Category: Events

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, October 13th

13:30: Tea Time Haunts

A double serving of spookiness this week in a session that will likely run to over the hour:

• Dubhna Rhiadra with a seasonally spooky story by author Mary Molesworth.
• Corwyn Allen with The Japanned Box by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I saw that Sir John Bollamore was sitting at his study table. His well-set head and clearly cut profile were sharply outlined against the glimmering square behind him. He bent as I watched him, and I heard the sharp turning of a key and the rasping of metal upon metal. As if in a dream I was vaguely conscious that this was the japanned box which stood in front of him, and that he had drawn something out of it, something squat and uncouth…

– The Japanned Box, Sir CA.C. Doyle

So, gather around the warmth of the hearth in the fireside room, and prepare enjoy two ghostly tales.

18:30: Tilly and the Bookwanderers

Eleven year-old Tilly has lived above her grandparent’s bookshop ever since her mother disappeared shortly after she was born. Like the rest of her family, Tilly loves nothing more than to escape into the pages of her favourite stories.

One day Tilly realises that classic children’s characters are appearing in the shop through the magic of `book wandering’ – crossing over from the page into real life.

With the help of Anne of Green Gables and Alice in Wonderland. Tilly is determined to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother all those years ago, so she bravely steps into the unknown, unsure of what adventure lies ahead and what dangers she may face.

Join Caledonia Skytower at the Golden Horseshoe as she concludes the story!

Monday, October 14th 19:00: Variable Star

Gyro Muggins reads Spider Robinson’s 2006 completion of an eight-page novel outline from 1955 by Robert Heinlein.

When aspiring composer and musician Joel Johnston first met Jinny Hamilton, it seems like a dream come true. And when she finally agrees to marry him, he feels like the luckiest man in the universe.

There’s just one small problem. He is broke. His only goal in life was to become a composer, and he knows it will take years before he’d be earning enough to support a family. But Jinny isn’t willing to wait; she wants Joel with her in marriage now.

Unsettled by her conviction that money wouldn’t be a problem for them, Joel presses Jinny for an explanation. Her response stuns him: ‘Hamilton’ is not her last name – it is ‘Conrad’, and her grandfather is the wealthiest man in the solar system: Robert Conrad; she had been using subterfuge to ensure whoever she fell in love with really loved her for who she was, not for her grandfather’s money. With that truth revealed, she also informs Joel of her family’s broader plans for her and her husband-to-be.

Perhaps most men in Joel’s shoes, faced with the facts that Jinny really did love him and was offering a life of wealth, might have forgiven her for hiding her identity and plans. But not Joel. So it was that he found himself trying to get as far from her and her family as possible: aboard a colony ship heading deep into space. And then came the cosmic cataclysm that would visit so much calamity on humanity as a whole.

Tuesday, October 15th 19:00: The Spooky Classics

With Caledonia Skytower at the Ravenheart Museum’s A Conspiracy of Ravens exhibit.

Wednesday, October 16th 19:00 The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root

11-year-old Carly Bean Bitters suffers a peculiar malady: she can only sleep by the light of day, and is awake through the night, spending her time up in the attic of her aunt’s house, awaiting the arrival of the dawn.

One night, she notes a strange squash that appears on her roof. Investigating, she comes across Lewis, a fiddle-playing rat. Lewis tells Carly the squash is a replacement for one of the rats in the group who has been abducted by owls.

He goes on to explain that until recently, the owls join with the rats dancing in the moonlight within the Whistle Root woods to the music played by Lewis and has band. But then something changed, and instead of dancing with the rats, the owls took to abducting them.

Grabbed by an owl herself, Carly find herself dropped into the woods where she meets the once happy community of rats, now gravely threatened by the hostile owls. At school, and struggling to stay awake, she also finds a strange note warning that the “Moon Child” is in danger.

Enlisting the help of another strange child, Green, who spend his time hiding under the library, Carly sets out to solve the riddle of the “Moon Child” and the reason for the owls’ change in behaviour – and along the way, discovers something unexpected about herself.

Join Faerie Maven-Pralou as she reads Christopher Pennell’s 2010 novel.

Thursday, October 17th

19:00 The Sealed Book

Shandon Loring presents stories from the 1945 radio series of the same name. Also in Kitely – teleport from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.

21:00 Seanchai Late Night

Contemporary Sci-Fi-Fantasy from oniline sources such as Lightspeed, Escape Pod, and Clarkesworld with Finn Zeddmore

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, October 6th 13:30: Tea Time Haunts

Da5id Abbot and Caledonia Skytower share some classics from the western shores of the Atlantic, with selections from American masters of horror, the macabre and ghostly tales, Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving.

On the summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany, that lies not far from the confluence of the Main and the Rhine, there stood, many, many years since, the castle of the Baron Von Landshort. It is now quite fallen to decay, and almost buried among beech trees and dark firs ; above which, however, its old watch-tower may still be seen, struggling, like the former possessor I have mentioned, to carry a high head, and look down upon the neighbouring country…

– from The Spectre Bridegroom, by Washington Irving

Monday, October 7th 19:00: Moonheart

Gyro Muggins reads Charles de Lint’s 1994 novel.

When Sara and Jamie discovered the seemingly ordinary artefacts, they sensed the pull of a dim and distant place. A world of mists and forests, of ancient magic, mythical beings, ageless bards – and restless evil.

Now, with their friends and enemies alike–Blue, the biker; Keiran, the folk musician; the Inspector from the RCMP; and the mysterious Tom Hengyr; Sara and Jamie are drawn into this enchanted land through the portals of Tamson House, that sprawling downtown edifice that straddles two worlds.

Sweeping from ancient Wales to the streets of Ottawa today, Moonheart will entrance you with its tale of this world and the other one at the very edge of sight and the unforgettable people caught up in the affairs of both. A tale of music, and motorcycles, and fey folk beyond the shadows of the moon. A tale of true magic; the tale of Moonheart.

Tuesday, October 8th 19:00: The Spooky Classics

Halloween is approaching and for the next few weeks, Caledonia Skytower will be reading ghostly stories from some of the classics of the genre. Each week features a different author associated with tales of the macabre, Gothic, or just plain spooky. This week: M.R. James, with Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, October 9th 19:00 The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root

11-year-old Carly Bean Bitters suffers a peculiar malady: she can only sleep by the light of day, and is awake through the night, spending her time up in the attic of her aunt’s house, awaiting the arrival of the dawn.

One night, she notes a strange squash that appears on her roof. Investigating, she comes across Lewis, a fiddle-playing rat. Lewis tells Carly the squash is a replacement for one of the rats in the group who has been abducted by owls.

He goes on to explain that until recently, the owls join with the rats dancing in the moonlight within the Whistle Root woods to the music played by Lewis and has band. But then something changed, and instead of dancing with the rats, the owls took to abducting them.

Grabbed by an owl herself, Carly find herself dropped into the woods where she meets the once happy community of rats, now gravely threatened by the hostile owls. At school, and struggling to stay awake, she also finds a strange note warning that the “Moon Child” is in danger.

Enlisting the help of another strange child, Green, who spend his time hiding under the library, Carly sets out to solve the riddle of the “Moon Child” and the reason for the owls’ change in behaviour – and along the way, discovers something unexpected about herself.

Join Faerie Maven-Pralou as she reads Christopher Pennell’s 2010 novel.

Thursday, October 10th 19:00 The Clay-shuttered Doors

Shandon Loring reads Helen R. Hull’s short story. Love may be eternal, but Lovers are mortal – aren’t they? Also in Kitely – teleport from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.