Canadian Writing Comes to You -- Live!

The Reading Series has been bringing cutting-edge Canadian writers to St. Jerome's University since 1984.

Each year we strive to offer a range in our slate of visiting writers: well-established and up-and-coming, from the local area and from sea to sea, working in verse and prose and beyond. Experimental and traditional, serious and playful, beautiful and stark, cynical and celebratory -- come and sample the wealth and variety that is Canadian literature today.

These readings are special opportunities to get inside the book -- to hear writers read their own words, and speak about their own writing. Every reading includes an open question and answer session.

All readings are free and open to the public. And there's free parking!

St. Jerome's is located at 290 Westmount Road North, Waterloo, Ontario.

From its beginnings through 2018-19, the Reading Series has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and St. Jerome's University. It now continues to be funded by St. Jerome's.

Past Readers

The Reading Series at St Jerome's has been going strong since 1984!

Look at all the amazing writers who have read for us over the years:

2022-23
Manahil Bandukwala
Nadja Lubiw-Hazard
Benjamin Lefebvre
Claire Tacon

2019-20
Susan Holbrook
Deanna Young
Ben Ladouceur
Alicia Elliott

2018-19
Julie Cameron Gray
Jael Richardson
Richard Cumyn
Melanie Fishbane

2017-18: Languages of Home
Elizabeth Greene
Raoul Fernandes
Mariam Pirbhai
Kate Cayley
Liz Howard
Special event: Sarah Tolmie

2016-17: Journeys
Fred Wah
Dimitri Nasrallah
Farzana Doctor
Carolyn Smart
Tim Conley
Pamela Mordecai and Tasneem Jamal

2015-16: Alternate Realities
James Alan Gardner
Amanda Leduc
Elisabeth de Mariaffi
Steve Noyes
Catherine Hunter
Catherine Greenwood
Larissa Lai and Rita Wong

2014-15: Writing the Self / The Self Writing
Karen Connelly
Ayelet Tsabari
Olive Senior
Shyam Selvadurai
Patrick Friesen
Kim Fu
Daphne Marlatt
Special event: Eric McCormack

2013-14: Literartistry
Christian Campbell
M. NourbeSe Philip
Ann Shin
Steve McCaffery
Gabe Foreman
Lisa Moore
rob mclennan
Daniel David Moses

2012-13: Metaphoriment
Brian Henderson
Shane Neilson
Michael Boughn and Christopher Dewdney
Susan Musgrave
Nora Gould
Anne Michaels
Vincent Lam
Adam Dickinson

2011-12
Drew Hayden Taylor
Adwoa Badoe
Susan Goyette
Rishma Dunlop and Tanis MacDonald
Julia McCarthy
Robert Paul Weston

2010-11
Richard Cumyn
Christian Bök
Charlene Diehl
Janice Kulyk Keefer
Gregory Scofield
Guy Gavriel Kay
Roy Miki
Special event: David Morrell

2009-10
Helen Humphreys
Jeffery Donaldson
Gerry Shikatani
Shani Mootoo
Fred Wah
Mary Swan
Austin Clarke
Patricia Young

2008-9
Nathaniel G. Moore
Emma Donoghue
Lawrence Hill
David McFadden
K. V. Johansen
Camilla Gibb

2007-8
Sonnet L’Abbé
Trevor Cole
Robert Moore
Sharon Thesen
Tamas Dobozy
Alayna Munce
Michael Crummey
Patrick Lane

2006-7
Margaret Sweatman
Jean McKay
David Gilmour
Lorna Crozier
John Terpstra


And some of our earlier readers, as we dig into the archives:

2005
Lewis DeSoto
Goran Simic
Diana Fitzgerald Bryden     

2004
Donna Morrissey       
Karen Solie    
Neil Bissoondath

2003   
Gail Bowen    
Joan Crate     
Stan Dragland
Welwyn Wilton Katz   
Marianne Brandis       
Russell Smith 
Hal Niedzviecki          
Elizabeth Hay 

2002   
rob mclennan          
Marty Chan    
David Macfarlane      
Helen Tsiriotakis

2001   
Jan Zwicky    
Sandra Sabatini         
Tim Wynne-Jones

1999   
Michael Crummey
Kit Pearson    
Heather Spears

1998   
Nino Ricci
Kathy Stinson
Eric McCormack       
George Elliott Clarke

1988
Robertson Davies
Timothy Findlay