Michael Crummey, Holly Hogan, Aysanabee, and Zay Nova
Michael Crummey and Holly Hogan return to Writers at Woody Point.
Novelist and poet Michael Crummey is one of this country’s best loved writers. From River Thieves to The Wreckage to Galore to Sweetland to The Innocents, he has beautifully woven the real and imagined Newfoundland into his work. We are so proud of our long connection with Michael. He read on the very first night of our very first festival from the collection Hard Light, and it was at that moment that Writers at Woody Point was really born. This year, we are honoured that Michael will be launching his new novel at the festival.
Holly Hogan has appeared on the Heritage Theatre stage before, but as a musician, part of the duo The Blue Drop. This year, she will be reading from her first book Message in a Bottle: Dispatches From a Seabird Biologist, which will be published this spring. Holly writes lyrically of her travels in the globe’s northern and southern oceans and also sounds a warning about the terrible damage we are doing to our planet. You won’t read a more important book this year.
We cant wait to welcome Aysanabee and Zay Nova to the Heritage Theatre stage.
By the time 2023 is done, we may well be talking about it as the year of Aysanabee in Canadian music. If you saw his electrifying performance at this year’s Juno Awards, or have listened to his debut album Watin, you already know what a treat it will be to hear his other-worldly voice and distinctive guitar style in our intimate surroundings. Aysanabee will perform twice – during our first night of music and readings on Thursday, and in a stand-alone concert at a second venue on Friday night.
Where to start trying to describe Zay Nova? He grew up in Indonesia, where his mother hoped he would take up a religious calling and become an imam. Instead, he discovered radio and Elvis, fell in love with Shania Twain and country music, then immigrated to Newfoundland where….well you can hear the rest of the story in his breakout single, Don’t Tell Me Mudder. We guarantee that when Zay hits the stage, you won’t have seen or heard anything quite like him.
So you’re thinking about coming to Writers at Woody Point for the first time…..or maybe the 20th time. There are a few things you should know.
Woody Point is located on Bonne Bay in the heart of Gros Morne National Park, approximately a 45-minute drive from Deer Lake airport. Deer Lake can be reached directly from Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and St John’s. In the summer tourist season, both airline seats and rental cars are at a premium. If you’re coming, please plan to book early.
There are accommodations on the Woody Point side of the bay, but many of those are booked long before the festival – often a full year in advance. But if you can’t find a room or a rental house in the village, you might try the nearby communities of Trout River, Shoal Brook, Birchy Head, Glenburnie and Lomond, all within a fifteen or twenty minute drive of the Heritage Theatre. Or alternately you could stay across the bay in Norris Point or Rocky Harbour. There is a pedestrian water taxi from Norris Point to Woody Point which makes the trip several times a day, including sailings timed to the beginning and end of our evening shows.
Our tickets go on sale May 13 at 11am NDT sharp via Ticketpro. We recommend you signup for a Ticketpro account in advance of ticket sales. Other than a percentage of the house that we reserve for local residents, it is first come, first served. The capacity of the Heritage Theatre is just over 200 – which is part of what makes it such a wonderful space to hear readings and music. But of course that limited seating also means that not everyone is going to get the tickets they want, at least not right away.
We do not offer refunds or exchange tickets. All sales are final. But on the Woody Point Exchange facebook page, you will find people buying and selling tickets right up until showtime. So if you don’t get everything you want right away, don’t despair.
We also run a number of un-ticketed events during the festival – some of them free, some of them requiring a small cover charge. They include the wonderful Writers in the Wild hike on Saturday morning, the Saturday night party at the Legion, afternoon pub readings at the Merchant Warehouse, our late night music session at the theatre on Friday, and our New Voices event showcasing up and coming writers and musicians. The Woody Point Public Library also hosts a series of free readings, and there will be other pop-up music events around town. You can arrive without a ticket, have a very good time, and likely encounter your favourite writers and musicians along the way.
Please stay tuned and keep checking our website, where we will soon post the full schedule of events – and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as we continually add to our program.
