Freedom to Read Week
Thursday March 1st, 2007, 7pm
Each year Freedom to Read Week helps remind us of the value of a free society. Indeed, as on the Freedom to Read website, it states: Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Books are removed from the shelves in Canadian libraries, schools and bookstores every day. Free speech on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read.
Russell Thornton's newest book of poetry, The Human Shore, is forthcoming from Harbour Publishing in the fall of 2006. Thornton is the author of numerous books, including The Fifth Window (Thistledown, 2000), A Tunisian Notebook (Seraphim, 2002), and House Built of Rain (Harbour, 2003) which was a Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize finalist and a ReLit Award finalist in 2004. His work has won a number of literary journal prizes and appeared in several anthologies, most recently, In Fine Form: The Book of Canadian Form Poetry (Polestar, 2005) and Where the Words Come From (Harbour, 2002). He lives in North Vancouver, BC. (1)
Regrettably, Sikeena Karmali is unable to attend this event.
Sikeena Karmali was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and was educated in Canada, the US, Italy, and Egypt. She has worked for the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, The Aga Khan Foundation and Trust for Culture in Tajikistan, The Swiss Development Agency, The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. She has written for The Village Voice, The Nation, Aperture and Egypt Today. Her first novel, A House by the Sea (Vehicule, 2003), received an honourable mention from the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award jury. Karmali now lives in Vancouver, BC, and is at work on her second novel, The Mulberry Courtesan.(1)
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International Women's Day
Thursday March 8th, 2007, 7pm
Winner of the Emily Dickinson Prize for poetry in 2003, Rishma Dunlop is the author of three books of poetry: The Body of My Garden (Mansfield Press 2002), Reading Like a Girl (Black Moss Press 2004), and Metropolis (2005). She is co-editor of Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (2004). Her radio drama, The Raj Kumari s Lullaby, was produced by CBC Radio and published in Where is here? The Drama of Immigration (2005). Rishma Dunlop is a professor of Literary Studies in the Faculty of Education at York University, Toronto. She is Poet-in-Residence at the University of British Columbia for 2006-2008. (1)
Elise Partridge's Fielder's Choice (Vehicule, 2002) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poems in Canada. Her second book, Chameleon Hours, is scheduled to be co-published by Anansi and the University of Chicago in 2007. Her poems appear in Canadian, American, and Irish journals, including The Fiddlehead, The Malahat
Review, The New Yorker, Poetry (Chicago), and Poetry Ireland Review. Her work has been anthologized and broadcast in Canada and the US, and has been posted on buses by the BC Poetry in Transit program. She lives in Vancouver, BC. (1)
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Special Event - MAC Farrant and Sina Queyras
Thursday March 15th, 2007, 7pm
Sina Queyras
Sina Queyras is the author of the poetry collections Slip and Teethmarks, and curator of New York's belladonna Reading Series. Her latest book is Lemon Hound, a collection of long-exposed captures of the not-so-still lives of women. Recently she edited Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets, for Persea Books. She lives in Philadelphia, and teaches at Haverford College.
M.A.C. Farrant
is the acclaimed author of seven previous collections of satirical and humorous short fiction. Her writing has been widely anthologized and has been dramatized for television; Farrant is also a frequent contributor to leading magazines such as Adbusters and Geist. CBC Radio has broadcast many of her other stories including a ten-part serialization of My Turquoise Years, her 2004 memoir. The book is also being adapted into a stage play in conjunction with the Arts Club Theatre of Vancouver. A full-time writer currently residing in Sidney, B.C., she also teaches part-time at the creative writing department in the UVIC, reviews books and co-produces the Sidney Reading Series. Farrant s work is infused with acerbic wit and iconoclastic innovation.
