Gathered at Smith's home are Karl Pearson, the German statistician; Augusta Stowe-Gullen, a medical doctor and suffragette; Silas Rand, a missionary among the Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq people; and Adelaide Hoodless, a domestic scientist. When their host is delayed, the guests are entertained instead by his beautiful young niece, Alice, who devises a series of songs and games to help the company pass the time more easily. But at the stroke of midnight arrives a terrible and beautiful revelation.

Michael Redhill was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but has lived in Toronto most of his life. Educated in the United States and Canada, he took seven years to complete a three-year BA in acting, film, and finally, English. Since 1988, he has published five collections of poetry, had eight plays of varying lengths performed, and been a cultural critic and essayist. He has worked as an editor, a ghost-writer, an anthologist, a scriptwriter for film and television, and in leaner times, as a waiter, a house-painter, and a bookseller. Michael is a former publisher and one of the editors of Brick, a journal of things literary. His most recent books are Fidelity, a collection of short fiction, from Doubleday Canada, Martin Sloane, a novel from Doubleday Canada (nominated for the Giller Prize, 2001; the Trillium Prize, 2001; the Torgi Award, 2002; the City of Toronto Book Award, 2002; the Books in Canada/Amazon.com Best First Novel Prize, 2002; and winner of the Commonwealth Writersâ?? Prize for Best First Book, Canada/Caribbean, 2001); Light-Crossing, a collection of poetry from Torontoâ??s House of Anansi Press; and Building Jerusalem, a play from Playwrights Canada Press (winner of the 2001 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play; recipient of a Chalmers Canadian Play Award, 2001; and nominated for a Governor Generalâ??s Literary Award, 2001). His new play, Goodness was published by Coach House Press in 2005 His latest novel, Consolation, was published by Doubleday Canada in 2006 and won the 2007 Toronto Book Award. It was also long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

Michael Redhill's profile page

Ross Manson is an award-winning director, and the founding artistic director of Volcano, an internationally acclaimed theatre company based in Toronto.

Ross Manson's profile page