Here it is: The Finale of the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series!
Hard to believe that it is almost gone. 3 solid weeks of super writing talent and great crowds.
What else would people do on a Wednesday night in late February? Watch a Russia vs Canada Olympic hockey game? Are you crazy?!
Without any further adieu… the amazing, kick-ass line-up for Week 4.
Michael Nichol Yahgulanaas
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a very active player in a vibrant shift in the comfortably familiar world of Canada’s iconic First Nations’ art. After a career that spanned three decades of involvement in high-profile Haida political successes, Yahgulanaas decided to finally apply his formal training in classic Haida design.
He takes from an extensive corpus of Haida narratives and transforms them into contemporary, accessible and socially relevant Art. Yahgulanaas invented a new genre of graphic narrative called Haida Manga – part Haida, part Asian, and all Michael – to combat the simplistic narratives perpetrated about Indigenous People of the Pacific Coast.
He’s telling another story altogether: of complex human beings struggling, loving and dreaming just like everyone else.
Social and environmental issues continue to play a big role in his works and when blended with his passionate belief in the power of the small Yahgulanaas is clearly adeptly blending appealing imagery with contemporary issues.
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Rhonda Waterfall
Rhonda Waterfall was born in 1973 in Ocean Falls, BC.
She studied creative writing with the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.
Her work has appeared in Geist, Descant, and several other literary journals.
The Only Thing I Have is her first book.
She currently lives and works in Vancouver.
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Weldon Hunter
I tried to find a bio for Weldon online and couldn’t find one.
I’m not really surprised, tho, given his shadowy comportment.
So I’ll tell you what I know about him.
We have attended the horse races at Hastings Park and sipped beer from plastic cups after making $2 longshot bets.
We’ve discussed professional baseball and terrible music recorded on vinyl in the 80’s and sometimes I catch Weldon sipping cold beer from metal cans under the street lamps of Commercial Drive.
I’ve seen Weldon read his excellent poems at Pulp Fiction Bookstore on Main Street and bought a few of his chapbooks and it’s a great honour to include him in this line-up.
kc dyer
kc dyer was born in Calgary, and after a peripatetic decade or two now lives with her children (and other animals) north of Vancouver, British Columbia, where she works as a freelance writer.
kc is the author of a number of books for young adults that are published in North America and the UK.
Having a secret fondness for inducing nausea in teens, kc can often be found sharing some of the greatest grotesque moments in history with large groups of high school students.
Unable to see the folly of her ways, kc continues to write and most days she can be found sitting at her desk, staring out the window and trying to think of the perfect word.
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Steven Galloway
Steven Galloway is the author of three novels: Finnie Walsh, Ascension and most recently, The Cellist of Sarajevo.
His work has been translated in over 20 languages and optioned for film.
He is currently the Cliff Writer in Residence at the UBC Creative Writing Program and the fiction mentor at the Writers’ Studio at SFU.
He lives with his wife and two young daughters in New Westminster, British Columbia.
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Leilah Nadir
Leilah Nadir is an Iraqi-Canadian who grew up in England and Canada with a Christian Iraqi father and an English mother.
The Ornage Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family won the George Ryga Award in 2008 and has been published in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Italy and France.
She has worked in London and Vancouver in the publishing industry.
Since the invasion of Iraq, she has written and broadcast political commentaries for the CBC, Globe and Mail and the Georgia Straight and published a feature article in Brick Magazine.
Leilah also writes fiction and had written a play, Heavenly Bodies.
She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Alex Leslie
Alex Leslie is a Vancouver writer who publishes short fiction and creative non-fiction.
Her fiction is in 09: Best Canadian Stories and Coming Attractions 09, an annual showcase of three new writers, both now available from Oberon Press.
She won a Gold Award for personal journalism at the 2008 National Magazine Awards.
She won a 2007 CBC Literary Award for short fiction.
Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in such journals as Descant, Prairie Fire, Event and The Fiddlehead and on the Vancouver page of the online short fiction project Joyland.
Her writing has won or been shortlisted for awards from Prairie Fire, Event and Matrix.
