April 3, 2006 Source: :
http://www.unb.ca/news/view.cgi?id=1002 Crane and Gaston to Read at UNBF April 3, 2006
UNB Fredericton News Release: D630
Tina English, Student Recruitment and Integrated Marketing (506) 453-4793 The department of English at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton will host readings by two acclaimed writers on Monday, April 10, at 8 p.m. in the Alumni Memorial Building. Dede Crane and Bill Gaston, partners and novelists, are former residents of Fredericton who now live in Victoria, B.C. Ms. Crane’s first novel, Sympathy, is the powerful and darkly humourous story of Kerry Taylor, a recently retired ballet dancer who is left catatonic and unresponsive after a traumatic car accident claims the lives of her husband and son. The family’s last option to heal her is a controversial new therapy designed by a Washington, D.C. doctor. Ms. Crane’s fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Award and published in numerous literary journals. She is a former artistic director of Dance Fredericton and has studied Buddhist psychology at the Naropa Institute in Colorado and psychokinetics at the Body-Mind Institute in Amherst, Mass. "Sympathy is a beautifully crafted book...Crane moves around the characters and setting and situation with such finesse and confidence, ties everything up so nicely, that at times it feels as if you are reading a ballet." The Globe and Mail "Frederictonians will remember Dede (Gaston) Crane not as a novelist but as the former artistic director of Dance Fredericton. However, Crane is as talented a writer as she was a dancer, instructor and choreographer." The Daily Gleaner Giller Prize Nominee Bill Gaston’s Sointula centers on Evelyn, a middle-aged woman who has thrown away her privileged life in Ontario in an effort to reconnect with her estranged son on the rugged British Columbia coast. Without a wallet, money or adherence to the law, Evelyn points a kayak north to the failed utopia of Sointula, B.C., where her son has embarked on a quest of his own. Mr. Gaston is widely considered to be one of Canada’s finest fiction writers. He has authored four collections of short fiction, a poetry collection, several plays and four novels prior to the release of Sointula. His novels and short fiction collections have won him many accolades, including a Giller Prize nomination and the inaugural Timothy Findley Award, which recognizes a superior body of work by a male author. "Gaston is one of this country’s outstanding literary treasures." The Globe and Mail "Slow and full of puzzles, with fine, shapely writing." The Vancouver Sun For review copies and interviews, contact Selina Rajani, Raincoast Books, at 604-323-7133 or selina@raincoast.com. - 30 -
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