Description

•Curious Sounds is a collaborative art book by two exceptionally talented, multi-hyphenate Black artists: celebrity chef and visual and recording artist Roger Mooking, and author and filmmaker francesca Ekwuyasi (who now spells her name all lower case).

•Roger is best known as the host of such TV cooking programs as Man Fire Food, Heat Seekers and Everyday Exotic (all broadcast on the Cooking Channel) and as a guest judge on such Food Network shows as Chopped and Guy’s Grocery Games. francesca’s debut novel Butter Honey Pig Bread was an international bestseller, winner of the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ+ Emerging Writers and shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award and Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It was also runner-up in the 2021 edition of CBC Television’s Canada Reads competition.

•Roger and francesca met in 2020 when Roger was a panelist on Canada Reads and chose Butter Honey Pig Bread to defend, almost winning the competition on the final day. Since then, they have become close friends and kindred spirits who both use different artistic mediums to explore social issues and themes such as identity and selfhood.

•Curious Sounds uses Roger’s art and stories as a focal point to find “beauty in the chaos.” It’s inspired by Roger’s ADHD diagnosis and the fact that the average human attention span lasts only 8.25 seconds. With this in mind, the book is a series of fleeting images and words that try to make sense of our time on this Earth. Comprising three sections that mimic the arc of a life, entitled “The Learning,” “The Living,” and “The Leaving,” the book also includes a series of essays and conversations between the two artists on how to find meaning in this chaotic world, especially from a Black perspective.

•Curious Sounds is a standalone book, but it is also part of a multimedia project by Roger that will include an interactive art exhibit (debuting in Hamilton, Canada this fall and likely to tour in the US in 2024) and an album of new songs, each of which inspired the stories that appear in the book. The book will include a free download link to the album.

•The audience for this book will be fans of Roger and francesca’s work, members of the Black community, and those who are impacted by attention deficit disorder.

•Publicity by Beth Parker PR.