Launch for Mike Barnes's The Lily Pond

The launch for Mike Barnes's The Lily Pond: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, Myth and Metamorphosis (Biblioasis) is on Thursday, October 9 at 7:00 p.m. (cocktails at 6) at The Miller Amphitheatre at St. Joseph's Heath Care Centre in Hamilton (50 Charleton Ave. East)

The launch for The Lily Pond is during Canadian Mental Illness Awareness Week. This is a memoir of the author's 30-plus years living with bipolar disorder. The narrative evolves through changing vantage points as a patient, family member and a caregiver to his wife who, during the writing of the memoir, was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Mike Barnes is the author of six previous books: the novels Catalogue Raisonné and The Syllabus, the short fiction collections Aquarium — winner of the 1999 Danuta Gleed Award — and Contrary Angel, and the poetry collections Calm Jazz Sea and a thaw foretold. Born in Minneapolis, a joint U.S.-Canadian citizen, Mike Barnes lives and writes in Toronto.