Caroline Adderson
Caroline Adderson is the author of two internationally published novels, A History of Forgetting (Key Porter 1999) and Sitting Practice (Thomas Allen 2003), and a widely anthologized collection of short stories, Bad Imaginings (The Porcupine’s Quill 1993).
Pleased To Meet You (Thomas Allen 2006), her latest collection of short fiction, was longlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and named as a best book of that year by The Globe and Mail, The National Post and The Toronto Star.
Caroline Adderson is also the author of three books for children.
Very Serious Children (Scholastic 2007), a novel for middle readers about two brothers, the sons of clowns, who run away from the circus, I, Bruno (Orca 2007), a collection of stories for emerging readers featuring seven year-old Bruno and his true life adventures, is nominated for a 2008-2009 Chocolate Lily Book Award and a 2009 Shining Willow Award.
Its sequel, Bruno For Real, appeared in 2009.
Leanne Prain & Mandy Moore aka the Yarnbombers
Upon learning to knit, Leanne Prain co-founded a stitch and bitch called Knitting and Beer in order to expand her skills while knitting in a pub.
While the group has disbanded, she continues to be amazed at what can be created with two needles and a bit of yarn.
Leanne has interviewed and befriended knit graffiti artists from around the world. In 2009 Arsenal Pulp Press published the subversive knitting book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti that Leanne co-authored with knitting editrix Mandy Moore.
Mandy Moore is the technical editrix of popular online knitting magazine Knitty.com, and of various other knitting and crochet books and publications.
She blogs about her life at yarnageddon.com and blogs with Leanne at yarnbombing.com.
She lives in Vancouver, BC.
McKinley M. Hellenes
McKinley M. Hellenes is a fiction writer and occasional poet living in the Ruskin region of Mission, BC.
A Vancouver expatriate, many of her stories still take place in the city.
Her work has appeared in magazines such as Broken Pencil, Kiss Machine, Memewar, the Liar, and The Frequent & Vigorous Quarterly. Her stories have also been anthologized widely in collections including Red Light: Superheroes Saints and Sluts, Can’tlit: Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil Magazine, Gulch: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose, and the Journey Prize Stories.
She came in second place in the 32nd annual 3 Day Novel Contest with her manuscript Everything Will Be Okay. She is currently finishing her novel and writing stories for inclusion in a collection of short fiction.
Timothy Taylor
Timothy Taylor published his first novel Stanley Park in 2001.
It was an immediate bestseller and a critical success.
He’s since published a prize-winning collection of short fiction, Silent Cruise, and a second bestselling and critically acclaimed novel, Story House.
He is the winner of the Journey Prize, and has been finalist or runner-up for six other major national fiction prizes in Canada, including the prestigious Giller Prize.
His work has also been chosen as the ‘One Book One City’ selection for Vancouver and named a finalist for Canada Reads.
Word around the campfire is that Timothy will be reading a new story from the forthcoming collection of short fiction published by Douglas and McIntyre.
Brad Cran
Brad Cran is a poet, essayist and photographer.
He has been a longtime contributing editor at Geist magazine and has twice curated the widely successful Poetry Bash at the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival.
Smoking Lung Press, which he founded in 1996, published dozens of emerging poets for the first time.
He was the editor of the anthologies Hammer & Tongs and (with Jan Zwicky) Why I Sing the Blues. His own collection of poetry, The Good Life (Nightwood Editions), was hailed by the Vancouver Sun in 2002 as the one book of poetry people should read that year.
In 2004, Cran received the Writing and Publishing commission at the Vancouver Arts Awards, and, in 2009, Cran and his wife Gillian Jerome were nominated for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize at the B.C. Book Prizes for their book Hope in Shadows: Stories and Photographs of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press), which also won the 2009 City of Vancouver Book Award and raised over $30,000 for the people of the Downtown Eastside.
He is the current poet laureate of Vancouver (2009 – 2011).
AND LET’S NOT FORGET OUR MASTERFUL CO-HOST, HAL WAKE:
Hal Wake (@halwake, @VIWF) is the Artistic Director of the Vancouver International Writers Festival (one of the book world’s best jobs).He also interviews writers on stage such as Alice Munro, Anne Michaels, Jonathan Safran Foer, Rohinton Mistry, Sharon Olds, Nicole Krauss and many more.
