Book Launch: Aug. 9
Time:
2PM
Location:
Hole in the Wall
Date:
2026-08-09
Host:
River Bookshop
Join us on August 9th for a reading with Karl Jirgens and Gord Grisenthwaite. This will be Karl's Amherstburg launch of his newest book, Travesties. A reading and Q&A will be followed by book signings. Event starts at 2PM. Books will be for sale before and after the event.
The reading will take place during our bookshop's sixth anniversary (Aug. 8-9 weekend), featuring discounts, free gifts for customers, and more. We hope you can join us!
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About the Authors
Karl Jirgens is the author of 7 books (Coach House, Mercury, Porcupine’s Quill, Exile, & ECW). He wrote The Razor’s Edge (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2022, Short Fiction) a finalist for the Forward Prize, winner of an ELIT award for short fiction. He also wrote Travesties (Exile Editions, late 2025, Poetry) which has a substantial section included in Best Poetry of Canada (Biblioasis, 2023). Jirgens is a Professor Emeritus from U Windsor. Karl’s writing has appeared in Above/Ground Press, Fiction International, The Typescript, Wilfrid Laurier UP, Exile Quarterly, Open Letter, World Literature Today, Latcan, Lituanus, Alecart, This, Tyuoni, Teksteditions, Brave New Word, Guernica, etc. He is a 9th degree Grandmaster of the Korean Martial Art Tae Kwon Do. [Please visit: https://www.jirgens.org/].
Jirgens edited/published Rampike, an international journal of art, writing, and theory (1979-2016) distributed on 5 continents. Rampike is now digitally archived (free) c/o U Windsor’s Leddy Library at: https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/index.php/rm/issue/archive (All copyrights remain with contributors), and is print archived at Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library (U Toronto).
Gord Grisenthwaite is a member of the Lytton First Nation, and earned an MA (2020) in English Literature & Creative Writing at U Windsor. He shares his Kingsville, Ontario home with his partner and a psychotically possessive cat. His community is well-suited to a quiet, writerly life, and a far cry from the often chaotic one he led as a mainly urban, mixed-blood Lytton First Nation / nłeʔkepmx, prior to a life-altering accident that has left him with fibromyalgia and a limp. Gord’s work has appeared in FreeFall Magazine, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review, Our Stories Literary Journal, Prism International, ndnCountry, Offset 17, Exile Quarterly, and the anthologies Bawaajigan: Stories of Power and Food of My People from Exile Editions. His work has earned a number of prizes, including first place in the 2020 FreeFall Magazine short fiction contest and 2014 John Kenneth Galbraith Literary Award. Palimpsest Press released his first novel, Home Waltz (2021, which was short listed for the Governor General’s Award). Tales for Late Night Bonfires (Freehand Books, 2023) features curious, uncanny tales blending Indigenous oral storytelling and meticulous literary style.