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Poetry Month 1
Thursday April 5th, 2007, 7pm
Roy Miki was born in 1942, in the midst of the mass uprooting of Japanese Canadians from BC's west coast, and this history constituted his formative years in Winnipeg. His latest book of poetry There was released by New Star books in the fall of 2006. Miki is the author of eight books including Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice and the editor of nine more. He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1980. In 2002 his book Surrender received the Governor-General's Award for Poetry and, in 2006, he was named to the Order of Canada. Miki is currently a professor in the department of English at Simon Fraser University. (2)
Fred Wah was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in 1939 and was raised in the interior of British Columbia. He was a Governor General's Award recipient in 1985 for his book of poetry Waiting For Saskatchewan (Turnstone Press, 1985) and is the author of many published works including the award-winning bio-fiction Diamond Grill which was re-released in the fall of 2006 with NeWest Press. He has been involved in publishing and teaching internationally in poetry and poetics since the early 1960s and currently lives in Vancouver. (2)
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Special Event - Book Launch for Marita Dachsel & Sean Horlor with guest Nancy Pagh
Thursday April 12th, 2007, 7pm
Marita Dachsel
was born and raised in Williams Lake, BC, and has lived in Kamloops, Dawson City, Auckland and Montpellier, France. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and has been published widely in Canadian literary journals. She currently lives in Vancouver with her husband, playwright Kevin Kerr, and their son, Atticus.
Nancy Pagh
was born and raised on Fidalgo Island in Anacortes,
Washington. She burst onto the literary scene at age twelve with the publication of her poem 'Is a Clam Clammy, or Is It Just Wet?' in a local boating magazine. Before earning Master's degrees in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of New Hampshire, and a Ph.D. in
Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia, she worked in the scientific publications unit of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. She teaches English and Canadian Studies at Western Washington University and lives in Bellingham.
Sean Horlor was born in Edmonton and lived in Victoria for many years before making Vancouver his home. After earning a BFA from the University of Victoria, he worked in a number of public relations positions, including as a speechwriter in the Premier's office of British Columbia. He currently works in the public relations field in Vancouver. He also models and continues to write poetry and articles for a variety of publications. He has published his poetry widely in literary journals, including Arc, Event, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Pine Magazine, THIS Magazine, The Claremont Review, Inner Harbour Review, and The Malahat Review. His poem "In Praise of Beauty" won first place in This Magazine's 2006 Great Canadian Literary Hunt and was an Editor's Choice in Arc's International Poem of the Year contest. Made Beautiful by Use is his first collection of poetry.
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Poetry Month 2
Thursday April 19th, 2007, 7pm
Carla Funk was born and raised in Vanderhoof, BC, and now makes her home in Victoria, BC, where she holds the appointment of Poet Laureate for the City of Victoria and teaches creative writing at the University of Victoria. In addition to publications in various anthologies and literary journals, she is the author of three books of poetry: Blessing the Bones into Light (Coteau Books, 1999), Head Full of Sun, (Nightwood Editions, 2002), and the collection The Sewing Room which arrived in the Fall of 2006 with Turnstone Press.
Steven Price
was born and raised in Colwood, BC and is the author of The Anatomy of Keys (Brick Books, 2006), a book of poetry about the life of Harry Houdini. Steven Price, says poet Tim Lilburn, draws us into the intricacy of Houdini's character, as the Master himself entered trunks, chains, a web of knots. In poem after poem, there is the miraculous surprise of release . Price's work has received praise from the Globe and Mail and Quill and Quire and has appeared in Canadian and American literary journals and anthologies, including Breathing Fire 2 (Nightwood Editions, 2004). He teaches creative writing at the University of Victoria.
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Special Event - Catherine Greenwood & Steve Noyes
Thursday May 3rd, 2007, 7pm
Catherine Greenwood
lives on Vancouver Island. The Pearl King and Other Poems is her first book of poetry. Catherine is the winner of the 2003 Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award for "Astrolabe," published in Prairie Fire.
Steve Noyes
has published three books of poetry, Ghost Country (2006), Backing into Heaven (1986), and Hurriya(1996), as well as Cities of India, a collection of short fiction. Noyes taught English at Qing Hua University in Beijing and in Dong Yan Jiao, a small town outside Beijing, in 1997-1998. He grew up in Winnipeg and lives in Victoria, BC.
