Just three shorts month ago I moved to Point St. Charles, the mysterious neighbourhood bordering Verdun and St. Henri. I say mysterious because as a non-Montreal native, I literally knew nothing about the area (other than the rent is insanely cheap, hence my decision to move there). After some Wikipedia articles and some bike rides, I discovered The Point to be a lot like it's neighbouring boroughs; very pretty, very quiet, and sometimes kind of unsafe looking.

In comes the announcement for a book launch on my RSS feed for Kathy Dobson's first novel, With a Closed Fist: Growing up in Canada's toughest neighbourhood, a book promising to details life in The Point back in it's blue collar Irish class days. Eager to learn about my new surroundings, I gave it a shot.

I had an interesting conversation with some fellow writers recently about whether or not you had to be published to be considered an author. Common consensus is that the word "aspiring" appropriately precede both the word "author" or "profession" when introducing your pastime to others. Success is rare in the world of word composition, so it's nice to celebrate it when it happens; especially since promotion is arguably a more arduous task. That's where the Québec Writers' Federation (QWF for short) lends a hand. They recently published their short-list for best English-language authors of prose, poetry and translation, and have two upcoming events to help promote the artists.

As a faithful member of the Midnight Poutine readership, you could be the lucky winner of a pair of tickets to this week's book launch and conversation with authors Daniel Clowes and Seth, who are launching their books The Death-Ray (Clowes) and The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists (Seth) through Drawn and Quarterly.

The Literary Death Match series kicked off its North American tour on Tuesday October 11th at our very own Sala Rosa. Paired up with local lit mag Maisonneuve Magazine and with Sean Michaels, Alexis O'Hara and Jonathan Goldstein judging readings by Katrina Best, Jason Camlot, Zoe Page and Byron Rempel, it was a pretty Montreal-centric night of high-quality performance, writing and wit.

The Literary Death Match series is making a stop in Montreal! Come see our fair city's literary geniuses duke it out (with words, of course). Come see Katrina Best, Byron Rempel, Jason Camlot and Zoe Page face the celebrity judges, Jonathan Goldstein, Alexis O'Hara and Sean Micheals. The smack down will take place at Sala Rossa on Tuesday October 11th at 8:15 sharp. Tickets are $7 in advance or $10 at the door. If you're a weirdo word worshipper, you won't want to wimp out on this. Be there or be carré.

Put on by the Literary Translators' Association of Canada, Lire: An act of love or Reading: un acte d'amour (depending on which way your tongue rolls) took place on Monday night at Sala Rossa as a part of the Festival international de la littérature. Two Quebec authors, Mary Soderstrom and François Barcelo, who write in English and French respectively, were invited to choose a book by a Québécois author and discuss not only the book itself in its original language, but also in its translation to the other official language.