Blaurock Press and Coach House Books Present

Blaurock Press authors Michelle Alfano (Made Up of Arias), Michael Linhares (Autumn Hollow) and Sylvia Markle-Craine (Swimming to Fatima) share the stage with Coach House poets Kyle Buckley (The Laundromat Essay), Margaret Christakos (What Stirs) and Jeramy Dodds (Crabwise to the Hounds) in Waterloo on December 1. Take shelter from the cold of late autumn at Starlight for Waterloo's greatest Monday night literary review ever.



December 1, 2008
Starlight, 47 King Street North
Waterloo, ON



Doors at 7:00 p.m.

Made Up of Arias

Lilla, Joey and Clara Pentangeli, their father Salvatore and their mercurial mother Seraphina live on Paradise Street behind a giant billboard, in a charmed world filled with operatic heroines. Seraphina idolizes Maria Callas. Between bouts of housework, she re-enacts Violetta’s death scene from La Traviata, dresses in a kimono like CioCioSan in Madama Butterfly, and concocts outrageous tales for her three enchanted children. She also reveals one or two secrets from her past. At last real-life tragedy overtakes the house on Paradise.

Michelle Alfano is a Toronto writer. Her short story “Opera” on which this novella is based, was a finalist for a Journey Prize anthology. Her fiction and non-fiction work has been widely published in Canada and in the U.S.