GIRLS NIGHT with Damian Rogers, Dani Couture, and more!

I’ll be the host for the next installment of Steel Bananas’ Monthly Eggplant Reading Series. This installment has an incredible lineup, including Erin Brandenburg, Dani Couture, Damian Rogers and Melanie Janisse!

About these fantastic women:

Damian Rogers was born and raised in suburban Detroit and now lives in Toronto, Canada. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. In addition to performing the roles of assistant editor at Poetry Magazine in Chicago, copy chief at CosmoGIRL! in New York, and arts editor at Eye Weekly in Toronto, she has sung back-up as a member of a cheerleader chorus and has delivered a line in a John Cusack movie. Though her music and film careers seem to have stalled out, her poems have appeared in Brick, The Walrus, MoonLit, Maisonneuve, Salt Hill, This Magazine, and Matrix. Her first book, Paper Radio, was published by ECW Press in the fall of 2009.

Dani Couture was born in Toronto and raised on a number of Canadian military bases. She has also lived in Vancouver and Windsor. Her first book of poetry, Good Meat (Pedlar Press, 2006), was described by Books in Canada as “precise, taut with meaning, and quietly filled with curiosities of fact and phrase.” Her second collection of poetry, Sweet, is forthcoming from Pedlar Press in May 2010. In 2008, she won 1st place in the fiction category of This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt for her story “The Port-Wine-Stain-Removal-Technique,” her work appeared on screens in subway stations across Toronto as part of Words Travel Fast for Nuit Blanche, her poem “Union Station” was included in the Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 anthology, and she appeared on the main stage at the Scream in High Park as part of The Scream Literary Festival. Her essays, short stories, and poetry have appeared in a number of publications, including The Globe and Mail, The Fiddlehead, Taddle Creek, The Windsor ReView, and Grain.

Erin Brandenburg is a Toronto based actor, writer, producer, educator and knitting enthusiast. Her most recent acting projects include Pelee (Summerworks) and Reesor (Toronto Fringe), both of which she also produced and wrote with Lauren Taylor, and the role of Margaret Thomas in The Fort at York (Crate Productions). Previous credits include A Bunch of Munch (Capitol Theatre), Charlotte’s Web (Purple Theatre) and several seasons as lawyer Rachel Rudnicki in the detective series for The Purple Theatre Company in Windsor, ON. As an artist educator Erin has worked in communities across Ontario leading workshops with both Learning Through the Arts (Royal Conservatory of Music) and The Canadian Opera Company. She is currently working on a new project Petrichor, which is being created as part of the HATCH project at the Harbourfront Centre for the Arts.

Melanie Janisse is a native of Windsor, Ontario. She holds degrees Communications from Concordia University and Visual Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Now a resident of Toronto, Melanie keeps active as a visual artist, poet, designer and shop owner. Her most recent book of poetry, Orioles in the Oranges, was released by Guernica Editions in 2009.

Come out for unforgettable readings, espresso, and the secret to immortality.