Dear Open Book Magazine, Planet IndigenUs, Authors at Harbourfront Centre, Lit On Tour and Brian Wright-Mcleod,

Writing has always been my favorite pastime. Just give me a pen and paper and I could let my imagination go for hours. This contest has helped me discover new ways to write and express my many thoughts on paper. I loved working through over four different copies of my entry and finally finding the right plot. Everyone has always told me that I had a talent for writing, but I always believed that it was just the fact that I loved it so much that made my writing good. During the process of composing the story, I learned how to manage time, word choice and suspense all in fewer than 500 words.

My whole family helped me by giving constructive criticism during the contest. But I definitely had the most support from my amazing English teacher Mrs. Quail. She read my story and also provided constructive criticism. When we got the email from Nicole Baute passing on the good news, my mother ran into my violin lesson because she just couldn’t wait to tell me. It was one of the best early Christmas presents I have ever gotten.

Thank you for turning a dream into a reality and helping me reach my goal.

Tamara Fuller
Grade 7 Poplar Bank P.S

© Maayan Ziv

By Ayesha Chatterjee

Words and waterfalls. Already I’m mixing them up. Why code is poetry and poetry, code. I had my first IFOA reading in Markham on Tuesday evening and as we drove up from Toronto, Marjorie Celona and Bert Archer and I talked about a jigsaw puzzle of things that in my mind are now blended in with the memory of the colours of the trees along the Don Valley Parkway, vivid even in the grey of the autumn afternoon.

I felt like a star that night, like J-Lo, with my own personal assistant, a charming young high school student named Ivy who had thought of everything, even an extra pen for me to sign with.  I don’t think I will ever get used to reading in public, always surprised and humbled by the audience’s kindness, the small conversations afterwards, the exchanges of commonalities.

And then Niagara yesterday: the white force of water drenching us all with its indifferent power. The photographs I took of the Horseshoe Falls from the Maid of the Mist look strangely alien, as though I’d taken them on a distant planet with everyone dressed in blue spacesuits. In almost all of them, a seagull circles, smoothly curved, the opposite of the thing with feathers that Dickinson wrote of.

We were introduced by the Mayor of Markham on Tuesday night, who said that the IFOA  was the Super Bowl of book clubs. I rather like that. I’ve never thought of myself as a football player before.

Click here for more about Chatterjee’s IFOA events.

Without further delay…

Brantford – Tuesday, October 16
Woodstock – Wednesday, October 17
Hamilton – Wednesday, October 17
Picton – Saturday, October 20
Markham – Tuesday, October 23
Windsor – Friday, October 26
Uxbridge – Sunday, October 28
Orillia – Sunday, October 28
Barrie – Monday, October 29
Parry Sound – Monday, October 29
Thunder Bay – Thursday, November 1 & Friday, November 2
Midland – Saturday, November 3