Author Talk: Shelley Thompson in Conversation with Veronica Merryfield

Cape Breton Regional Library has partnered with On Paper Books to welcome celebrated actor, screenwriter, and author Shelley Thompson to town to discuss her novel ROAR with Veronica Merryfield, who was Shelley’s sensitivity reader during the writing process.

From Nimbus Publishing: ROAR is a novel inspired by the original screenplay for the award-winning feature film Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor, about a young trans woman who returns to her family farm in the wake of her mother’s death. . . A work of fierce allyship, of enduring love, and of gentle hope, ROAR follows a family through grief and estrangement as they become catalysts for change in their rural community.

All are welcome. We hope to see you there!

About the author:
Shelley Thompson is an actor, screenwriter, and activist based in Wolfville, in Mi’kma’ki (NS). She trained at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Canadian Film Centre, Women in the Directors’ Chair, the New York Writers’ Lab, and the Whistler Producer’s Lab. As an actor she has received and been nominated for Gemini and ACTRA awards for her work in film and television, including The Trailer Park Boys and feature films Splinters, and The Child Remains, among others. Her short films have screened internationally and the most recent, Duck Duck Goose, won Best Atlantic Short at FIN Halifax, was selected by Telefilm Canada’s Not Short on Talent at Clermont-Ferrand, and was a finalist in CBC’s Short Film Faceoff. Her first feature film, Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor, premiered at INSIDE OUT International Film Festival in Toronto in May 2021, then at Halifax’s FIN International Film Festival in September 2021. It has since screened in Whistler, BC, Amsterdam’s Roze Filmdagen, the BFI Flare Film Festival in London, UK, as well as across the US and in Germany. Among many prizes and awards, the film recently won the 2022 Nova Scotia MasterWorks Award. Thompson is working on a full slate of projects for TV and cinema under the banner of her emerging production company, Rusty Tractor Productions Inc. A committed LGBTQ+2SP ally, Thompson is proud parent to singer/songwriter T. Thomason. ROAR is her first novel.