Events
- August 15-18th Sechelt, BC. Simon and I will be presenting at our most favourite literary festival in the world—Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts at The Rockwood Centre. Date and time t.b.d.
- April 20th Gibsons, BC. Please join us April 20th, 6 pm, at Persephone Brewing Co. for a fully accessible event to launch The Pain Project. There will be a short reading, a conversation with Persephone CEO Brian Smith, and possibly a song or two. Also…beer!
- Big thanks to the host of the event, Upstart & Crow, a not-for-profit literary arts studio and collection of bookstores that champions writers, readers, and stories.
- April 9th is the official release of my new book— The Pain Project—in Canada and the U.S. Simon and I are both excited (and relieved!) to launch this collaborative project into the world.
Excerpted from the introduction to The Pain Project:
This new book offers a chronicle of the year we chose to accept the challenge posed by chronic pain, a year of few easy answers and many difficult questions. Our goal? To improve our ability to think about how we think about pain. I won’t lie; we initially approached our task with some resistance. Certain insights are gained at too high a cost, a fundamental truth that was, in this instance, compounded by the unfair fact that the person who bore the brunt of that cost was not me but Simon.
There were some tough moments over the course of our documented, un-scientific experiment but also some amazing ones. One of the most amazing was the day we went stand-up paddle boarding in the Sechelt Inlet. We were able to do so because of the generosity and skill of several key people. Big buckets of gratitude to Jordon Kerton, of Access Revolution; Geordie Harrower, a local SUP guru; and Pedals and Paddles who supplied the dock for a wheelchair accessible paddleboard!
- Feb, 10th Them Ordinary Things will be playing at the Pender Harbour School of Music
- April 15th Them Ordinary Things at the Gumboot!
- July 30th Them Ordinary Things perform for the One Straw Society
July 28th Farm Team reunion! Simon and the gang will be performing at Halfmoon Bay’s Lazy Daze festival.- Aug, 17th Simon and Adrianna Barton—author of Wired for Music—will be launching this year’s Sunshine Coast Festival of Literary Arts.
- August 25th Big news for the Paradis-Stanley family. Today Simon and his brand-new service dog—the magnificent Cashew—passed their public service access exam. They are an amazing team!
- September 9th Simon joins Joe Stanton, Jay Johnson, Tom Neville, and Gerry Millar for a Precious Littles Reunion gig in Madeira Park.
July 28th Farm Team reunion! Simon and the gang will be performing at Halfmoon Bay’s Lazy Daze festival.- June3-5th Blues fest time again. Has it really been two years?! Simon will be playing an afternoon outdoor event Saturday afternoon. Pender Harbour it will be great to see all your familiar, beautiful faces.
- November Jane Gowan’s Music Buddy is one of our fave music-themed podcasts.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Jane this autumn. Listen to our wide-ranging conversation about book-writing, music-making, resiliency and recovery and all the many challenges and victories along the way. - November, 26th Simon has played some local outdoor events over lockdown, but this is his first indoor gig. He is playing with his new bandmates in Them Ordinary Things at Chatelech High School
- November 29th First indoor gig=first case of covid! Of course! We are taking our feverish stuffy heads to the couch to binge watch Ted Lasso until we are all better.
- Feb 26th I will be presenting at the Young Writers Festival at Gibsons Elementary. Prepare for some fun literary hijinks!
- March 13th As my friend Jane Davidson says, Monday was a simpler time. As we enter lockdown, Simon and I are sending our love to the world at large.
- On May 7th I head to England and Scotland for two weeks of research on a new project. Thank you, Canada Council of the Arts, for making this work possible!
- June 7th and 8th It’s Blues Fest time again. Simon will be playing his trusty Santa Cruz and I will be wearing my dancing shoes!
- June 15th Simon and I are thrilled to be presenting at the CNFC (Creative Non-Fiction Collective!) conference.
- June 29th The Cultch! Simon and the fantastic musicians who make up Farm Team will be hosting a CD release party for Grooves and Ruts. Simon will be debuting a bunch of new original songs, some of which he and I co-wrote.