Jay MillAr
is the author of three books of poetry including Mycological Studies and False Maps for Other Creatures, and one collaborative 'novel' written with Stephen Cain titled Double Helix. Recent chapbooks include Sporatic Growth, being a third season of 26 fungal threads and Lack Lyrics, which is pitifully self-published. A new collection titled the small blue is forthcoming in the fall of 2007. Jay lives in Toronto where he runs Apollinaire's Bookshoppe and BookThug. He is going to meet you on a dark street corner and sell you a book.
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Bold New Fiction
Thursday May 17th, 2007, 7pm
Brett Josef Grubisic teaches in the English department at the University of British Columbia. He edited the highly praised anthology Contra/diction (1998) and co-edited Carnal Nation (2000), both published by Arsenal Pulp Press. His novel, The Age of Cities (Arsenal Pulp Press), released in 2006, is an historical novel set in the heydey of Vancouver's Gastown, exploring the underbelly of gay cabaret life in the 1950s. Equal parts Bildungsroman and purported literary artifact, The Age of Cities celebrates Canada's Golden Decade, an age of innocence. (1)
Nathan Sellyn was born in Toronto in 1982, and has lived in Montreal, the United States and Thailand. He is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at Princeton University. In 2004, Nathan received the program's prestigious Francis LeMoyne Page Prize for Distinctive Achievement. Indigenous Beasts, his first book, was published by Raincoast in 2006. He currently lives in Vancouver, BC. (1)
Jon Paul Fiorentino is a writer and editor. His most recent book of poetry is The Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books, 2006). He is the author of the poetry book Hello Serotonin (Coach House Books, 2004) and the humour book Asthmatica (Insomniac Press, 2005). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologies Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (DC Books, 2003) and Post-Prairie - a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch, (Talonbooks, 2005). He lives in Montreal where he teaches writing at Concordia University and is the Managing Editor of Matrix magazine.
(1)
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Voices of Vancouver
Thursday June 7th, 2007, 7pm
Meredith Quartermain's most recent book of poetry is Vancouver Walking (NeWest, 2005), which won the BC Book Award 2006 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her other books include The Eye-Shift of Surface (Greenboathouse, 2003) and A Thousand Mornings (Nomados, 2002). Her work has appeared in Canadian Literature, the Literary Review of Canada, Prism International, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, filling Station, Raddle Moon, Matrix and other magazines. With husband Peter Quartermain, she runs Nomados Literary Publishers in Vancouver. (2)
George Bowering(born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town of Oliver, where his father was a high-school chemistry teacher.
Bowering is one of a group of poets including Frank Davey, Fred Wah, Jamie Reid (not the British situationist, the Canadian poet), and David Dawson who were together at the University of British Columbia in the 1950s. There they founded the journal Tish. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia and recently retired from teaching at Simon Fraser University. In 2002, Bowering was appointed the first ever Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. That same year, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 2004.
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Pride Event
Thursday August 2nd, 2007, 7pm
Jen Currin's work has appeared in numerous North American journals, including The Fiddlehead, Mudfish, Verse, Lungfull!, Goodfoot, Carousel, Event, The Massachusetts Review, Diner, subTerrain, Cream City Review, River City, The Mississippi Review and Washington Square. She has published one book of poems, The Sleep of Four Cities (Anvil Press, 2005). Her forthcoming collection, Hagiography, was a finalist in several competitions before winning Winnow Press's 2005 Open Book Award. A graduate of Arizona State University's MFA program, Jen currently teaches creative writing at Vancouver Film School, Langara College's Continuing Studies program, and online for the John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth.
