AMF - Author Reading - De Sa/Miller

Author Readings: Anthony De Sa & K.D. Miller 4:00 – 5:30 pm Bayfield Town Hall, 11 The Square, Bayfield

Anthony De Sa: Children of the Moon From celebrated author Anthony De Sa comes a raw and compelling novel of love, war and the heartbreaking effects of memory. “You must listen to my words. You must promise to tell my story the way I have shared it with you." Tanzania, 1956. A Maasai woman gives birth to a child with albinism. The child is seen as a curse upon her tribe, and so begins Pó's tumultuous story. As Pó navigates the world, she must claim her life in the face of violence and ostracism. Further south, in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique, Ezequiel struggles for acceptance too. Adopted by missionaries, he is not recognized by his Portuguese father's community, or by his Makonde mother's tribe. When civil war erupts, he must choose who to fight for and who to leave behind. Pó and Zeca come together in a time of momentous change. Love connects these two outsiders, forcing them to confront the shattering impact of colonialism and war. Children of the Moon is a stunning and unforgettable exploration of the love of two people at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control.

K.D. Miller: Late Breaking Inspired by the work of Alex Colville, the linked stories in K.D. Miller’s Late Breaking form a suite of portraits that evoke the paintings’ looming atmospheres and uncanny stillness while traveling deeply into their subjects’ vividly imagined lives. Throughout, the collection bears witness to the vulnerability of the elder heart, revealing that love, sex, and heartbreak are not only the domain of the young, and deftly rendering the conflicts that divide us and the ties that bind.

Husbands and wives struggle to communicate, romantic relationships flare and falter, parents and children navigate their complicated feelings, and older women struggle with diminishing status in a youth-obsessed culture while the threat of violence haunts young women and girls. Yet as the stories intersect and the characters’ lives are increasingly entwined, fear, guilt, estrangement, and the fact of death are met by courage, redemption and the fragile beauty of love, in all its myriad guises. Brilliantly observed, both tender and tortured, and in no way afraid of the dark, these stories confirm K.D. Miller as one of our best and bravest writers. A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2018 and a Quill & Quire Best Book of 2018.