The Ampersand Review November Writing Series

Anchoring the Self to the Broader Moment: Where the personal essay meets the tides of history

In this workshop we’ll examine the ways in which everyday lives can brush up against the larger forces of history, and how this interaction can shape the personal essay. Participants will have the opportunity to use prose to examine aspects of their own experience through the lens of historical events (where the term “historical” is open to broad interpretation).

Please note that the Book Launch will be taking place in Room B222 in the B-Wing at Sheridan College's Hazel McCallion Campus.

Andrew Forbes is the author of the novel The Diapause (Invisible, October 1, 2024), the novella McCurdle’s Arm: A Fiction (Invisible Publishing, July 16, 2024), and the essay collection Field Work: On Baseball and Making a Living (Assembly Press, April 15, 2025). He is also the author of two books of short fiction and two earlier collections of baseball writing. His work has appeared in publications such as the Toronto Star, Canadian Notes and Queries, and Maisonneuve Magazine. He was the 2019 Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University, and served on the jury of the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Forbes lives in Peterborough, Ontario.