(3)
Rachel Rose's first book, Giving My Body to Science, (McGill/Queens University Press) was a finalist for The Gerald Lampert Award, The Pat Lowther Award, and the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal, and won the Quebec Writers Federation A.M. Klein Award. Her second book, Notes on Arrival and Departure, was published by McClelland & Stewart in Spring 2005. Her recent work involves interviewing older people to create biographies, helping individuals craft public poetry from family history, and exploring the intersections between writing and healing. (3)
Shawn Macdonald is an award-winning actor and playwright. His plays include 'World's Greatest Guy,' (Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Script) and 'Fear Knot' (both co-written with Gary Jones) at the Arts Club Theatre. Shawn's recent play 'Prodigal Son' was developed by Touchstone Theatre and co-produced with Pacific Theatre and enjoyed a sold-out run last March and garnered him both the Jessie Award for the script and the Xtra West Hero Award for Live Performance of the Year. He is currently developing a new play called 'Demon Voice' and is writing a new play as part of the Arts Club Theatre's Silver Commisisons Project, entitled 'The Fall of Sister Judy.'
John Barton has published eight books of poetry and five chapbooks, including, Hypothesis (Anansi, 2001) and Asymmetries, (Frog Hollow, 2004). A bilingual edition of his third book, West of Darkness: Emily Carr, a self-portrait, was published by BuschekBooks in 2006. Co-editor, with Billeh Nickerson, of Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay-Male Poets (Arsenal Pulp, 2007), he has won three Archibald Lampman Awards, a Patricia Hackett Prize, an Ottawa Book Award, a 2003 CBC Literary Award, and a 2007 National Magazine Award. He lives in Victoria, where edits The Malahat Review. (3)
Billeh Nickerson is the author of two books and the co-editor of Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets. Known for his irreverent events, he is a founding member of Haiku Night in Canada and an event programmer with the Vancouver International Writers Festival. He teaches at Kwantlen University College and is the 2nd Vice Chair to the Writers Union of Canada National Council. In January 2008, he will be the Writer in Residence at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. (3)
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Special Event
Monday August 20th, 2007, 7pm
George Elliott Clarke 's newest dramatic poem, Trudeau, makes an irreverent, jubilant portrait of the life and politics of one of Canada's most controversial political heroes, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Clarke's poem provides a whimsical and informative look at the balance of world powers in the 1960s and 70s, infused with the spirit of the many revolutions taking place throughout the world during these years. Black is a brilliant and fiery look at race and culture. Clarke won the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry in 2001 for Execution Poems, published by Gaspereau Press. In 1998, he won the prestigious Portia White Prize and in 2006 the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellowship Prize. Among Clarke's recent publications are the novel George & Rue and the libretto Québécité (GP, 2003). He was inducted into the Order of Nova Scotia in 2006 and holds the E.J. Pratt professorship in Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto.
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Japantown Riot Anniversary Event
Thursday September 6th, 2007, 7pm
Jen Sookfong Lee was a finalist in the Stephen Leacock Poetry Contest. Her work has appeared in a variety of Canadian literary magazines and anthologies including The Antigonish Review, The Claremont Review, Horsefly, Jasmine, and From this New World. Her first novel, The End of East (Knopf Canada, New Face of Fiction, March, 2007), delves into the underside of Chinese Canadian history, exploring the repercussions of the infamous Head Tax, the Chinatown bachelor society and the years of separation between men and their wives and children. Lee was born and raised in Vancouver's east side where she now lives with her husband.
(1)
Michael Barnholden's latest book is Reading the Riot Act: A Brief History of Riots in Vancouver (Anvil Books, 2006). He is also the author of three books of poetry, Works (that way because that s the way it works) (Tsunami Books, 2001); On The Ropes (Coach House Books, 1995); and Casual Transmissions (Outside Editions 1972); and a work of translation, Gabriel Dumont Speaks (Talonbooks, 1993). He is the past publisher of Tsunami Editions and The Rain Review of Books. He currently lives in Vancouver where he is managing editor for West Coast Line and on editorial boards for New Star Books and the Kootenay School of Writing Society.
