylvain to be one of three writers who will create all-new Black Mirror stories in book format.

Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door and A Stranger in the House. The Couple Next Door was a #1 Sunday Times Bestseller and the biggest selling adult fiction title in the UK in 2017. It was a New York Times Bestseller and the #1 bestselling fiction title in Canada in 2016. It has been sold in 35 territories around the world and has been optioned for film. A Stranger in the House was also a Sunday Times Bestseller and a New York Times Bestseller and has been sold in 25 territories so far. Shari lives in Toronto with her family. Her next thriller, An Unwanted Guest, will be out the summer of 2018.

Ronna Bloom is a writer, psychotherapist, teacher, and author of six books of poetry, most recently The More (Pedlar Press, 2017). Her poems have been recorded for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, translated into Spanish and Bengali, and can be found on the Toronto Public Library Poetry map, an online map that lets you explore the city through poetry. She has collaborated with musicians, filmmakers, doctors, students, academics, spiritual leaders, and architects. Ronna is currently the Poet in Community at the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence at Mount Sinai Hospital and in the Sinai Health System. In these roles she offers students, health care professionals, patients, and visitors opportunities to articulate their experiences through reflective writing and poetry. 

Sylvain Neuvel dropped out of high school at age 15. Along the way, he has been a journalist, worked in soil decontamination, sold ice cream in California, and peddled furniture across Canada. He received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Chicago. He taught linguistics in India, and worked as a software engineer in Montreal. He is also a certified translator, though he wishes he were an astronaut. He likes to tinker, dabbles in robotics and is somewhat obsessed with Halloween. He absolutely loves toys; his girlfriend would have him believe that he has too many, so he writes about aliens and giant robots as a blatant excuse to build action figures (for his son, of course). Sleeping Giants, the first book in the science fiction trilogy the Themis Files, revolves around a secret project to assemble the ancient body parts of a giant humanoid relic buried throughout the world by aliens. The sequel, is Waking Gods and the third book in the trilogy is called Only Human. Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker recently invited Sylvain to be one of three writers who will create all-new Black Mirror stories in book format.