Keynotes

We are pleased to present the following Keynote Speakers for ALC 2012:

GENE AMBAUM AND BILL BARNES  - THE UNSHELVED GUYS -- Friday Keynote

BILL BARNES

Bill is a native New Yorker who was dragged all around the world by his parents at a very formative age and finally ended up in the wilds of Seattle. He is a trained software designer and very much an untrained cartoonist.

BILL BARNES BY GENE AMBAUM

Bill Barnes loves librarians, show tunes, and meat. He can count his toes without taking off his shoes. Over the past eight years, he has tried to convince Gene that the meaning of “partnership” is doing what he says 99% of the time. He can often be seen wandering the floor at trade shows playing “The Final Countdown” on his ukulele Death Adder. In his spare time he draws Unshelved and writes a comic about the software industry, Not Invented Here. Follow @billba.

GENE AMBAUM

Gene is the pen name of a public librarian from the Seattle area. He loves graphic novels, television shows  from his childhood, pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain. He continues to make the mistake of letting Bill write his bios.

GENE AMBAUM BY BILL BARNES

Gene Ambaum uses a pen name because he’s scared of his own shadow. He is so good at making fun of strange, difficult customers in Unshelved because he is the strangest, most difficult customer of all. He taught English overseas because no one there was in a position to criticize his spelling. If he ever starts another comic strip it will be about poop, because that’s what he spends most of his time thinking about. Follow @ambaum.

JIAN GHOMESHI -- Saturday Keynote

Jian Ghomeshi is an award-winning broadcaster, writer, musician and producer. He is the host and co-creator of the national daily talk program, Q, on CBC Radio One and CBC TV. Since its inception in 2007, Q has garnered the largest audience of any cultural affairs program in Canada and has become the highest-rated show in its morning time slot in CBC history. Q is also now broadcast across the United States, on PRI.

Mixing insight and opinion with unscripted wit, Jian shifts seamlessly from editorial essays to moderating debates on the air. He has interviewed an array of prominent international figures from prime ministers to sports stars and cultural icons.  His feature interview subjects on Q have included Woody Allen, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Barbara Walters, Tom Waits, William Shatner, Jay-Z, Al Gore, Margaret Atwood and - in a television world-exclusive -- Leonard Cohen.  

Jian has presented a number of television documentaries, including The End, Screw the Vote, and Philanthropy Inc., and spent three years as the host of the Gemini Award-winning CBC TV program, Play. He has appeared as a contributor or guest on programs ranging from CNN Today and The National, to Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

As a writer and interviewer, Jian has been published in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The National Post, El Mundo and The International Herald Tribune.

As a singer, songwriter, and musician, Jian was a member of multi-platinum selling folk-rock group, Moxy Früvous. He toured internationally during the 1990s and shared stages with a variety of artists including Bob Dylan, Ani Difranco and Elvis Costello. Jian continues to write and produce music through his company, Jian Ghomeshi Productions, and has managed the international career of Juno-winning electrorock performer, LIGHTS since 2001.

He has worked with many arts groups including the National Ballet, the COC and the Radio Starmaker Fund, and he is a former member of the Board of Governors at the Stratford Theatre Festival.

Toronto’s NOW Magazine named Jian “Best Media Personality” in TV or radio, in the fall of 2009. In September 2010, Jian was awarded the prestigious New York Festival international broadcasting Gold Medal for “Talk Show Interview” of the year for his feature length world-exclusive with Leonard Cohen.

In Fall 2012, Jian will release his first book, 1982, a literary memoir based on a 14-year-old’s desire to be David Bowie.

Born in London, England, of Iranian descent, Jian lives in Toronto, where he enjoys supporting a losing hockey team and eating pistachios.