(1)
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Back to School Event
Tuesday September 11th, 2007, 7pm
Miranda Pearson is the author of two collections of poetry, Prime (Beach Holme, 2001) and The Aviary (Oolichan, 2006), which received the Alfred G. Bailey Prize from the Writers Federation of New Brunswick. Her work has appeared in Canadian literary journals and anthologies including The Malahat Review, Event, Grain, Arc, and Prairie Fire. She lives in Vancouver where she teaches creative writing at Simon Fraser University.
(1)
Andrea MacPherson is the author of two novels When She Was Electric (Raincoast, 2003) and Beyond the Blue (Random House, 2007) and two poetry collections Natural Disasters (Palimpsest, 2007) and Away (Signature Editions, 2008). When She Was Electric was listed number six on CBC Canada Reads: People's Choice. Andrea is a past Editor of PRISM international, and currently acts as Reviews Editor for Event magazine. She teaches Creative Writing and English at the University College of the Fraser Valley in Mission, BC and Douglas College.
(1)
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Special Event
Thursday October 11th, 2007, 7pm
Elizabeth Philips is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently A Blue with Blood in it and Beyond my Keeping. Both collections received the Saskatchewan Poetry Award for their respective years. She has edited numerous poetry collections and has taught creative writing in the Banff Wired Studio, the Banff Writing with Style program, and the Sage Hill Writing Experience. She edited the literary magazine Grain from 1998 to 2003. She lives in Saskatoon. Her latest book of poetry is Torch River (Brick Books, 2007).
Sarah Lang was born in Edmonton, Alberta. After finishing her BA at the University of Alberta, she went on to Brown University to complete her MFA in Literary Arts. She currently lives in Chicago where she is a PhD student at Northwestern University. She has worked as a medical researcher and as a web developer, and she frequently shows her photographic works. Her latest book is Work of Days (Coach House Books, 2007).
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Special Event
Thursday October 25th, 2007, 7pm
Dave Margoshes is a fiction writer and poet living in Regina. He spent many years newspapering, in New York, San Francisco, Calgary, Vancouver and points between, before escaping to the literary life. He's published more than a dozen books and has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He was the writer-in-residence in Winnipeg in 1995-96 and Saskatoon 2001-02. His latest book is Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories (Edmonton, AB: NeWest Press, 2007).
Mary Novik's debut novel Conceit is set in 17th-century England and is the story of Pegge, the daughter of the love-poet John Donne, a contemporary of Shakespeare. Published by Doubleday Canada in September, Conceit has received enthusiastic reviews in Quill & Quire> and The Globe and Mail and has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller prize for 2007. Mary was born in Victoria, British Columbia and now lives in Vancouver, where she is a member of the SPiN writing group which includes June Hutton and Knopf New Face of Fiction author, Jen Sookfong Lee. Mary's website may be found at www.marynovik.com.
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Two Poets
Tuesday November 6th, 2007, 7pm
Genni Gunn's most recent collection of poetry is Faceless (Signature Editions, 2007). She is also the author of two novels, Tracing Iris and Thrice Upon a Time; two short story collections, Hungers and On The Road; a poetry collection, Mating in Captivity, and an opera libretto, Alternate Visions, which premiered in Montreal, May 2007. Her novel Tracing Iris has been optioned for film. She has been a finalist for the Commonwealth Novel Prize, the Gerald Lampert Poetry Award, and the John Glassco Translation award. She lives in Vancouver. (3)
Pam Galloway
is the author of Parallel Lines (Extasis, 2006). Her poetry has been featured on CBC Radio and has been published in literary magazines and anthologies in Canada and the UK, including Orbis (UK), Love in Four Positions (Leaf Press) and Let Go (Black Moss Press). She emigrated from England to Canada in 1980 and currently lives in Vancouver where she works as a speech pathologist, creative writing instructor, and freelance writer. Parallel Lines is her first collection of poetry. (3)
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Three Poets
Tuesday November 13th, 2007, 7pm
Donna Kane's poems have been published in magazines and journals across Canada. Her first book of poetry, Somewhere, a Fire, was published by Hagios Press (Regina) in 2004. Her second book of poetry, Erratic, will be published Fall 2007 by Hagios Press.
