The County Library Authors Festival promises a packed weekend of literary events April 24-26.

The weekend launches with the traditional popularity contest, the County Reads Debate, in which five County residents stand up at St. Mary Magdalene Church to persuade a voting audience that the recent Canadian book they have chosen is the one everybody should read.

Marking his tenth year as host and moderator, local author, teacher and CountyFM contributor, Ken Murray, will ensure that, despite the honour and fame at stake, the rivals maintain the decorum the muses demand.

In this contest of wit and concentration, each participant will have just five minutes to advocate for their chosen book, with a lightning round of questions to follow.

Who are this year’s pugilists of poetry and prose?

Stacey Michener, recently retired from an education career in Toronto, has followed family to the County. Her taste for reading masks an ambition to write. She will stand up for Lesley Crewe’s Recipe for a Good Life, the story of a successful author who retreats from the city to small-town Cape Breton in the 1950s.

 “The novel addresses important life questions with humour and wisdom,” she says. “There are personal dilemmas, and grief and unexpected friendships. I really think it will resonate with many a County resident.”

Lars Hansen, after a lifetime of visiting the County, finally settled here in 2020, while maintaining jobs in marketing and communications. Of his chosen book, Breaking and Entering, by Don Gillmor, he notes, “it’s set in a hot Toronto summer, detailing how the heroine’s discontent and boredom evolve into something more dangerous when she picks up the skill of lockpicking and begins to apply it to her desire to have a more exciting and unconventional life.”

Sarah Fox is the Executive Director of Visit the County. Growing up north of Belleville, with family and friends in Wellington and Ameliasburgh, she brought her taste for community — good dinners, singing and cracking jokes — to stay some 8 years ago. She will stand up for Anne Fleming’s Curiosities, a work of historical fiction set in 17th century England, with multiple stories told in letters and documents. “There’s a plague, there are witch trials, there’s a voyage to Hudson Bay,” she says. “It’s actually so wholly relatable in 2025!”

Stacey Hatch has been here since 1998, actively pursuing the joys of County life whether by kayak or motorcycle. She’s a psychotherapist, professor and researcher in adult mental health. Her book, Hair for Men by Michelle Winters, has a County connection. “It is framed within the glorious poetry of Gord Downie and the music of the Tragically Hip, which has been the personal soundtrack to many parts of my life. It made me laugh and weep to recognize the late ’70s and early ’80s punk scene in Toronto, female rage and change, breaking the gender rules of the era, and the mysterious world of work.”

And, last but not least, the Gazette’s own Chris Fanning, whose day job is in the English Department at Queen’s, will represent Richard Sanger’s collection of poems, Way to Go. “We could all use more poetry in our lives,” says Mr. Fanning. “This book is an affirmation of life in the face of death: the great variety of lived experience — at home or in the wilderness, in the words in your head or those in books — is concentrated here in a matching variety of forms that offer both solace and provocation.” He actually said all that out loud. 

We anticipate an evening of wit and wisdom as the County’s readers assemble to crown one of these books the book, and above all, celebrate the life of the mind that holds us all together. 

The books are available through the Library or at Books & Company. Tickets at https://www.peclibrary.org/festival/