Looking Back, Facing Forward: Plum Johnson & Merilyn Simonds
Lakefield College School Bryan Jones Theatre
Friday, July 17 @ 7:00 pm
How do we think about our experiences, choices, passions, and expectations as we become older? In two very different books that delve into women’s intimate lives, Plum Johnson and Merilyn Simonds explore these topics with tenderness and wisdom.
In conversation with Hollay Ghadery
Plum Johnson
Plum Johnson is an author and artist living in Toronto. Her 2014 memoir, They Left Us Everything, won the RBC Taylor Prize and was a #1 national bestseller.
The Trouble with Fairy Tales is a wise and insightful exploration of the ways romantic relationships can lead women to sacrifice independence and identity for the promise of “happily ever after.” Plum Johnson’s second memoir uses fairy tales to frame her reinvention of self through many roles over a lifetime, from compliant child to loving mother, rebel wife, artist, and successful writer. Bestselling memoirist Jeannette Walls says this book “splits open the myths we grow up with, the ones that both sustain us and entrap us.”
Merilyn Simonds
Merilyn Simonds is the author of twenty books of fiction, memoir, personal essay, biography, and travel writing. Her work has been anthologized and published in eight countries, including a novel selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a creative nonfiction book that was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary award. Her latest book, Walking with Beth, is a national bestseller.
Merilyn Simonds is the author of twenty books of fiction, memoir, personal essay, biography, and travel writing. Her work has been anthologized and published in eight countries, including a novel selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a creative nonfiction book that was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary award. Her latest book, Walking with Beth, is a national bestseller.
Hollay Ghadery
Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer whose work has appeared in literary journals, Today’s Parent, and CBC Parents. She won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir for her first book, Fuse. She’s the author of a book of poetry, a short story collection and a novel, the Unravelling of Ou, which was published earlier this year, a children’s book and a book of essays forthcoming. A co-host on CIUT 89.5, a host on the New Books Network, and co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC Committee, she is Poet Laureate of Scugog Township.