Ruth Roach Pierson trained as an academic historian at the University of Washington and Yale, writing her Ph.D. thesis on "German Jewish Identity in the Weimar Republic." Her best known academic publication is They're Still Women After All": The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (McClelland and Stewart, 1986). Her poems have appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals and anthologies. She is the author of a poetry collection, Where No Window Was. She lives in Toronto.
For more than 20 years George Sipos was the leading bookseller in Prince George where he operated Mosquito Books. He left the book trade in 2005 to become manager of the Prince George Symphony. That year he also released his first book of poetry, Anything But The Moon (Goose Lane Editions, 2005) which was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize. He was born in Budapest and raised in London, Ontario. Currently he lives on Salt Spring Island where he's the Executive Director of ArtSpring, Salt Spring's visual and performing arts centre.
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Special Event - Ha Jin launches A Free Life
Monday November 19th, 2007, 7pm
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of the internationally best-selling novel Waiting, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Award; War Trash, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award, The Crazed; In the Pond; the story collections The Bridegroom, which won the Asian American Literary Award, Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award; and three books of poetry. He is a professor of English at Boston University and lives in the Boston area. He will be reading from his new novel, A Free Life.
About A Free Life:
From Ha Jin, the widely-acclaimed, award-winning author, comes a novel that takes his fiction to a new setting: 1990s America. We follow the Wu family--father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao--as they fully sever their ties with China in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and begin a new, free life in the United States.
Ha Jin's prodigious talents are evident in this powerful new book, which brilliantly brings to life the struggles and successes that characterize the contemporary immigrant experience. With its lyrical prose and confident grace, A Free Life is a luminous addition to the works of one of the preeminent writers in America today.
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Special Event - Robert Bringhurst launches Everywhere Being is Dancing
Tuesday November 27th, 2007, 7pm
Robert Bringhurst's collections of poetry include The Calling: Selected Poems 19701995; Pieces of Map, Pieces of Music (1987) and The Old in Their Knowing (2005). He is an accomplished linguist, well-known for his award-winning translations of the Haida storytellers Skaay and Ghandl, and for his translations of the early Greek philosopher-poet Parmenides. His manual The Elements of Typographic Style has itself been translated into ten languages and is now one of the worlds most influential texts on typographic design. In this companion volume to The Tree of Meaning (GP, 2006), Robert Bringhurst collects pieces of thinking under the principle that "everything is related to everything else." His studies of poetry, polyphonics, oral literature, storytelling, translation, mythology, homogeny, cultural ecology, literary criticism and typography all build upon this sense of basic connection. Bringhurst lives on Quadra Island, off the British Columbia coast.
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DATE CHANGE: National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
Wednesday December 5th, 2007, 7pm
Daniel Francis is the author of 20 books including National Dreams: Myth, Memory and Canadian History (Arsenal Pulp, 1997) and A Road for Canada: The Illustrated Story of the Trans-Canada Highway (Stanton Atkins and Dosil, 2006). He was editorial director of the mammoth Encyclopedia of British Columbia, hailed on its appearance in 2000 as one of the most important books about the province ever published. His book L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2004. His latest book is Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade (Subway Books, 2006). He lives in Vancouver. (1)
Stevie Cameron is a journalist based in Toronto. She has published in newspapers, magazines, and television and is the author of The Last Amigo (2001), Blue Trust (1998), On The Take (1994), and Ottawa Inside Out (1989). She has just released a book of nonfiction for Knopf Canada called The Pickton File which deals with the events leading up to the trial of William Pickton. (1)
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2006:
Special Event
Thursday February 2nd, 2006, 7pm
Kill the Robot, the illustrated novel by Maggie MacDonald, has been given a warm welcome. WORD called it a deeply relevant and rewarding book. Eye Weekly said Kill the Robot is equal parts Kathy Acker and Philip K. Dick. Kill the Robot, the rebel story of Moore White, beautifully articulates the insecurity of post-human culture. After Reagan is assassinated, school books are sold off and computerized checkpoints installed. Moore hungers for information on the nuclear threat. In the looming shadow of Esoft, the world-dominant tech corporation, sickness abounds. Friends from the anarchist scene are disappearing and her boyfriend is strangely robotic. The only constant is the glow of the Tee-Vee.
