Steel Bananas & Zoots Cafe curate a monthly reading series featuring local writers keeping it real all over the place and the best espresso in the west end.

EPISODE 5: GIRLS NIGHT
with Erin Brandenburg, Dani Couture, Damian Rogers, and Melanie Janisse

Wednesday, April 21st
Zoots Cafe, 1438 Dundas West, Toronto
7:30 pm

Guest curated by Melanie Janisse
Hosted by Karen Correia Da Silva

The Monthly Eggplant is back with four of the most interesting women in Toronto:

ERIN BRANDENBURG is a Toronto based actor, writer, producer, educator and knitting enthusiast. Her most recent acting projects include Pelee (Summerworks) and Reesor (Toronto Fringe), both of which she also produced and wrote with Lauren Taylor, and the role of Margaret Thomas in The Fort at York (Crate Productions). Previous credits include A Bunch of Munch (Capitol Theatre), Charlotte's Web (Purple Theatre) and several seasons as lawyer Rachel Rudnicki in the detective series for The Purple Theatre Company in Windsor, ON. As an artist educator Erin has worked in communities across Ontario leading workshops with both Learning Through the Arts (Royal Conservatory of Music) and The Canadian Opera Company. Upcoming: Erin is producing and performing in a remount of the fringe hit Reesor at the 2009 Next Stage festival in Toronto. She is currently working on a new project, Petrichor which is being created as part of the HATCH project at the Harbourfront Centre for the Arts. Erin is just thrilled to be a part of the B.J. Fletcher team.

DANI COUTURE was born in Toronto and raised on a number of Canadian military bases. She has also lived in Vancouver and Windsor. Her first book of poetry, Good Meat (Pedlar Press, 2006), was described by Books in Canada as “precise, taut with meaning, and quietly filled with curiosities of fact and phrase.” Her second collection of poetry, Sweet, is forthcoming from Pedlar Press in May 2010.

In 2008, she won 1st place in the fiction category of This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt for her story “The Port-Wine-Stain-Removal-Technique,” her work appeared on screens in subway stations across Toronto as part of Words Travel Fast for Nuit Blanche, her poem “Union Station” was included in the Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 anthology, and she appeared on the main stage at the Scream in High Park as part of The Scream Literary Festival.

Her essays, short stories, and poetry have appeared in a number of publications, including The Globe and Mail, The Fiddlehead, Taddle Creek, The Windsor ReView, and Grain. In March 2009, Dani read at the Harbourfront Centre as part of a specially commissioned poetry night featuring poets under 35. In October 2009, she read at the 30th anniversary of the International Festival of Authors (IFOA) in Toronto.

DAMIAN ROGERS was born and raised in suburban Detroit and now lives in Toronto, Canada. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. In addition to performing the roles of assistant editor at Poetry Magazine in Chicago, copy chief at CosmoGIRL! in New York, and arts editor at Eye Weekly in Toronto, she has sung back-up as a member of a cheerleader chorus and has delivered a line in a John Cusack movie. Though her music and film careers seem to have stalled out, her poems have appeared in Brick, The Walrus, MoonLit, Maisonneuve, Salt Hill, This Magazine, and Matrix. Her first book, Paper Radio, was published by ECW Press in the fall of 2009.

MELANIE JANISSE is a native of Windsor, Ontario. She holds degrees Communications from Concordia University and Visual Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Now a resident of Toronto, Melanie keeps active as a visual artist, poet, designer and shop owner. Her most recent book of poetry, Orioles in the Oranges, was released by Guernica Editions in 2009.

Come out for unforgettable readings, espresso, and the secret to immortality.

Last reading:

Tuesday, February 23
7:30pm

Zoots Cafe, 1438 Dundas West, Toronto

Jimmy McInnes
Anna Veprinska
John Nyman
Dave Hurlow

...and a surprise musical guest.

You are not even going to believe it, so let's all get down with the get down and go see some poetry readers read poetry!

Past readings: