The Reading Room
The Richler family established Concordia’s Mordecai Richler Reading Room in 2013. The space is a recreation of the author’s writing space with his original desk, typewriter, books, and papers – all things that surrounded Richler as he wrote some of Canada’s most memorable works. The room is located in the J.W. McConnell Building on Concordia’s Sir George Williams Campus in downtown Montreal.
Each year, a writer is invited to work in the Reading Room as The Richler Writer-in-Residence. Read and watch the multimedia dispatches from previous writers-in-residence below.
Matthew Forsythe: The Richler Writer-in-Residence Spring 2017
Matthew Forsythe, award-winning graphic artist, author, and illustrator, was the Mordecai Richler Writer-in-Residence from January to April 2017. Here are his dispatches from the Richler Reading Room.
Dispatch 1: Comics Professor
Dispatch 2: Comics Professor
Dispatch 3: Comics Professor
About Matthew Forsythe
Matthew is an award-winning graphic artist, author, and illustrator. His first children’s book, My Name Is Elizabeth! by Annika Dunklee, was a named a 2011 New York Times Notable Children’s Book. His illustrations have appeared in many publications, including the New York Time and the Wall Street Journal. Formerly the lead designer on the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time, he lives in Montreal and is working on his next book.
Ann-Marie MacDonald: The Richler Writer-in-Residence 2016
Ann-Marie MacDonald was Concordia University’s inaugural Richler Writer in Residence in 2016. Watch her dispatches from the Richler Reading Room.
Dispatch 1: The Writer Settles In
Dispatch 2: Generation Tough
Dispatch 3: Too Sexy for My Books
Dispatch 4: First Lines
Dispatch 5: Writer’s Sporting Life
Dispatch 6: Let’s Go There: Men, Women, Cigars, Richler
Dispatch 7a: Out from Underwood
Dispatch 7b: Out from Underwood
Dispatch 8: The Apprenticeship of…
About Ann-Marie MacDonald
Ann-Marie MacDonald (b. 1958) is an acclaimed novelist, playwright, and actor. She is best known for her novels Fall On Your Knees and The Way the Crow Flies—both finalists for the Giller Prize—her plays Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) and Anything That Moves—winners of the Governor General’s Award and Dora Mavor Moore Award, respectively—and as the host of CBC Television’s Doc Zone. Her latest novel, Adult Onset, was published last year.
MacDonald was born to Cape Bretoners on a military base in West Germany, spent her childhood in Canada—but never in any one place for very long—and came of age during the second-wave feminist and post-Stonewall LGBT movements. This confluence of heritage, experiences, and ideology has defined much of her witty, political, narrative-driven writing. She currently resides in Toronto with her partner—director and fellow playwright Alisa Palmer—and two children.
