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, June 9th, 18:30 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Caledonia continues Ian Flemming’s classic children’s tale Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: the Magical Car from the Golden Horseshoe.

Monday, June 10th 19:00: Incident at Hawk’s Hill

Gyro Muggins reads naturalist and historian Allan W. Eckert’s popular novel.

In 1870, Manitoba became the fifth province of the (then) three-year-old Canadian Confederation. Over the previous 18 months, it had seen strife and rebellion, but for William MacDonald, his wife, Esther, and their family, the lands around what would eventually become the city of Winnipeg, are ideal for farming, and so they have settled and built Hawk’s Hill.

The open spaces are perfect for the MacDonald’s four children – or should have been; while the three elder children thrived, the youngest, six-year-old Ben, became increasingly introverted.

Small for his age, Ben was reserved and prefers being with animals, learning to imitate the sounds of many, and well as copying their movements and actions. In return, the local animals seem to respond well to him – although members of his family and the other locals consider him odd.

But then came the day when Ben, in seeking new animals to mimic, wandered further than was usual, venturing into unfamiliar territory – only to become hopelessly lost. When a storm breaks, he has no option but to hide in a badger hole – an occupied badger hole. And thus begins a relationship spanning several months between young boy and a female badger, to the benefit and comfort of both.

Tuesday, June 11th 19:00: Crenshaw

In her first novel after winning the Newbery Medal, Katherine Applegate delivers an unforgettable and magical story about family, friendship, and resilience.

Jackson’s parents are in serious financial trouble; their stressful circumstances are taking a toll on Jackson. Mum and dad remain cheerful and upbeat, putting on a happy face for their kids, but Jackson is not fooled. He knows times are bad and, whether he likes it or not, Crenshaw the giant cat is here to help him through the worst of it.

Crenshaw is not only very large, he’s both outspoken and imaginary. He has come back into Jackson’s life to help him. But is an imaginary feline enough to save Jackson and his family from losing everything?

Author Katherine Applegate proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, June 12th 19:00: TBA

Check the Seanchai Library website for update.

Thursday, June 13th 19:00: Howling at the Moon

Stories and Poetry of a Lunar Nature with Caledonia at A Midsummer Night’s Dream at LEA 2.

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, June 2nd, 13:30: Tea-Time at Baker Street

Tea-time at Baker Street returns with the opening of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.

This week: The Adventure of the Illustrious Client.

The year is 1902, and Sir James Damery visits Holmes and Watson on behalf of his mysterious and illustrious client. The latter never actually directly revealed to the reader, although it might well be the king himself.

Damery’s client is concerned about the relationship between Violet de Merville, daughter of General de Merville, and Baron Adelbert Gruner, from Austria. Gruner is viewed as a rogue and a sadist and – in Damery’s and Holmes’ opinion – a murderer.

Despite the matter of his last wife’s mysterious death and his reputation, Violet de Merville will not be dissuaded from her determination to marry Gruner. So secure is the latter in his position that he is unfazed by a visit from Holmes – indeed, he warns the latter that a French agent who once confronted him with similar accusations finished-up a cripple for life after receiving a beating from thugs shortly afterwards; a veiled threat if ever there was one.

So, lacking obvious proof, how do Holmes and Watson prevent Violet de Merville from marrying Gruner and possibly facing the same future as the Baron’s last wife?

WithDa5id Abbot, Savannah Blindside, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower.

Monday, June 3rd 19:00: Incident at Hawk’s Hill

Gyro Muggins reads naturalist and historian Allan W. Eckert’s popular novel.

In 1870, Manitoba became the fifth province of the (then) three-year-old Canadian Confederation. Over the previous 18 months, it had seen strife and rebellion, but for William MacDonald, his wife, Esther, and their family, the lands around what would eventually become the city of Winnipeg, are ideal for farming, and so they have settled and built Hawk’s Hill.

The open spaces are perfect for the MacDonald’s four children – or should have been; while the three elder children thrived, the youngest, six-year-old Ben, became increasingly introverted.

Small for his age, Ben was reserved and prefers being with animals, learning to imitate the sounds of many, and well as copying their movements and actions. In return, the local animals seem to respond well to him – although members of his family and the other locals consider him odd.

But then came the day when Ben, in seeking new animals to mimic, wandered further than was usual, venturing into unfamiliar territory – only to become hopelessly lost. When a storm breaks, he has no option but to hide in a badger hole – an occupied badger hole. And thus begins a relationship spanning several months between young boy and a female badger, to the benefit and comfort of both.

Tuesday, June 4th  19:00: Crenshaw

In her first novel after winning the Newbery Medal, Katherine Applegate delivers an unforgettable and magical story about family, friendship, and resilience.

Jackson’s parents are in serious financial trouble; their stressful circumstances are taking a toll on Jackson. Mum and dad remain cheerful and upbeat, putting on a happy face for their kids, but Jackson is not fooled. He knows times are bad and, whether he likes it or not, Crenshaw the giant cat is here to help him through the worst of it.

Crenshaw is not only very large, he’s both outspoken and imaginary. He has come back into Jackson’s life to help him. But is an imaginary feline enough to save Jackson and his family from losing everything?

Author Katherine Applegate proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, June 5th 19:00: A Thurber Salute

James Grover Thurber (December 8th, 1894 – November 2nd, 1961) was an American cartoonist, author, humorist, journalist, playwright, and celebrated wit. His work as a humorist and cartoonist celebrated ordinary people as they faced the more comedic eccentricities and frustrations of everyday life.

