BookFest promotes local talent

By Stacey Janzer

Michael Januska, an author born and raised in the area, is one of the authors attending Bookfest Windsor this year. He recently had a book signing for his novel Riverside Drive, set in Windsor during in the 1920s. This will be part of a series called Border City Blues.

 

Januska said he always intended Border City Blues to be a series of books or short stories that bring the series from the 1920s into 1935, when the Border Cities amalgamated.

 

The series will contain a few historical elements, like the construction of the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, the end of prohibition, and other things that occurred during that time but they aren’t meant to be true historic novels.

 

Riverside Drive follows one character working the illegal side of prohibition. Januska said he also wanted to write a parallel story with a young librarian working downtown named Vera Maude.

 

Jansuka said he found Vera Maude to be a very compelling character. His idea for her came from a genealogical search with his mother and finding that his grandmother has a sister, who died at the age of two, named Vera Maude O’Hara.

 

“She’s got this great name and a great background,” said Januska, “…a woman born in that decade what would her life had looked like or what would her experience be like, growing up through the suffragette movement and the Great War and feminism? I thought I’m going to create this life for her. It’s a way of honouring her.”

 

His background as an artist and a writer influences the way he puts a novel together. He comes up with a name, a persona, a job and then starts doodling and just sees where it goes.

 

“I would create characters and make them run free.,” said Janusak. “They really tell me what the story is going to be. I’m never quite sure how the story is going to end or what the story is going to be.”

 

Jauska describes its as “improv with imaginary characters.”

 

Michael Januska will be part of a Fiction in the City panel.  As well, two of the Man Booker Award winners will also be in attendance, Margaret Atwood and newest winner, Eleanor Catton.

 

Riveriside Drive is available online and in bookstores. Tickets to BookFest Windsor are available at the Capital Theatre Box Office.