Event Info
Late Nights with KWF: Graphic Content
Presented by Kingston WritersFest
9:00pm - 10:00pm
$19.61-$21.69
Event Description
Late Nights with KWF: Graphic Content
Kevin Chong and Christina Wong with Aara Macauley
Reading and Conversation
Islandview
9:00 – 10:00 pm
In The Double Life of Benson Yu, and Denison Avenue, authors Kevin Chong and Christina Wong play with form to create moving works about coming-of-age and decades of change in Canadian Chinatowns. One is a surreal work of metafiction. The other a quietly moving novel/graphic novel hybrid. In both, Kevin and Christina explore complex themes of age, trauma, racism, the tides of change, and hybrid art forms.
Kevin Chong
Kevin Chong is the award-winning author of several books of fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Rumpus, and more. In his latest novel, The Double Life of Benson Yu, Kevin offers up a fresh, unique work of metafiction that follows a graphic novelist who loses control of his own narrative when he attempts to write the story of his fraught upbringing in 1980s Chinatown. Written during lock-down, “I desperately needed to write this book,” says Kevin. “I needed to create my own private space in my crowded, locked-down home. The routine of drafting a novel was my daytime equivalent of playing Agricola. I set about writing 500 words a day. Then 1000.” Iain Reid enthuses that "the Double Life of Benson Yu is a thought-provoking, gutsy novel from an accomplished risk taker. A daring and enriching book that lingers in the mind long after reading." Author Mateo Askaripour adds to the praise, calling it “a phenomenal example of a writer taking real risks in order to reveal and reckon with deep-rooted, tormenting truths as a means of moving forward. Kevin Chong has crafted a novel that will get your heart pumping, mind jumping, and, best of all, fingers turning. Get ready to laugh and have your expectations defied. I can only imagine how many people this book will help." He currently lives in Vancouver, where he is a professor at UBC.
Christina Wong
Christina Wong is a playwright, prose writer, and a multidisciplinary artist who also works in sound installation, audio documentaries, and photography. Her plays have been performed at Factory Studio, Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, and Palmerston Library Theatre. Her work has also appeared in TOK Magazine, the Toronto Star, and on CJRU 1280AM.
Christina grew up with the sights, smells, and sounds of Toronto’s Chinatown and Kensington Market neighbourhoods, which have shaped her identity and view of the world. Denison Avenue is a unique collaboration between two artists - with written word by Christina for one half and ink drawings of Toronto’s Chinatown over the decades by Daniel Innes. Centring on a recent widow navigating a new and changing reality of the world around her, it is a moving story about gentrification, aging in place, grief, and vulnerable Chinese Canadian elders. “In Denison Avenue, we watch a recent widow desperately tread water in a city drowning under waves of gentrification. This tender lyrical novel is an anthem of grief, a swan song to cities as we know them and the loved ones we lose along the way.” — Catherine Hernandez. “Denison Avenue is a heart-wrenching story about a demographic that is often ignored or not even seen in the first place.” — Asian Review of Books
Aara Macauley
Aara Macauley has been involved with Kingston WritersFest in various capacities since 2011 – from a patron to archivist to box office coordinator. In 2014, she joined the staff in an administrative role, becoming Operations Manager in 2017, and, in December 2020, Artistic Director. For four years she owned and operated a boutique selling primarily local, Canadian, and independently created goods. Aara has been involved in the fundraising, event planning, and promotion committees for various local cabaret, film, and arts festivals. She is a proud member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and served as Chairperson on the Reelout Arts Project Board of Directors for 8 years. She currently sits on the City of Kingston Arts Advisory Committee, the Art in Public Places Working Group, chairs the Mayors’ Arts Awards committee, recently chaired the Poet Laureate Working Group, and was a founding member of the steering committee for the Canadian Association of Literary Festivals. Aara’s goal is to champion greater access to and awareness of our community’s diversity through the arts.
Venue
2 Princess Street
Open / Operational
In-Person Event
Fri. September 29th 2023 + Add to Calendar
Holiday Inn Kingston-Waterfront, an IHG Hotel