Published primarily in the The New Yorker magazine, his cartoon and short stories were popular enough to garner reprinting as collections. This success spurred him on to write for the stage, co-penning the Broadway comedy The Male Animal, which was adapted as a a 1942 film starring Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland.

Despite being also entirely blind in his later years, the combined long-term result of an accident at the age of seven, when his brother shot him in the eye with an arrow, and failing eyesight in his remaining eye, the last 20 years of Thurber’s life were his most prolific in terms of writing. His output ranged from books to short stories to some 75 fables, and a biography – that of the founder/publisher of The New Yorker, Harold Ross – and a five-party treatise on the American radio soap opera.

For this event, Kayden Oconnell and Caledonia Skytower read selections from three of Thurber’s most popular short stories. The first is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, written in 1939 and which is perhaps most famously associated with the 1947 film of the same name starring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo and Boris Karloff (there was also a 2013 film adaptation, but no-one betters Danny Kaye…). Also on offer are selections from his 1937 short, The Macbeth Murder Mystery, and his alternate history parody from 1935,  If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox.

Thursday, June 6th 19:00: Thor The Mighty Adapted by Elizabeth Rudnick

Asgard’s greatest warrior, the mighty Thor, has vowed to protect the mortals of Earth with his legendary hammer Mjolnireven from his trickster brother, Loki!

With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).

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, May 26th, 13:30: Tea-Time at Baker Street

Tea-time at Baker Street returns and opens the covers of His Last Bow.

A 1917 anthology of previously published Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the volume originally comprised seven stories published by The Strand Magazine between 1908 and 1917. However, later editions of the book saw an eighth story included, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, originally published in 1892. This week sees Holmes and Watson engaged upon The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.

Despite his frequent appearances in various television series depicting the life and times of Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes only appears, or is mentioned, in just four of Conan Dyole’s tales, this being one of them – actually the one which marked his final appearance in the original canon.

The adventure starts when Mycroft visits Holmes about missing submarine plans and a dead man. The latter is Arthur Cadogan West, formerly a young clerk in a government office at the Woolwich Royal Arsenal, who was found dead next to the London Underground tracks near Aldgate tube station, his head apparently crushed by a passing train. The plans for the Bruce-Partington submarine were found on his body – with three pages missing. Mycroft’s concern is that they’ve been taken by enemies of the Crown.

Not only is there the mystery of the missing pages for the submarine plans, there is much about Arthur Cadogan West’s death which does not add-up; why, for example, was he carrying top-secret plans about his person while apparently due to visit the theatre with his fiancée? Why is there no Underground ticket about his body? Did he manage to travel the service without a ticket, or did someone take it? If the latter, why?

Holmes responds to his brother’s request for help on behalf of the British government – noting to Watson along the way that Mycroft actually is the British government – and thus the adventure begins.

With Da5id Abbot, Elrik Merlin, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower.

Monday, May 27th 19:00: Paper Mage

Gyro Muggins concludes Leah R. Cutter’s 2003 début novel.

Set in the Tang Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (about the time of Charlemagne in Europe), the novel tells us of the adventures of Xiao Yen, a young woman training to become a paper mage, a sorcerer with the power to endow folded creations with the semblance of life.

Because her gifts are in demand for the protection they can offer, Xiao Yen must leave behind her beloved family and their village home and embark on a dangerous mission when she is hired to protect a caravan. Yet even as she departs, she has no idea that this looming adventure will shape the very woman she is to become.

The story follows two timelines, alternating chapters between the caravan journey, where one of her fellow travellers is a goddess who charges her with a dangerous quest, and the story of her childhood training, when she lay caught between her aunt’s plans and her mother’s plans to have her married off.

Tuesday, May 28th  19:00: Crenshaw

In her first novel after winning the Newbery Medal, Katherine Applegate delivers an unforgettable and magical story about family, friendship, and resilience.

Jackson’s parents are in serious financial trouble; their stressful circumstances are taking a toll on Jackson. Mum and dad remain cheerful and upbeat, putting on a happy face for their kids, but Jackson is not fooled. He knows times are bad and, whether he likes it or not, Crenshaw the giant cat is here to help him through the worst of it.

Crenshaw is not only very large, he’s both outspoken and imaginary. He has come back into Jackson’s life to help him. But is an imaginary feline enough to save Jackson and his family from losing everything?

Author Katherine Applegate proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, May 29th 19:00: 14 Years of 100-word Stories

Story writer, story-teller, commentator, raconteur – Crap Mariner is all of these, and more. On May 31st, 2005, after being inspired by both a friend and Woody Allen to write 100-word stories  – or “dabbles” – Crap created the 100-word Story podcast, promising to write a story a day until the day he dies.

Fourteen years on, Crap is still writing  – and still reading his stories in what is quite probably the longest-running daily podcast of original material in the world.

Seanchai Library is therefore delighted to host the 14th anniversary of the 100-word story podcast, with Crap reading more of his stories, which will cover a wide range of topics, just like his podcasts. There might even be a George the Pirate story or two 🙂 .

Thursday, May 30th

19:00: Thor The Mighty Adapted by Elizabeth Rudnick

Asgard’s greatest warrior, the mighty Thor, has vowed to protect the mortals of Earth with his legendary hammer Mjolnireven from his trickster brother, Loki!

With Shandon Loring. (Also in Kitely grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI).

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

Contemporary Sci-Fi Fantasy from such on-line ‘zines as Lightspeed, Escape Pod and Clakesworld. With Finn Zeddmore.