Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Three Short Arts Items That Didn't Make It Into This Week's Caribbean Camera, But are worthy of your attention (I hope) · Calypso Mucho is a modern-day acoustic big-band revue show featuring local performers of West Indian origin, hearkening back to the 20th-century Calypso tent tradition in Trinidad. Calypso Mucho is anchored by SHAK SHAK featuring frontman Roger Gibbs and led by Dr. Chris Wilson, along with special guests Panman Pat, Monty Hama, Susan G, and Garth Blackman.  Also featured is dance and rhythm troupe John Orpheus Wednesday, August 1 8pm Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas St. West · The Toronto Book Awards has released its long list for books in the running for the 2018 $15,000 award. On that longlist is Trinidadian Canadian David Chariandy for his book Brother. The book, which has already won the Writer’s Trust Prize, is a novel about growing up in a poor in Scarborough. The winner of the 2018 Toronto Book Awards will be announced on October 10 at the To...

--> Not always happy with life in Canada but always Jolly --> By Stephen Weir,  as published in the Caribbean Camera --> The standing O began before City of Toronto Librarian Vickery Bowles, could finish announcing Denham Jolly’s name! On Thursday night in the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, Jamaican Canadian businessman, radio pioneer, and now author, won the 2017 Toronto Book Award for his autobiography In the Black: My Life.  “We’re really pleased that Mr. Jolly’s book, In the Black: My Life, has been selected as the winner,” said Vickery Bowles, City Librarian. “The book gives voice to a unique kind of Canadian experience that has historically not been heard.” Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, the Toronto Book Awards honour authors of books of literary or artistic merit that are evocative of Toronto. The annual awards offer $15,000 in prize money: fin...

It has been a good year for the Massey Murder (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-weir/charlotte-grays-true-toro_b_6004036.html#es_share_ended) Ottawa author Charlotte Gray   is the winner of the 2014 Toronto Book Award for her non-fiction book,   The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country.  She is 40th author to capture Toronto's annual literature prize.  Gray $10,000 win was announced at last night's award ceremony, held at the downtown Toronto Reference Library.  "I offer my warm congratulations to  Charlotte Gray , who has drawn an unforgettable portrait of   Toronto's   social life at the beginning of the 20 th   century," said Acting City Librarian   Anne Bailey . "In telling the true story of   Carrie Davies , the maid who shot a  (famed)  Massey ,   Charlotte Gray   captures the class conflict and societal upheaval that marked our city's reinvention of itself at t...