Check out this great video featuring the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series produced by our friends at W2 Community Media Arts.
Learn more about the amazing work that W2 Culture + Media House are doing by checking out their website: www.creativetechnology.org.
Thanks guys! Great job.
I think that it’s fair to say that the recent discussions & arguments of Vancouver poets and poetry qualifies as the Least Likely Cultural Debate expected to come out the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
What better time to showcase Vancouver poets and other writers? And what better stage than the independently Non-VANOC-related W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series?
Gonna be another great night!
Teresa McWhirter
Teresa McWirter.
Teresa McWhirter grew up in Kimberley, in the east Kootenays of interior BC. After finishing high school she spent a year in Europe and returned to attend the University of Victoria, where she received a BA with a double major in English and Creative Writing (with Distinction). She has taught English in Korea, spent time in Thailand and Costa Rica, and traveled extensively throughout Canada and the US.
Her first novel, Some Girls Do was published by Raincoast books (Vancouver: 2002)
After an assortment of jobs including driving an ice cream truck and as a monster in the haunted house of an amusement park, she published her second novel, Dirtbags (Anvil Press, Vancouver: 2007)
During the past few years Teresa has toured Europe and North America with punk rock bands, gathering material for her recently completed third novel, Five Little Bitches.
She lives on Vancouver’s east side.
Heather Susan Haley
Heather Haley.
Trailblazing poet, author, musician and media artist Heather Susan Haley pushes boundaries by creatively integrating disciplines, genres and media.
Published in numerous journals and anthologies, she was an editor for the LA Weekly, publisher of Rattler and the Edgewise Café, one of Canada’s first electronic literary magazines. Architect of the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre and the Vancouver Videopoem Festival, her own works have been official selections at dozens of international film festivals.
She is the host and curator of SEE THE VOICE: Visible Verse at Pacific Cinémathèque.
An engaging performer, Haley has shared her poetry and music with audiences around the world. Most recently she toured eastern Canada and the U.S. in support of her critically acclaimed AURAL Heather CD of spoken word songs, Princess Nut.
Heather’s most recent book, Three Blocks West of Wonderland, was recently published by Ekstasis Editions.
Nikki Reimer
Nikki Reimer
Nikki Reimer is a poet, blogger, curator, arts event planner and photographer of cats in East Vancouver.
Recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in W, WCL, Matrix, Front, Prism International, BafterC.
Her chapbook fist things first was published by Wrinkle Press in 2009, and her first book of poetry, [sic], will be published by Frontenac House in spring 2010.
Reimer lives in Vancouver where she is a member of the Kootenay School of Writing and a board member at W2 Community | Media | Arts.
Chris Hutchinson
Chris Hutchinson.
Chris Hutchinson was born in Montreal and has lived in Victoria, Edmonton, Vancouver and most recently Phoenix, Arizona.
He now lives in a really nice house in Kelowna.
His poems have been translated into Chinese and have appeared in numerous Canadian and U.S. publications.
He is the author of the poetry collection, Unfamiliar Weather (Muses’ Company, 2005).
Other People’s Lives is his second collection.
Chris was also the very first guest on the Books on the Radio program.
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Dina Del Bucchia
Dina Del Bucchia
Dina Del Bucchia used to totally sometimes works at Duthie Books and definitely at other times writes stuff.
Her work has appeared in some journals, like Matrix, and will appear in others, Event for instance.
A recent UBC MFA graduate she is working on her first novel.
Over the years she has hosted events and readings and has facilitated writing workshops for teens.
Don’t underestimate them.
She did not win the Mad Men contest, but probably spends as much time watching television as she does reading, and thinks it’s for the best.
Donato Mancini
Donato Mancini.
Donato Mancini has worked within the worlds of concrete poetry and visual art since 2000.
In 2005, his first volume of verse, Ligatures, explored his fascination with the typographical possibilities of the alphabet. It garnered an honourable mention in the Alcuin book design awards, was shortlisted for the ReLit, and was reviewed favourably by respected American writer Kevin Killian on Amazon.com.
