Monday, September 8, 2008

The 2008 Eden Mills Writers' Festival

On Sunday September 7th, the Cormorant Books crew went out to the village of Eden Mills to take part in the 20th annual Eden Mills Writers' Festival.

First, let's put the spotlight on Eden Mills:

"Eden Mills is an Ontario village nestled in the Eramosa River valley housing around 350 people. It is very close to the university city of Guelph and only a little over an hour’s drive to downtown Toronto with the wind behind your back and the highway traffic calm." - http://www.goingcarbonneutral.ca/EdenMillsStory.shtml

An authentic scarecrow.

Aside from being home to the Writers' Festival, Eden Mills is also important in its ambition to become the very first carbon neutral community in North America.

Heroes.

The village is in the backyard of the University of Guelph, about an hour's drive west from Toronto. What the place lacks in facilities (such as a public phone), it more than makes up for in personality. Behold:

All hail pantaloons.

Above are the Town Crier and the Town Piper. In spite of the rain, the two of them together opened the day in grand fashion.

Ah yes, the rain. Quite a few people managed to turn out for the proceedings even though the sun didn't begin to shine until mid-afternoon. It was great to see that spirits were not dampened. Unlike everything else.

The butter chicken was fabulous.

Cormorant Books was represented wonderfully by Patricia Claxton, translator of Operation Rimbaud, and Elspeth Cameron, author of And Beauty Answers. They read to the troopers who braved the wet and the cold, and by all accounts they didn't disappoint.

The intrepid Patricia Claxton.

We thank everyone - authors, publishers, booksellers, volunteers, and festival-goers alike - for coming out and braving the elements for what turned out to be a great day of books and literature!

Stay tuned for more photos from Eden Mills, as well as shots from Writing Outside the Margins which took place on August 24th.

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