Nino Ricci

Award-winning Author

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.

University of Western Ontario


Alistair MacLeod and Nino Ricci read from their work at 2 PM on Sunday, January 30th, 2011 at Conron Hall, University College at the University of Western Ontario.

Sense of Place: Alistair Macleod and Nino Ricci
Sunday, January 30th 2011 at 2:00 P.M.
Conron Hall, University College
The University of Western Ontario


The McIntosh Gallery invites you to a reading by Alistair Macleod and Nino Ricci in memory of Dr. Suzanne Kaufmann.

Canadian author Alistair MacLeod was the 2001 winner of the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel No Great Mischief (1999). He has also published The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976), As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (1986) and Island: The Collected Stories (2000). In 2008 he became an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Nino Ricci won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction twice: in 1990 for Lives of the Saints (also a Books in Canada First Novel Award winner), and in 2008 for The Origin of Species, which also appeared on the long list for the Giller Prize. In 1997, Ricci’s novel Where She Has Gone was short-listed for the Giller Prize.

MacLeod and Ricci were guest writers for the publication Sense of Place: A Cross-Border Print Exhibition, organized by Windsor Printmaker’s Forum. The exhibition is on view at the McIntosh Gallery from January 6th to February 19th 2011.

A great friend of the McIntosh Gallery, Dr. Suzanne Kaufmann (1920-2010) graduated in medicine from the University of Cape Town, where she met and married Dr. John Kaufmann. They moved to Johannesburg in 1955 where she worked in health clinics in the black townships of Soweto and Alexandria. In 1972, the family moved to London, Ontario, where she completed a B.A. Honours degree in Visual Art and French at Western. This event is held of honour Suzanne Kaufmann, to celebrate her passion for the arts, and to acknowledge the tremendous contribution she and John have made to the McIntosh Gallery over the years.

McIntosh Members: Join us at the Gallery after the reading for a private reception to meet Alistair and Nino and to tour the Sense of Place exhibition with Patricia Coates, President of Windsor Printmaker’s Forum. (Memberships will be available at the door.)

For more information, contact James Patten (519) 661-2111 ext. 84602, jpatten2@uwo.ca.

Photo: Patricia Coates

Stranger Than Fiction

Catch Nino Ricci’s true life tale of intrigue, illicit narcotics, and capitalist tendencies in “My Life as an Entrepreneur.” Sunday, January 16th, 2011 on CBC’s The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright, airing sometime between 9 AM and noon.

Just don’t tell Nino’s parents.

Part of CBC Books’ stranger than fiction series.

Urquhart and Ricci on Lives

Launch of the 20th Anniversary Edition
of Lives of the Saints

Join Tony Urquhart and Nino Ricci as they talk about their collaboration on Urquhart’s beautifully illustrated 20th anniversary edition of Ricci’s Lives of the Saints with writer and art critic Gary Michael Dault.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 8:00 pm
The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen Street West, Toronto

Presented by This Is Not A Reading Series.

Bookfest Windsor – Write Here

Essex-County-bred authors Lisa Gabriele and Nino Ricci and Toronto-watcher Shawn Micallef talk about the importance of place in fiction and in life. Moderated by Christopher Shulgan. Saturday, November 6th, 2010 from 8:45 pm to 10:00 pm in the Wilkinson Room of the Art Gallery of Windsor, 401 Riverside Dr. W. (519-977-0013). Part of Bookfest Windsor 2010.

IFOA For Writers

The Word Doctors Are In: Master Class
Sunday, October 24, 11:00am
Lakeside Terrace

Dreaming of life as an author? Looking for advice and feedback on your writing? Wondering what to do on a Sunday morning now that you’ve given up religion?

Come hear Nino Ricci speak about “What Every Writer Should Know,” listen to the winner of the Author for a Day contest read their winning entry, and watch HarperCollins Associate Editor Kate Cassaday and Humber School for Writers faculty member Kim Moritsugu deconstruct of the first pages of your manuscript. Sunday, October 24th at 11 Am at the Harbourfront Centre’s Lakeside Terrace, part of the 2010 International Festival of Authors.

SLEEP on Scribes & Songsters

Background from Alex Colville's "Pacific," ©
A.C. Fine Art ☛ Web Design by Strange Duck @ strangeduck.com

In The Blogosphere

☛Sleep makes the Toronto Star's Top 5 for 2015
☛Van Winkle's sleep site on Sleep
☛CBC Manitoba describes Sleep as a "dark but gripping read"
☛London Free Press calls Sleep "a page-turner bound to please"
☛Sleep ends first week at No. 6 on Hardcover Bestseller List and No. 2 on Canadian Bestseller List
☛Sleep heads Chatelaine's "Buzzy Fall Books"
☛Nino talks about Sleep on Canada AM
☛5 Good Reads from Word on the Street
☛How 5 writers survive the festival season
☛Nino Ricci on the origins of Sleep
☛Emily Donaldson reviews Sleep in the Globe
☛Domenico Capilongo talks to Nino on Italocanadese.com
☛The Globe & Mail's Mark Medley on Nino's new thriller novel
☛- Nino Ricci on Kafka and Sleep in the National Post
☛Quill & Quire gives Sleep a gold star
☛Phil Marchand gives Sleep a rare rave
☛A sneak preview of Sleep in the Globe
☛Quill & Quire on "Nino Ricci and The Power of Sleep"
☛Nino on sleep and the coming apocalypse
☛The Globe and Mail picks Sleep for Top 20

Tags and Topics

Alistair MacLeod Amnesty International Bill C-32 Bookfest Charles Darwin Colorado College Dan Hill Events Extraordinary Canadians Globe and Mail Humber School for Writers Iain Baxter& IFOA John Vaillant Lawrence Hill linkedin Lisa Moore Lives of the Saints March Hare West Margaret Atwood McNally Jackson Books Michael Winter Newfoundland News Nino Ricci OGtheBLOG™ Oh Susanna open letter Order of Canada Other Press Past Events Paul Quarrington Pierre Trudeau public reading Randall Maggs Sense of Place Stephen Harper Steven Hayward The Origin of Species Tony Dekker Tony Urquhart Toronto Public Library Toronto Reference Library Wayson Choy Windsor