Calgary, Ep. 2

October 17, 2014 — Once again, we teamed with Wordfest for a grand return to C-Town for a wily, must-attend night of bright lights, brighter lit and hysterics that ended with Ann-Marie MacDonald outdueling co-finalist Alison Pick in a riotous, sudden-death Lone Star Lit finale to win her the LDM Calgary, Ep. 2 crown. 

But before the final battle began, the night kicked off with Michael Crummey, poet and award-winning author of Galore and Under the Keel who performed a ghost story about the bed in his 100-year-old house shaking awake. Then it was Ann-Marie MacDonald, bestselling novelist, playwright, broadcaster and author who read a pair of perfectly-performed pieces from her all-new novel Adult Onset. 

The mic was then handed to the trio of all-star judges: Johanna Skibsrud, Giller Prize-winner of The Sentimentalists and Quartet for the End of Time; Mark Tewksbury, Gold medal-winning swimmer & author of three books including Inside Out; Carrie Snyder, author of The Juliet Stories, a finalist for the 2012 Governor General's Literary Award; and comedian Chris Gordon, a top comedian on CBC's So You Think You’re Funny? The foursome ripped off a series of genius comments about each author before deciding that it would be MacDonald who would advance as the night's first finalist. 

Then came Round 2, which Alison Pick, author of Man Booker nominee of Far To Go, who read from her all-new novel Between Gods about a character's first stint into psychotherapy. Then, finally, it was Matthew Thomas, the New York-Times best-selling author who read the opening brilliance from his novel We Are Not Ourselves. 

Again the judges were center stage, and after more wise-cracking bon mots, and witticisms aplenty, it was Pick who was advanced as the night's second finalist. 

Then LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga took center stage, announcing the night's finale: Lone Star Lit — a game in which Zuniga read off 1-star Amazon book reviews written about classic books. The finalists, teamed with volunteers, traded points, and with everything to play for, it was Team MacDonald who slapped the bell first, nailing the final answer, winning her the LDM Calgary, Ep. 2 crown, and literary immortality to go with it. 

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