The grade 12 Media Art class was privileged to have Melissa Steep visit and share her story. Teenagers are a tough crowd, but she was able to engage them with her sincere, forthright manner. Advice on how to create effectively, what to study post-high school, and how to handle clients were just a few of the valuable insights that she shared. She is currently working as Creative Director for Break Left Media. Check out the “Top 10 Things I’ve Learned While Being a Graphic Designer” Top 10 Things I’ve Learned while being a Graphic Designer
Author: wmelnick
Media Arts and English high school teacher who loves using technology to enhance learning and engage students. Experiments with online learning and teaches in Brightspace.
Cataract City
This is a riveting, boys to men coming of age story that you will find hard to put down. There is something interesting happening on every page and Davidson tells the story with humourous insight and details are easy to relate to. Highly recommended!
Canadian writer and St Catharines native Craig Davidson tells a compelling story set in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Through winding flashbacks we follow Owen and Duncan from childhood through the vicissitudes of adult life. They don’t have it easy… And so Owen and Duncan hand off their bad luck like a relay baton, through high school and the short plateaus of their twenties. Their alternating narration works well to illustrate the Rashomon nature of male friendship, how stubbornness can be mistakenly read for confidence, how youthful slights can balloon into years of avoidance. Owen will pursue glory on the basketball court and even get out of Cataract City for a spell. Duncan attempts to settle down with the older and wiser Edwina, work at the Bisk, and resist the gravitational pull of local kingpin Lemuel Drinkwater. It doesn’t go well. (Barnes & Noble review)
The Afterlife of Stars
Canadian author Joseph Kertes releases this novel this month (September 2014). It follows the life of two brothers starting from their escape from Hungary in 1956. Joseph himself had fled Hungary with his family in 1956, so he is well able to establish the credibility of this story. It begins when the Russians invade Hungary to crust the Hungarian Revolution and the brothers Robert and Attila Beck escape with their family to their great-aunt’s house in Paris. They experience heartbreak, loss and terror as they literally run for their lives out of Hungary. The story is told from their perspective which gives the story a fresh, humourous approach. The author does tend to ramble on a bit, but it is a small price to pay for this solid story. Joseph Kertes founded Humber College’s creative writing and comedy programs. He is currently Humber’s Dean of Creative and Performing Arts.
February by Lisa Moore
The Ocean Ranger went down and it looks like no survivors. The whole bloody thing went under.
The on the Seaforth Highlander saw the men in the water. One is always haunted by something, and that is what haunts Helen. The men on the Seaforth Highlander had been close enough to see some of the men in the waves. Close enough to talk. The men were shouting out before they had died. Calling out for help. Calling out to God or calling for mercy or confessing their sins. Or just mentioning they were cold. Or they were just screaming. Noises.
…And then all the shouting was just for company. Because who wants to watch a man being swallowed by a raging ocean without yelling out to him. They had shouted to the men in the water. They had tried to reach the men with grappling hooks. They say them and then they did not see them. It was as simple as that. (excerpt from the book)
The book is about this Canadian tragedy and shows us how Helen, wife of one of the workers on the rig, is affected by this. …that’s the enigma of the present. The past has already infiltrated it: the past has set up camp, deployed soldiers with toothbrushes to scrub away all of the NOW, and the more present. There was no present.
A must read. Winner of Canada Reads 2013.
419 by Will Ferguson
Winner of the 2012 Giller Prize. Thrilling and suspenseful. When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of an internet money swindle, she sets out to track the culprits down—and corner—her father’s killer. It is a dangerous game she’s playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine.
Riveting and culturally astute, this is a great read.
Digitizeme 