- June 30th-July 29th Banff, Alberta! One glorious month of being a writer-in-residence at the Banff Centre of Arts and Creativity. Karaoke, mechanical bull riding, long hikes, barefoot dancing, hot springs, an abundant buffet and, yes, some intense writing time on a brand-new project. I will forever be grateful for this gift of time and space to make meaningful connections with amazing writers from around the globe and to be mentored by the brilliant and fabulous Susan Orlean, Michael Harris, and Carol Shaben
- Sept 28th Hometown Grooves and Ruts CD release in Roberts Creek
January 22nd 2018 Tonight I will be reading from Ghost Warning at the lovely Novel Idea in Kingston. Thanks to two of my favorite authors—Steven Heighton and Susan Olding—for helping make this event possible!
January 24th Hometown visit! I will be reading tonight at Booklore in Orangeville. It’s been a long time since I returned to the town I grew up in. Thanks Rob, Aidan and Lucas Stanley for making the pilgrimage with me!
February 28th Official launch of Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups, and Downs of Marriage. I was honoured to contribute a piece to Jane Silcott and Fiona Lam’s anthology of nonfiction writers and poets writing on the subject of love and relationships alongside some of my favourite Canadian authors—Andreas Schroeder, Rachel Rose, Kevin Chong, and Susan Olding. My essay is entitled “Bees of the Invisible” and Simon and I have really enjoyed putting together a joint music-and-reading presentation with this piece.
March 17th Simon and I are presenting Bees of The Invisible at the Gibson’s library.
June 1st and 2nd Simon will be joining an array of fantastic musicians at the Pender Harbour Blues Fest this weekend. Bring your dancing shoes!
June 27th Reading from Ghost Warning tonight at the West Vancouver Library.
August 19th Simon will provide musical accompaniment for Tom Wilson (of “Blackie and the Rodeo Kings” fame) tonight at The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts
- March 31st Kwikwexwelhp Healing Village: Myself and Stanton Paradis in conversation with a group of students from the Inside Out program
- April 18th Saint John, New Brunswick. Simon, Joe and I will be presenting for Brain Injury Canada.
- April 24th Myself and Stanton Paradis will be presenting for Alberta Council for Disability Services in Calgary.
- June 6th Simon, Joe and myself will be presenting at University of Victoria for the Cridge Centre for the Family’s Surivive – Strive – Thrive conference.
- June 18th Simon, Joe and myself will be presenting at the Vancouver Hyatt Regency for the BC Government Employment Union’s Equity and Human right’s conference.
- June 22nd I will be presenting, along with Simon, and Stanton Paradis at Vancouver’s Coal Harbour Hotel for the BC Brain Injury’s AGM.
- September 16th Sunshine Coast Hospice Society Fundraiser. Simon and I will be joining Shane Kozycan for a night of readings, music and spoken word poetry at the Rockwood Pavilion.
- September 18th Book signing at Vancouver’s Book Warehouse 632 West Broadway Street 1-3
- September 29th and 30th Book signing at Talewind books 11:00- 1:30
- September 30th Sechelt launch of Ghost Warning at the Sunshine Coast Arts Council on Medusa Street. Doors open at 6:30, reading at 7:00, music – by the awesome GUT BUCKET THUNDER – at 8:00. Come prepared to kick up your heels!
- Oct 2nd Vancouver Public Library. This is the Vancouver launch of Angie Abdou’s compelling new novel In Case I Go and my new novel Ghost Warning. Please come help us celebrate!
- Oct 3rd Angie Abdou and I will be reading at Bolen Books, Victoria 7:00PM
- Oct 4th 7PM-8:30 Salt Spring Island Book Launch: Kara Stanley’s new novel, Ghost Warning, navigates Toronto’s underbelly of urban grime, crime, and sublime. Angie Abdou, a Canada Reads finalist, launches her fifth work of fiction In Case I Go, a new kind of ghost story, about the many ways we’re haunted by the misdeeds of our ancestors; and Zoey Leigh Patterson’s debut, Next Year For Sure, is a mesmerizing portrait of an open relationship. With Claire Sicherman (Imprint) as host.
- Oct. 28th Sechelt Library Fundraiser Dinner and Silent Auction at the Sechelt Golf course. Simon and I will be reading and playing some music. Pre-dinner music by Simon and Boyd Norman
- Nov. 23rd 7:00-8:00 PM Public reading by Kara Stanley and Ann Y.K. Choi at Queen Books, 941 Queen Street East, Toronto
- September 27th Toronto. Stanton Paradis and myself will be presenting for Brain Injury Canada.