Maggie MacDonald was recently named Toronto's Best Arts Revolutionary by Now Magazine. She is an award-winning playwright, artist and musician who has toured internationally as a member of the bands The Hidden Cameras and The Republic of Safety. She was recently named writer in residence at University of Toronto's Hart House. Kill the Robot is her first novel.
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Special Event - OutLoud celebration for UBC Outweek
Thursday February 9th, 2006, 7pm, Theatre at Robson Square
The Robson Reading Series and UBC Robson Square are pleased to co-sponsor Pride UBC's first OutLoud literary reading to mark Outweek at UBC. Also the first time Outweek has been brought downtown to UBC Robson Square, this special event will help bring UBC students and the greater Vancouver LGBT communities closer together.
Anne Fleming
grew up in Toronto and received her MFA from the University of British Columbia. Her short fiction was selected for 2004's annual Toronto Life fiction issue and won a National Magazine Award. A winner of the National Award for fiction, she's also been shortlisted for the Journey Prize, the Danuta Gleed Award, the Ethel Wilson Prize and the Governor General's Award.
Ivan E. Coyote
was born and raised in Whitehorse Yukon. She is the author of four collections of short fiction, a columnist for Xtra West magazine, and a CBC Radio love child. Her first love is live storytelling, and over the last ten years she has become an audience favourite at festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam.The Globe and Mail called Ivan "a natural-born storyteller" and Ottawa X Press said " Coyote is to CanLit what k.d. lang is to country music: a beautifully odd fixture."
Cathleen With
is currently in the MFA Creative Writing program at UBC. She has appeared in several literary journals, including The Antigonish Review, Grain, A Room of One's Own, Fireweed and Geist. She identifies as gender-fluously phreeque-ish, and loves writing, teaching usable and (sometimes) aberrant english, and Ta Phrom in the jungly moonlight.
For the past eight years Andrew Binks
has been teaching English as a second language to immigrants in Vancouver. He has also been involved professionally in the Canadian theatre, including performances with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, two seasons at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, various roles with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, a cross Canada tour of the one-man play STRIP and various film and television roles. Andrew is currently a first year MFA in creative writing at UBC. His publishing credits include Prism International, Quills Poetry, the Globe and Mail, Xtra, Xtra west, Queen's Alumni Review and Blueboy.
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Freedom to Read Week
Thursday March 2nd, 2006, 7pm
Given the American Library Association stores its information on a Canadian server to
combat the prying that the American Patriot Act permits, our Freedom to Read in the
Western World is not as secure as we may have thought. Proud to present one of the
few events in Vancouver to mark Freedom to Read Week, our third year hosting this
reading has us feature two writers from Cormorant Books, a small-scale press
dedicated to independent publishing, independent voices, and the politics of
independent thought.
Aaron Bushkowsky
has been produced and published in several genres: film, poetry,
theatre, prose, and non-fiction. His poetry has been nominated for the Dorothy Livesay
Award for Best Book of Poetry in BC and his short film, The Alley, won the National Screen
Institute drama prize and was nominated for six Leos (BC Film Awards). Aaron has also been
nominated six times for Jessie Theatre Awards for Outstanding Original Play, winning two,
and served as playwright-in-residence at Touchstone Theatre, The Playhouse, Rumble Theatre
and as a resident film-writer at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. His most recent book
is The Vanishing Man (Cormorant Books, 2005), a book of prose. Aaron completed his MFA in
Creative Writing at UBC in 2002 and teaches playwriting and filmwriting at Langara College's
Studio 58 and the Vancouver Film School. (4)
Linda Rogers
grows poetry, fiction and biography in the compost of The Garden City.
