the downtown core, while PlaySmelter, a theatre festival devoted to theatrical and storytelling performances by local writers and actors, was launched in 2013, and is held at various venues in the city including the Sudbury Theatre Centre and Place des Arts. In music, the city is home to the Northern Lights Festival Boréal and La Nuit sur l'étang festivals. Sudbury also hosts Northern Ontario's only Japanese cultural Festival, Japan Festival Sudbury. It started in 2019, went on hiatus for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, and returned to Sudbury's Bell Park Amphitheatre on July 16, 2022. Literature Works of fiction themed or set primarily or partially in Sudbury or its former suburbs include Robert J. Sawyer's The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, Alistair MacLeod's novel No Great Mischief, Paul Quarrington's Logan in Overtime and Jean-Marc Dalpé's play 1932, la ville du nickel and his short story collection Contes sudburois. The city is also fictionalized as "Chinookville" in several books by American comedy writer Jack Douglas, and as "Complexity" in Tomson Highway's musical play The (Post) Mistress. Noted writers who have lived in Sudbury include playwrights Jean-Marc Dalpé, Sandra Shamas and Brigitte Haentjens, poets Robert Dickson, Roger Nash, Gregory Scofield and Margaret Christakos, fiction writers Kelley Armstrong, Sean Costello, Sarah Selecky, Matthew Heiti and Jeffrey Round, poet Patrice Desbiens, journalist Mick Lowe and academics Richard E. Bennett, Michel Bock, Rand Dyck, Graeme S. Mount and Gary Kinsman. Music Sudbury's most successful artists have predominantly been in the country, folk and country-rock genres. These include Robert Paquette, Kate Maki, Gil Grand, Kevin Closs, CANO, Jake Mathews, Loma Lyns, Alex J. Robinson, Chuck Labelle, En Bref and Ox. The rap rock bands Project Wyze and Konflit Dramatik were also based in Sudbury. High-profile musicians play at the Sudbury Community Arena. Bell Park's outdoor Grace Hartman Amphitheatre and Laurentian University's Fraser Auditorium are sometimes used for summer bookings. Smaller touring indie rock bands, as well as some local musicians, are usually booked at The Townehouse Tavern, while local bands play a number of small music venues across the city. The city is also home to annual music festivals including the Northern Lights Festival Boréal, the Up Here Festival and La Nuit sur l'étang. The local Sudbury Symphony Orchestra performs six annual concerts of classical music. Sudbury is also home to the Blue Saints Drum and Bugle Corps, a youth drum corps active since 1952.