Another Story Bookshop, Pages UnBound and Penguin Random

House Canada present the Toronto launch of

"Beautiful Scars" by Tom Wilson

Monday, November 27 @The Gladstone Hotel, Main Ballroom

Doors open at 7, Event begins at 7:30

Pay What You Can: suggested donation $5

Event is fully wheelchair accessible

Tom Wilson will read from Beautiful Scars and speak frankly about his heritage, which wasn’t revealed to him until he was in his fifties. Acclaimed Indigenous activist, curator and CBC radio broadcaster Jesse Wente will interview Wilson about his identity and career. Rounding out the evening memorably will be a musical performance by the multi-talented Tom Wilson.

In this sensitive Penguin Random House book, carefully guarded

secrets and profound acts of forgiveness are recounted. Tom Wilson writes about growing up as an outsider in two families-- the family he lost, and the family who took him in. His story takes us from working-class Hamilton of the 1960s and 1970s, neighbourhoods peopled by fall-guy wrestlers, broke mobsters and WWII vets, to today, as he continues his journey to connect with the man he now knows to be his father and with his Mohawk heritage and relatives, discovering Kahnawake chiefs, Brooklyn "skywalker"; and nomadic Arnold Palmer groupies among them.

Tom Wilson is a three-time Juno winning Canadian musician with

multiple gold records. He has written for and recorded songs with Sarah McLachlan, City and Colour, Jason Isbell, Colin James, Lucinda Williams, Billy Ray Cyrus, Mavis Staples and The Rankin Family. His band Junkhouse has scored eleven top-ten hits, and his iconic, Americana-fuelled Blackie and the Rodeo Kings was widely publicized for its presence on George Bush's iPod. Tom's most recent incarnation, Lee Harvey Osmond, has received extensive praise and airplay throughout the United States, where he's been touring for the last two years as a result. His art has shown in galleries in New York City, Vancouver, Toronto and more recently, Ottawa.

Jesse Wente is an Ojibwe broadcaster, curator, producer and public speaker.