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Blue Metropolis Foundation
661 Rose de Lima Street,
Suite 201
Montreal, (Québec) H4C 2L7
Tel: 514-932-1112
Fax: 514-932-1148
info@bluemetropolis.org
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Charitable registration number: 88516 8948 RR0001
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Ingrid Bejerman
Jean Fugère
Annie Heminway
Marie-Andrée Lamontagne
Marianna Simeone
Cameron Charlebois
Peter Daniel
Isabelle Fontaine
Margaux Chetrit
Louise Ann Maziak
Pierre-Andre Themens
Ellayne Kaplan
Christophe Roubinet
Robert Spickler
Abigail Anderson
Ingrid Bejerman
Lise Bergevin
Rupert Bottenberg
Issa J. Boullata
Jason Camlot
Serge Carrier
Ann Charney
Frank Escoubes
Francis Farley-Chevrier
Mikhail Iossel
Naïm Kattan
Julie Keith
Michele Luchs
Émile Martel
Caroline Morin
Birendra Prasada
Lori Schubert
Rama Sifri
Diane Thérien
Carolyn Warren
Patterson Webster
Cameron Charlebois, Canada Lands
Marcel Côté, Secor Group
Peter Daniel, Ilian Consulting & Management Inc.
David Laidley, Deloitte & Touche
Michel Lamontagne, Université de Montréal
Frederick Lowy, Concordia University
Reford MacDougall
Richard Pound, McGill University
Deon Ramgoolam, EOCI Pharmacomm
Rae Turley
Etel Adnan, France
Taiaiake Alfred, Kahnawake
Yassaman Ameri, Montreal
Nicole Brossard, Montreal
Noëlle Châtelet, France
Steven Davis, Academics for Higher Education and Development
Sarah Dawbarn, The British Council
Jacques de Decker, Brussels
Scott Griffin, The Griffin Trust
Riccardo Held, Venice
Annie Heminway, New York
Anees Jung, New Delhi
Elias Khoury, Beirut
Ramona Koval, Melbourne
Christina Lembrecht, Berlin
Ping Li, Canada China Network Council
Yan Liang, Montreal
Juana Libedinsky, Madrid
Thomas Lynch, Michigan
Alberto Manguel, France
Mechtild Manus, Goethe-Institut
Émile Martel, Centre Québécois du P.E.N.international
Richard O'Hagan, Toronto
Angelo Mazzone, Istituto italiano di cultura
Suhayl Saadi, Glasgow
Gabriel Safdie, Montreal
David Sela, Montreal
Amela Simic, Toronto
Abigail Anderson, ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS)
André Bisson, CIRANO
Denise Bombardier, Writer
Pierre Bourque, Constellation Monde Inc.
Claude Castonguay, Fellow invité au CIRANO
The Hon. Baljit Singh Chadha, Chadha Family Foundation
Christiane Charette, Société Radio-Canada
Ann Charney, Writer
Hélène Desmarais
Maurice Forget, Fasken Martineau
Jean-Claude Germain, Writer
Nicholas Hoare, Nicholas Hoare Books
Julie Jacobson, United States Embassy
Naïm Kattan, Writer
Phyllis Lambert, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Judith Mappin, Montreal
Alex Paterson, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada
Johanne Pérusse, Montreal
Cecil Rabinovitch, Arts Volunteer
Jack Rabinovitch, The Scotiabank Giller Prize
Richard J. Renaud, TNG Corporation
Javier San Juan, L'Oréal Canada
André Vanasse, XYZ Éditeur
Blue Metropolis Foundation is a not-for-profit and charitable organization founded in 1997 that brings together people from different cultures to share the pleasure of reading and writing. The Foundation produces multilingual literary activities, such as the Blue Met International Literary Festival, the Blue Met Children’s Festival, and education programmes for young people.
For 15 years, Blue Metropolis has organized several innovative literary activities for an audience of all ages and backgrounds, including:
• The International Literary Festival, held in Montreal in
French, English, and several other languages;
• The Children’s Festival, presented by TD, for children up to
12 years old, held in libraries and cultural centres across
Montreal;
• Public and online literary gatherings;
• Educational programmes across Canada that attempt to
reach isolated communities;
• Awards, grants and other prizes meant to highlight
excellence in the literary world.
Blue Metropolis is able to keep its firm commitment to social integration and diversity by organizing top notch literary activities thanks to the support of volunteers, donors, sponsors, and government and corporate partnerships.
Blue Metropolis was inspired by an earlier event called "Write pour écrire." In 1996, three Montreal writers who were members of the Writer's Union of Canada (Linda Leith, Ann Charney and Mary Soderstrom) organized a new kind of literary event in partnership with the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ). Called "Write pour écrire," this event brought writers and readers together from across the language divide and drew a broad audience. People asked for more.
In 1997, Linda Leith founded Blue Metropolis Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing people from different cultures together to share the pleasures of reading and writing. Created by writers and readers for writers and readers, the Foundation grew thanks to the support of many volunteers, friends and partners.
The first Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival took place April 19 to 23, 1999. Its events, which took place in French or English or both, included the first Blue Metropolis Translation Slam and literacy/community writing activities, as well as readings, on-stage interviews, and panel discussions.
With the dedicated support of the writers, readers and volunteers who had been behind Blue Met from the start, the Foundation was able to expand its programming beyond the Festival and organize a wide range of educational programmes for young people, from the primary school to Cégep levels, as well as year-round Literacy & the Literary activities in Montreal and beyond.
The name "Blue Metropolis" was partially inspired by the philosophical essay On Being Blue, in which the American writer Wiliam H. Gass investigates the many different and contradictory connotations of the word "blue." Blue Metropolis is the city of the imagination, open to all, the city you want to live in.