Currently working on a trilogy of novels about family intrigue in Oak Bay, she writes the
Creative Coast (lives of artists) column for Focus Magazine. Canada's People's Poet for
the year 2000, Rogers is involved in the Poets for Peace movement. Her recent novel
Friday Water was published by Cormorant Books, which is releasing
The Empress Letters in the Spring of 2006. (3)
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International Women's Day
Wednesday March 8th, 2006, 7pm
Women have not fared well in BC in recent years, with the closing of many women's
centres, the Pickton farm murders, and the arrest of a violent sexual predator attacking
more female sex workers on the downtown eastside. Writers Livingston and Tulchinsky, both
exploring issues of power and representation in their work, and engaged in the dialogue of
who Canadian women are and what they have available to them, offer a balm, and further
investigation, into the rights of women in a society still struggling for equality and
safety for more than half of its population.
Karen X. Tulchinsky
is the award-winning author of The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky
(Polestar),
a Toronto Book Award Finalist, which was recently optioned for the screen by Ocular Productions.
Her first book In Her Nature won the VanCity Book Prize. Her novel, Love Ruins Everything
was named one of the Top Ten Books by the Bay Area Reporter. She has edited ten anthologies
of fiction, including the Lambda Literary Finalist Hot and Bothered. A graduate of the
prestigious Canadian Film Centre, Tulchinsky wrote an episode of Robson Arms for CTV
and co-wrote 'Floored By Love' for CityTV's anthology series, 13 Love Stories. (1)
Billie Livingston
is the author of, Going Down Swinging, a novel (Random House 2000),
and a poetry collection, The Chick at the Back of the Church (Nightwood Editions 2001)
which was shortlisted for Canada's Pat Lowther award. Her writing has appeared in
publications such as Flare, The Vancouver Sun, Toronto Life, and anthologized in
The Journey Prize for Fiction (MacClelland and Stewart) and Dropped Threads 2 (Vintage).
Her new novel, Cease to Blush, will be published by Random House Canada in March 2006. (1)
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Special Event- Alayna Munce
Tuesday April 11th, 2006, 7pm
What's left of us when we're gone? In When I Was Young and In My Prime, a young woman watches her grandparents begin to decline. As she sorts through the couple's belongings, she reflects on the untold stories and unsung bonds that make up our lives. Meanwhile, modern urban life places strains on her own marriage and on her sense of what, ultimately, we owe each other.
Alayna Munce grew up in Huntsville, Ontario, and has spent most of her adulthood in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto, where she spends her time writing and working in bars and community centres. Her work has appeared in various Canadian literary journals and has three times won prizes in Grain Magazine's annual Short Grain Contest. In 2003 she won second prize in the CBC Literary Awards' travel writing category. In 2004 she was featured in the anthology Breathing Fire 2: Canada's New Poets.
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Special Event- David Zieroth and Tim Bowling Book Launch
Tuesday April 18th, 2006, 7pm
Join us to celebrate two BC gems as they launch their new books of poetry.
David Zieroth was born in Neepawa, Manitoba and his memories of the prairies are notable among his poetry's subjects. His work has won the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize for Poetry, made "The Globe 100" and is included in The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English and The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. In the late 1990s he reclaimed his original first name David after being known as Dale since elementary school. Zieroth teaches creative writing at Douglas College in New Westminster, where he edited the magazine Event from 1985 to 1996. He lives in North Vancouver, BC.
Fathom is Tim Bowling's seventh collection of poetry. Two of his collections, The Memory Orchard (2004) and The Witness Ghost (2003), have been nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. His work has also won the Canadian Authors Association award for poetry and the Alberta Book Award.