Vine Awards Panel 2: Storytelling, Family & Loss

Authors Sidura Ludwig, Nessa Rapoport, Rick Salutin and Gideon Salutin in conversation with Nathan Adler.

The Koffler Centre of the Arts is delighted to present three virtual panels featuring shortlisted Vine Awards authors on November 16, 17 and 18, 2021. The second panel features the 2021 Vine Awards shortlisted writers – Sidura Ludwig, Nessa Rapoport, Rick Salutin and Gideon Salutin – in conversation with juror Nathan Adler. Tune in to learn how all four authors portrayed the complexities of family dynamics, storytelling, loss, and grief in their shortlisted titles.

To see the full 2021 Vine Awards shortlist, click here.

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Koffler Centre of the Arts · Vine Awards Panel 2: Storytelling, Family & Loss

The conversation has been transcribed for accessibility purposes. Please click here to view.

SIDURA LUDWIG is the author of the widely successful novel Holding My Breath. Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. She works as a communications specialist and creative writing teacher, and her creative nonfiction has appeared in several newspapers and on CBC Radio. She is currently working on her M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults through the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, she now lives in Thornhill, Ontario, with her husband and three children.

Sidura Ludwig's You Are Not What We Expected (House of Anansi) is shortlisted in the 2021 Vine Awards Fiction category.

This stunningly intimate collection of stories is an exquisite portrait of a Jewish community — the secular and religious families who inhabit it and the tensions that exist there — that illuminates the unexpected ways we remain connected during times of change.

When Uncle Isaac moves back from L.A. to help his sister, Elaine Levine, care for her suddenly motherless grandchildren, he finds himself embroiled in even more drama than he would like in their suburban neighbourhood. Meanwhile, a nanny miles from her own family in the Philippines, cares for a young boy who doesn’t fit in at school. A woman in mid-life contends with the task of cleaning out the house in which she grew up, while her teenage son struggles with why his dad moved out. And down the street, a mother and her two daughters prepare for a wedding and transitions they didn’t see coming.

NESSA RAPOPORT was born in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of a novel, Preparing for Sabbath, and a collection of prose poems, A Woman's Book of Grieving. Her memoir, House on the River, was awarded a grant by the Canada Council for the Arts. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She lives in New York with her husband, artist Tobi Kahn.

Nessa Rapoport, Evening (Counterpoint Press) is shortlisted in the 2021 Vine Awards Fiction category.

Two sisters, lost youth, and youthful obsessions; organized by day as the family sits shiva, Evening unfolds the paradoxes of love, ambition, siblings, and the way the past continues to inflect the present, sometimes against our will.

In her thirties, Eve is summoned home by her distraught family to mourn the premature death of her sister, Tam, a return that becomes an unexpected encounter with the past. Eve bears the burden of a secret: Two weeks before Tam died, Eve and Tam argued so vehemently that they did not speak again. Her sister was famous, acclaimed for her career as a TV journalist and her devoted marriage. But Tam, too, had a secret, revealed the day after the funeral, one that inverts the story Eve has told herself since their childhood. In the aftermath, Eve is forced to revise her version of her fractured family, her sister’s accomplishments and vaunted marriage, and her own impeded ambition in work and love.

RICK SALUTIN is a playwright, novelist, and journalist who has received awards in all these areas. He wrote a weekly column for The Globe and Mail for 20 years and now provides weekly columns and videos for the Toronto Star.

GIDEON SALUTIN grew up in downtown Toronto without a religious upbringing or bar mitzvah. Instead, he learned the Bible’s major stories through talks with his dad. In 2019, he founded the Contemporary Review of Genocides and interned with the United Nations. He currently attends the London School of Economics and carries a camera everywhere.

Rick Salutin and Gideon Salutin, illustrated by Dušan Petričić, Gideon’s Bible: A Father and Son Discuss God, the Bible, and Life (ECW Press) is shortlisted in the 2021 Vine Awards Non-Fiction category.

A singular exploration of the Hebrew Bible, playfully illustrated by renowned cartoonist and illustrator Dušan Petričić. Gideon’s Bible is a conversation between Rick Salutin, and his son, Gideon. It begins with Gideon as a child, asking why he was given his name. Rick says it’s from the Bible and Gideon asks, “What’s the Bible?” Throughout the 64 wildly illustrated colour pages, biblical text is framed with striking illustrations and caricatures of Rick and Gideon as they relate to the passage and discuss subjects like God, parenting, current concerns of youth, literature, friends, and formative experiences that each of them have had.

NATHAN ADLER is author of Wrist and Ghost Lake (Kegedonce Press), and co-editor of Bawaajigan ~ Stories of Power, a dream-themed anthology of Indigenous writers (Exile Editions). Nathan is first-place winner of an Aboriginal Writing Challenge, and recipient of a Hnatyshyn Reveal award for literature. He has an MFA in Creative Writing (UBC), a BFA in Integrated Media (OCAD), and BA in English Literature & Native Studies (Trent). He is two-spirit, Jewish, Anishinaabe, and a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation.

The Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature are made possible by a generous donation from:

Lillian and Norman Glowinsky Family Foundation

The 2021 Vine Awards programs are co-presented by the Miles Nadal JCC and the Centre for Contemporary Literature, Holy Blossom Temple. All 2021 Vine Awards shortlisted titles can be purchased from benmcnallybooks.com.

The Koffler Centre of the Arts is dedicated to accessibility. CART live captioning will be provided at this event, and a transcript and video/audio recording will be available afterwards on the Koffler website. This Zoom event is in webinar format, meaning all event attendees will be off camera. We will do our best to accommodate additional access needs; if you have questions or concerns, please contact our access point person, Mary, at manderson@kofflerarts.org

Photos

Sidura Ludwig.

Nessa Rapoport (photo by Eugene-Weisberg).

Rick and Gideon Salutin.

Nathan Adler.