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Kama Reading Series

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The Kama Reading Series has long been World Literacy Canada’s trademark event. Ka’ma (kah’-mah’), which comes from the Sanskrit word meaning “pleasure,” denotes the experience of pleasure through the senses, including the aesthetic enjoyment of music and art. At the heart of the Kama Reading Series is the desire to promote the joy attained through reading, literature and thought.

In the 1990s World Literacy Canada’s fundraising efforts were concerned with linking a love of literature to the cause of literacy, and the Kama Reading Series was the centerpiece of this approach. It was important to World Literacy Canada that it engage the Canadian public on the issues of literacy as well as raise funds for its projects; reaching Canadians through reading and literature thus became a perfect fit. The first Kama Reading Series was hosted at the cozy Nicholas Hoare Bookstore in Toronto and featured well-known Canadian writers such as Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood. The small group attending was enthusiastic and over the coming decade, Kama continued to grow.

By 2000, Kama had outgrown the small bookstore and the series moved to the Royal Ontario Museum, where the series was attended by over 300 people each night. Between 1993 and 2008, over 200 internationally renowned writers and thinkers donated their time to participate in the Kama Reading Series. The Kama Reading Series has also attracted the support of several key sponsors over the years, including Random House of Canada, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Globe and Mail, Butterfield & Robinson, Penguin Group Canada, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd., Park Hyatt Toronto, Paliare Roland Barristers, Harlequin, McClelland and Stewart, Scotiabank, and Ringe & Associates Flower Design.

Kama Authors 1993-2011

Since Kama’s inception in 1993, many internationally renowned writers and public intellectuals have generously given their time to World Literacy Canada, and appeared as guest speakers during the Kama Reading Series. Authors and guest speakers who have participated in the reading series over the past 19 years include:

