Burlington Book Festival September 25, 2010

STEPHEN BRUNT AND RANDALL MAGGS - WORDS ON ICE: CANADA’S GREATEST HOCKEY WRITERS
Stephen Brunt, a columnist at the Globe and Mail, is Canada's premier sportswriter and commentator. About his most recent book, Gretzky's Tears: Hockey, Canada, and the Day Everything Changed, the Montreal Gazette wrote "Long the consensus pick as Canada's best sportswriter, Brunt has probably earned the right to be called one of our best writers, period." His previous book, the #1 national bestselling Searching for Bobby Orr, was called "not only one of the best hockey books ever, but a book that transcends hockey" by the Edmonton Journal. Brunt is also the author of Facing Ali: The Opposition Weighs In; The Way it Looks from Here: Contemporary Canadian Writing on Sports; Mean Business: The Rise and Fall of Shawn O'Sullivan; Second to None: The Roberto Alomar Story and Diamond Dreams: 20 Years of Blue Jays Baseball. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and in Winterhouse Brook, Newfoundland.

Randall Maggs is the author of two collections, Timely Departures (1994) and Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems (2008) and co-editor of two anthologies pairing Newfoundland and Canadian poems with those of Ireland. Night Work won the Kobzar Literary Award, 2008 Winterset Award, the 2009 E.J. Pratt Poetry Award and was a Globe and Mail top 100 book of 2008. Maggs is artistic director of Newfoundland's March Hare festival of music and literature and has just retired from teaching literature at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University, Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems is a hockey saga, wrapping the game's story in the "intense, moody, contradictory" character of Terry Sawchuk, one of its greatest goalies. In compact, conversational poems that build into a narrative long poem, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems follows the tragic trajectory of the life and work of Terry Sawchuk, dark driven genius of a goalie who survived twenty tough seasons in an era of inadequate upper-body equipment and no player representation. The book is illustrated with photographs mirroring the text, depicting key moments in the career of Terry Sawchuk, his exploits and his agony.

Stephen and Randall will read from their work, answer questions and, of course, talk about hockey.

Great Room, 3rd Floor
Main Street Landing’s Performing Arts Center
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