Seniors Helping Seniors, in collaboration with the Cortes Museum and Archives, is once again presenting a series of monthly Literary Afternoons this winter. These events, at which local authors read their work, will be held on the last Sunday of each month at 2pm in the Lakeview Room at Linnaea Farm. The last two Literary Afternoons for this winter will be on January 28th and February 25th.
I spoke with Carina Verhoeve from Whaletown, who has been organising these events since 2011.
In the Fall of 2011 I started them, especially in the fall and winter because that’s the dark season, and we want to have some fun in the dark season, right? So on these afternoons it is approximately five writers, people who live on Cortes or spend their summers here, and they each read for usually ten minutes, a piece from their own work.
Carina emphasises the wide variety of material presented: nonfiction, fiction, poetry, journal entries, published books…. anything and everything.
It’s fun, the variety between the writers. There’s variety also in the tone, the mood, the energy of the writings. Some are funny, some serious, some very deep… We almost always have a full house, and it’s a treat.
As kids hopefully you were read to, right? by parents or other people, and that was lovely. So I find the treat of the Literary Afternoons is that you can be read to as an adult. It’s just a treat to be transported into a different world, another person’s experience, a world not your own.
She explains that the concept of literary afternoons grew out of the mission of Seniors Helping Seniors: “to prevent isolation.”
So Seniors Helping Seniors has a social part; and it has a practical part, like matching people who could use some help with people — seniors too, usually — who want to give some help.
But the social part is to prevent isolation. Because when you have fun together, or listen to something interesting together, and you see each other — then you’re out, there’s other people you can talk to, you get to know each other. So by the time you need help, you might know the other person who’s coming [to assist you].
Although the Literary Afternoons started as a programme for seniors, Carina says it’s not limited to the over-50 crowd. It’s open to any “adult” who wishes to attend.
Adults. People who consider themselves to be adults. What I mean is, a 14 year old who is very interested is welcome too — but not kids running around. And not babies starting to make very cute sounds — or less cute sounds!
Each event starts at 2pm, and Carina asks that attendees show up 5-10 minutes earlier to find a seat, as it’s disruptive for both reader and audience when people arrive late. After about an hour of readings, there are refreshments (coffee, tea, sweets, fruit) and another half hour of general socialising and informal discussion.
Although the Literary Afternoons had to make some changes in venue and format during the pandemic years, the tradition is still going strong and Carina has lined up a full slate of author/readers for January and February 2024. Attendees enjoy the exposure to local writers’ work, and the writers also enjoy, as Carina says, “the opportunity to read to an audience, to have that interaction, that feeling for how does it bounce off real people, not just when I’m writing [alone] in my room.”
Carina is always looking for local authors, and encourages new writers to contact her if they are interested in reading at the next series of Literary Afternoons.
For the complete interview, please click on the podcast above.
All illustrations by Midjourney, prompts by author.