gritLIT

[holymoly]

Day three today of Hamilton's four-day annual writers' festival, gritLIT (http://www.gritlit.ca/). Today's events include a panel on writing nonfiction, and two writing workshops. Tomorrow's three readings include a free event at Sky Dragon.

Last night's reading -- Ray Robertson, Nino Ricci and Kenneth J. Harvey at the AGH -- was great. But drinks at the Sheraton afterwards, not so much. I think there were only 2 other customers there, but we waited about 15 minutes to be seated, about 20 minutes for someone to take our orders (and even then, the server only came after one of us went to find her where she was yakking with the other staff), and forever for drinks to come. Terrible service, and $10 for a glass of house red.

[highwater]

What is it with the restaurant industry in this town? Lately I've had bad service at the London Tap House and the Bean Bar, sullen service at My Dog Joe, and epically, catastrophically, category 5 bad service at Tapestry Bistro. How hard is it to train staff to acknowledge the customers' existence and serve food, instead of chatting with their co-workers and shoving tip jars in your face? And every time one of these businesses fails, the owner blames 'downtown', or cheap customers, or whatever. Recent bright spot: Rebel's Rock. Am off to Thai Memory tonight. Hope springs eternal. Thus endeth the rant.

On a side note, thanks for keeping us up to date on Gritlit. I'm hoping to make it out to the non-fiction panel this afternoon.

[realcity]

isn't there a Small Press Festival? in the past it was associated with GritLit.

[hmagazine]

Small Press Fair hasn't happened for a couple of years. It used to be the same weekend as GritLIT.

[holymoly]

I'm hoping to make it out to the non-fiction panel this afternoon.
Did you manage to get to the panel, highwater? How was it?

[highwater]

Sadly, no. Got more involved in a home reno project than I anticipated. Ain't that always the way.