Nino Ricci

Award-winning Author

Toronto Writers’ Co-operative

The Toronto Writers’ Co-operative hosts Nino Ricci for an afternoon of critique and conversation. Sunday, April 17th, 2011 at 2 PM at the Toronto Reference Library. The Toronto Writers’ Co-operative is a program of the Toronto Public Library.

L3 Writers’ Conference

Barrie North Collegiate’s iDeology Program presents the 4th Annual L3 Writers’ Conference, once again bringing some of Canada’s finest poets, novelists, journalists and activists to Barrie, Ontario.

This year’s evening program, open to the general public, features Romeo Dallaire, Nino Ricci, Charlotte Gray, George Elliott Clarke, and Dr. Bruce Meyer. 7 PM on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at Barrie North Collegiate Institute.

Tickets available @ Page & Turners’ Book Store, Dunlop St., Barrie, or at the door. $20 for adults, $10 for students.

For more information contact Brian Adduono at badduono@mail.scdsb.on.ca or 705-726-6541.

Writer Vanishes After Receiving Globe Cheque

Toronto (XP) 6 April 2011 – Writer Nino Ricci has disappeared from his Toronto home after receiving a cheque from The Globe and Mail newspaper that was six months overdue. Earlier, Ricci had written an open letter to The Globe expressing concern that his requests for payment had placed the newspaper in financial difficulties.

Ricci was last seen leaving his home clutching The Globe‘s cheque and a recent statement from his frequent flyer program.

“When the cheque came he just got the funniest grin,” Ricci’s wife reported. “Then the last thing he said to me before he left was, ‘It turns out I was wrong about Buttonville.’ Those were his exact words. What do you suppose he meant?”

Sources close to Ricci speculate that the reference was to Buttonville Airport, which Ricci erroneously identified in his open letter as having recently closed. Though slated to close, the airport continues to operate.

Ricci left no other clue as to his whereabouts, although his wife reported finding a stack of unpaid bills on his writing desk topped with a note that read, “Do not pay until 2012.”

Between Two Worlds

Join Judy Fong Bates, Antanas Sileika and Nino Ricci for “Between Two Worlds,” a discussion of identity and culture held in conjunction with the Toronto Public Library’s selection of Judy Fong Bates’s Midnight at the Dragon Cafe as Toronto’s 2011 One Book.

Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 7 PM at the Palmerston Library, 560 Palmerston Avenue, Toronto, just north of Bloor Street and just west of Bathurst Station. Tel. (416) 393-7680. Hosted by RoseMarie Spearpoint, Branch Head of Palmerston Library, and moderated by Anne Marie Mediwake.

Ricci Lauds Globe’s Late Payment Policy

TORONTO (QP) 11:42 AM 28 Monday 2011 – Nino Ricci has learned that as of Friday, March 25, 2011, a cheque from Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper for an invoice that had gone unpaid for six months began wending its way toward him through the reliable services of Canada Post. Average Canada Post delivery times suggest the cheque should reach Ricci’s home, which is located about a fifteen-minute cab ride from The Globe‘s offices, only a week to ten days after he sent out an open letter to The Globe calling attention to the missed payment and expressing fears for the newspaper’s finances.

“I’m certainly glad they didn’t waste any money on a courier,” said Ricci. “That was what I was afraid of at first, when they were so apologetic. But it’s only costing them the usual fifty-nine cents.”

Ricci was also extremely pleased to learn that The Globe and Mail would NOT be including in their cheque to him a late payment charge he had added to his most recent invoice to cover interest charges on expenses he incurred on The Globe‘s behalf as well compensation for deferred income and for the time and energy he has put into seeking payment. The Globe‘s payment policies, Ricci was informed, do not permit it to make any compensation for late payment.

“This is wonderful news!” said Ricci. “I didn’t even know you were allowed to have policies like that! You can be sure I’m going to be setting my own in place right away, so I won’t have to be paying late charges any more to any of my creditors.”

Fears of Globe’s Difficulties Unfounded

TORONTO (NP) 25 March 2011 – After an open letter to Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper expressing concern that his unreasonable demands for payment had placed the paper in financial difficulty, writer Nino Ricci has been assured that the paper is alive and well.

“The best part is they’re still going to pay me. . . . I can’t wait to tell my children.”

“I’m sorry we’ve put you through this,” responded editor-in-chief John Stackhouse in the face of Ricci’s contrition, and added, “other writers have suffered the same,” suggesting that Ricci has not been alone in experiencing guilt for a relentless pursuit of payment.

Ricci, for his part, was greatly relieved to learn that his actions had not placed the paper in peril. “And the best part is they’re still going to pay me. The cheque is in the mail, they said. I can’t wait to tell my children.”

Access Copyright AGM

The education exemption in Bill C-32 needs to be rethought. Not only does it unilaterally claw back rights that have been recognized for centuries, it will likely end up doing more damage to education in this country than good, by disrupting the delicate ecosystem that has allowed publishers, creators, and educators to develop curricula relevant to the Canadian context.

Nino Ricci delivers the keynote address at Access Copyright’s 2011 AGM, speaking on Canada’s proposed new copyright legislation, Bill C-32. Friday, March 25th, 2011 at 1 PM in the Regatta Room of the Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto.