David Adams Richards • Jeffrey Alford • John Allemang • Lillian Allen • Anne Anglin • Kelley Armstrong • Margaret Atwood • Lloyd Axworthy • Anita Rau Badami • Jennifer Baichwal • Donovan Bailey • Elizabeth Baird • Russell Banks • Reza Baraheni • Katherine Barber • Joan Barfoot • Bob Barton • Gary Barwin • Andrea Beck • Michel Basilieres • James Bartleman • David Bergen • Wade Berridge • Ayanna Black • Ayanna Black • Clark Blaise • Giles Blunt • Janice Boddy • Jo Ellen Bogart • Paulette Bourgeois • Joseph Boyden • Dionne Brand • Heather Brazier • Bonnie Burnard • Catherine Bush •  Sharon Butala• George Butterfield • Marc Brown • Stephen Brunt • Stevie Cameron • Clayborne Carson • Maggie Cassella • Douglas Chambers • James Chatto •Shirly Cheechoo • Brenda Clark •  Eliza Clark • Adrienne Clarkson • Stephen Clarkson • Karen Connelly• Pleasance Crawford • Mark Cullen • Cyril Dabydeen • Romeo Dallaire • Aubrey Davis • Sandra Davis • Carmit Delman • Kristen den Hartog • John Dalla Costa • David Davidar • Louise Dennys • Anthony De Sa • Anita Desai • Lewis DeSoto • Christopher Dewdney • Pier Giorgio Di Cicco• Jack Diamond • Jill Downie • John Doyle • Bronwyn Drainie • Madelaine Drohan • Naomi Duguid • Sarah Elton • Ramabai Espinet • Musharraf Ali Farooqi •  Jane Farrow • Joy Fielding • Timothy Findley • Sheree Fitch • Diane Flacks • Richard Ford • Honor Ford-Smith • Will Ferguson • Maureen Foss • Sylvia Fraser • Lorrie Gallant • Dan Gardner • Amitav Ghosh • Camilla Gibb • Graeme Gibson • Catherine Gildiner• Don Gilmour • Katherine Govier • Lee Gowan • Barbara Gowdy • Wayne Grady • Charlotte Gray • Linda Griffiths • Sandra Gulland • Peter Guralnick • Daniel Halpern • Don Hannah • Tom Harpur • Marjorie Harris • Brenda Hartwell • Steven Hayward • Dan Hill • Lawrence Hill • Robert Hough • Helen Humphreys • Nigel Hunt • J Timothy Hunt • Michael Ignatieff • John Irving • Frances Itani • Jane Jacobs • Sharon Jennings •  Bill Jessome • Lorraine Johnson • William Johnson • Wayne Johnston • Charlene Jones • George Keyt • Michael Kusugak •  Thomas King • Lauren Kirshner • Joy Kogawa • Janice Kulyk Keefer •Janice Laduke •  Rashi Khilnani • Vincent Lam • Naomi Lazard • Colin Lee • Dennis Lee •Jonathan Lethem • Martin Levin • Ann-Marie MacDonald • Flora MacDonald • Roy MacGregor • Lyman MacInnis • Linden MacIntyre • Alistair MacLeod • Margaret MacMillan • Liam Maguire • Anand Mahadevan • Rabindranath Maharaj • Irshad Manji • Rachel Manley • Peter Mansbridge • Yann Martel • Alexander McCall Smith • Bruce Mau • Eric McCormack • Joe MClellan • Peter McFarlane • Ken McGoogan • Maureen McTeer • Graeme McQueen •  Gita Mehta • Anne Michaels • Anthony Minghella • Rohinton Mistry • Tolowa Mollel • Bernice Morgan • Donna Morrisey• Sophia Mustafa • Lillian Nattel • Marc Ngui • Max & Monique Nemni • Peter C. Newman • Stephanie Nolen • Bruce Nunn • Charles Oberdorf • Carol Off • Griffin Ondaatje • Michael Ondaatje • P.K. Page • Patricia Pearson • Stephen Post • Andrew Pyper • Betty Quan • Paul Quarrington • Judy Rebick • Michael Redhill • Nino Ricci • David Adams Richards • Daniel Richler • Mordecai Richler • Noah Richler • Kate Rigg • Gregor Robinson • Lee Robinson • Constance Rooke • Leon Rooke • Monda Rosenberg • Oakland Ross • Holley Rubinsky • Munir Saami • Kerri Sakamoto • John Ralston Saul • Diane Schoemperlen • Ann Scowcroft • Shyam Selvadurai • April Severin • Olive Senior • Sandra Shamas • Jeff Sharlet • Sarah Sheard • Nazneen Sheikh • Vikram Seth • Nuzhat Siddiqui • Scott Russell • Itah Sadu •  Steve Smith • Sonja Smits • Sam Solecki • Nancy Southam • Linda Spalding • Jim St. Clair •  John Stackhouse • Linda Stitt • Rosemary Sullivan • David Suzuki • Janice Stein • Forbes Stoodley • Kathy Stinson • Cordelia Strube • Susan Swan • Catherine Tambakis • Deanne Taylor •  Drew Hayden Taylor • Richard Teleky • H. Nigel Thomas • William J. Thomas • Judith Thompson • Miriam Toews – Hélène Tremblay • Jane Urquhart • Jonathan Vance • Lucinda Vardey • Erika de Vasconcelos • Moyez G. Vassanji • Marq de Villliers • Margaret Visser • Eleanor Wachtel • Ian Wallace • Tim Ward • Nalini Warriar • Alison Wearing • Stephen Westcott Gratton • Michael Winter • Ken Wiwa • Owens Wiwa • Jan Wong • Heather Wood • Marnie Woodrow3 • Richard B. Wright • Ronald Wright • Tim Wynne-Jones • David Young • Ed Zeidler •Jamie Zeppa • Xiaolan Zhao • Tarek Fatah • Bob Rae • Linda McQuaig • Jack Rabinovitch • Cynthia Dale • Charles Foran • Ken Greenberg • Suketu Mehta • Doug Saunders • Dawn Promislow • Andrea Gunraj • Jamie Zeppa • Neil Pasricha • Alissa York • Gregor Robinson • Kate Taylor • Steven Heighton