Join comics artist Kate Beaton in conversation with journalist and professor Asmaa Malik to celebrate the launch of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Beaton’s first full length graphic narrative. Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, northern lights, and boreal forest. Ducks is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people. Featuring a performance by Peter MacInnis. 

Kate Beaton was born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. After graduating from Mount Allison University with a double degree in History and Anthropology, she moved to Alberta in search of work that would allow her to pay down her student loans. The collections of her landmark strip Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops each spent several months on the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list, as well as appearing on best of the year lists from Time, The Washington Post, Vulture, NPR Books, and winning the Eisner, Ignatz, Harvey, and Doug Wright Awards. She has also published the picture books King Baby and The Princess and the Pony. Beaton lives in Cape Breton with her family.

Asmaa Malik is an associate professor in journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. She has held several editorial leadership roles at the Montreal Gazette and Toronto Star and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Walrus and Toronto Star. 

Peter MacInnis is best known as the creator and actor in the popular web series Cape Breton Chats. As a singer/songwriter, he records and performs with his band Beech Hill. Earlier this spring, he released a solo EP titled Wide Eyed Wonder and later this year he is releasing a traditional experimental album under the name Apple Eyes. Peter is an elementary music teacher who lives with his wife Lisa Kidd and three children on a small country farm in Mabou, Cape Breton, Canada.