March Hare West

The March Hare, Atlantic Canada’s largest poetry festival, originated probably in 1988 as an innovative but inauspicious winter entertainment at the Blomidon Golf and Country Club in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.1 That an important literary event should owe its birth to three golfers attempting to generate business for their local club during the bleak days of March might seem unlikely, but given that the begetters were poet Al Pittman, organizer Rex Brown and club manager George Daniels, it perhaps should have been expected. The March Hare was one of a series of events they concocted to enable the club to stay open during the long winter months – the Swish, Swallow and Swill Gournament, the Blomidon International Night, and the Great Tack’s Beach Growl Tournament – its original purpose not substantially more noble than theirs. Unlike the other events, however, the March Hare survived – survived the deaths of George Daniels and Al Pittman and a change of venue downtown to the Columbus Club – to become a unique trans-island celebration of words and music, involving seven events in three towns over five days, attracting writers from all over Canada and indeed the world, and featuring the best traditional musicians in Newfoundland and Labrador. . . .

Adrian Fowler, The March Hare Anthology

Join Matthew Byrne, Ron Hynes, Randall Maggs, David Michael, Lisa Moore, Nino Ricci, Nico Rogers, Agnes Walsh, and Baxter Wareham for March Hare West, the Toronto leg of the 2011 March Hare. Friday, March 4th at 8 PM and Saturday, March 5th at 2 PM at Brass Taps, 934 College St., Toronto, between Ossington and Dovercourt.

Friends of the East Gwillimbury Library

The Friends of the East Gwillimbury Library present an Author Night with Nino Ricci. Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 7:30 PM in the Town Council Chambers in Sharon, located a few minutes from the north end of Highway 404 near Newmarket (about an hour from downtown Toronto). Organized in co-operation with the East Gwillimbury Public Library and the Town of East Gwillimbury. Proceeds go to the library.

Past author events have featured Helen Humphreys, Wayson Choy, Peter Robinson, John Bemrose, Judy Fong Bates, Andrew Pyper, Paul Quarrington, Catherine Bush, George Elliott Clarke, Giles Blunt, Wayne Johnston, Alissa York, Joseph Boyden, David Bergen, Maureen Jennings, Catherine Gildiner, M. G. Vassanji, and Anne Michaels.

The program will include a reading and talk by Nino Ricci followed by a question and answer session and a reception and book signing.

For more information contact Marie Coulter, Chair Events Committee, Friends of the East Gwillimbury Library, at 905-478-2407 or k.coulter@sympatico.ca.

Canadian Writers Speak Out on Copyright

The Writers’ Union of Canada, under the leadership of its Chair Alan Cumyn, has put together a video about the perils of Bill C-32, Canada’s controversial new copyright bill. Check it out right here, or on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qrcNksj5DE

Then help spread the word about it by whatever social networking means you are most comfortable with. Blog about it. Include the link in your emails. Send out a tweet. Alert your Facebook friends. Pick up the telephone. Or just knock on your neighbour’s door and have a chat.

For more information on C-32, check out the Canadian cultural industries’ Joint Statement on Bill C-32, supported by nearly 90 organizations representing more than 600,000 creators and copyright owners. Then let your elected representatives in Ottawa know your own feelings about C-32, including the members of the Special Legislative Committee on C-32 that is currently holding hearings regarding amendments to the existing bill. You can find email addresses for all MPs at www.parl.gc.ca, but here are a few to get you started.

Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)

  • Rachel Curran: rachel.curran@pmo-cpm.gc.ca
  • Sean Speer: sean.speer@pmo-cpm.gc.ca

Department of Canadian Heritage

  • James Moore, Minister: moore.j@parl.gc.ca (CONS Port Moody – Westwood – Port Coquitlam BC)
  • Brendan Marshall, Executive Assistant to the Minister: brendan.marshall@pch.gc.ca

Department of Industry

  • Tony Clement, Minister: clement.t@parl.gc.ca (CONS Parry Sound – Muskoka, ONT)

Special Legislative Committee on C-32:

  • Gordon Brown, Chair: brown.g@parl.gc.ca (CONS Leeds – Grenville)
  • Charlie Angus: angus.c@parl.gc.ca (NDP Timmins – James Bay ONT – NDP Critic for Heritage and for Digital Issues)
  • Pablo Rodriguez: rodrigues.p@parl.gc.ca (LIB Honoré – Mercier QUE)
  • Mike Lake: lake.m@parl.gc.ca (CONS Edmonton – Mill Woods – Beaumont ALTA – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister)
  • Dan McTeague: mcteague.d@parl.gc.ca (LIB Scarborough – Guildwood ONT)
  • Serge Cardin: cardin.s@parl.gc.ca (BQ Sherbrooke)
  • Ed Fast: fast.e@parl.gc.ca (CONS Prince Edward – Hastings)
  • Sylvie Boucher: boucher.s@parl.gc.ca (CONS Beauport – Limoilou)
  • Dean Del Mastro: delmastro.d@parl.gc.ca (CONS Peterborough ONT)
  • Peter Braid: braid.p@parl.gc.ca (CONS Kitchener – Waterloo)
  • Carole Lavallée: lavallee.c@parl.gc.ca (BQ Saint-Bruno – Saint-Hubert QUE)
  • Marc Garneau: garneau.m@parl.gc.ca (LIB Westmount – Ville-Marie QUE – LIB Critic for Industry, Science and Technology)

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