Mancini continues to experiment in a variety of media. 911/7-Eleven is a chapbook, published by Victoria’s Open Space Gallery in 2004, that parodies corporate strategizing in a high-gloss format.
In 2004, Mancini’s “monument of concrete poetry,” ligature, was on show at the Western Front Gallery. In 2003, he sampled passerby’s conversations and displayed the results in the window at Artspeak, a gallery in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood where artists, the indigent and tourists on cruise-ship junkets coexist in uneasy proximity.
Mancini earned his BA in art history and music composition at the University of Victoria in 1999.
Donato also participated in Steve Calvert’s Angels in the Angles exhibition at the Atsui Gallery in late 2009.
Sonnet L’Abbé
Sonnet L'Abbé
Sonnet L’Abbé is a Canadian poet and critic. L’Abbé writes about national identity, race, environmental theory, the feminine, language acts, the body, psychology, aesthetics and art.
Born in Toronto, Ontario L’Abbé received a BFA in film and video from York University, and completed a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Guelph. She has been a script reader and has taught English at universities in South Korea and taught Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. She is also a regular reviewer for The Globe and Mail and Canadian Literature, and an occasional contributor to CBC Radio One. She is currently studying at the University of British Columbia.
Her work has appeared in a number of literary journals and several anthologies including Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets and Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets.
L’Abbé is multiracial; her father is Franco-Ontarian and her mother is Guyanese of South Asian mixed descent. Her father, Jason L’Abbé, is a well-known Canadian ceramic artist.
Jonathon Wilcke
Jonathon Wilcke
Plays alto/tenor saxophones & ludic instruments (a selection of whistles, tubes, reeds , & modified string instruments) in a variety of situations including but not limited to: strict compositions, free &/or structured improvisation, text-sound, vocal accompaniment & soundnoisemaking.
Jonathon is also the author of Pornograph, a book of poems published in 2004 by Red Deer Press.
His most recent book, DUPE, was published in October 2009 by LINEbooks.
Jonathon lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Amber Dawn
Amber Dawn.
Amber Dawn is a writer, filmmaker and performance artist based in Vancouver.
She is the editor of Fist of the Spider Woman (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008) and co-editor of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005).
Her award-winning, genderfuck docu-porn, “Girl on Girl,” has been screened in eight countries and added to the gender studies curriculum at Concordia University.
She has toured three times with the infamous Sex Workers’ Art Show in the US. She was voted Xtra! West’s Hero of the Year in 2008.
She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Currently, she is the director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
Catherine Owen.
Catherine Owen
Catherine Owen is the author of 4 previous volumes of poetry, and her work has appeared in periodicals throughout Canada, Austria, New Zealand, and Australia.
Catherine’s books and poems have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Gerald Lampert Award, BC Book Prize, Relit Award, George Ryga Award for Socially Conscious Literature, and The Earle Birney Prize.
She has a Master’s degree in English and plays bass/sings in the metal bands Inhuman and Helgrind.
She collaborates with a variety of artists in various mediums such as photography, multi-media, theatre and visual arts.
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Meredith Quartermain
Meredith Quartermain’s Vancouver Walking won the BC Book Award for Poetry in 2006, and Nightmarker was a finalist for the 2009 Vancouver Book Award.
Matter, which came out in 2008, has been described as “prescient, daring.”
Her work has appeared in magazines across Canada including The Walrus, Canadian Literature, the Literary Review of Canada, Matrix, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, filling Station, Prism International, and other magazines.
She taught English Literature and Composition at UBC and Capilano College, and has enjoyed leading workshops at the Naropa Summer Writing Program and the Kootenay School of Writing.
In 2002, she and husband Peter Quartermain founded Nomados Literary Publishers, through which they’ve published more than 30 books of innovative writing.
Lee Henderson
Lee Henderson.
Lee Henderson is the author of the award-winning short story collection The Broken Record Technique (2002).
He is a contributing editor to the arts magazines Border Crossings in Canada and Contemporary in the UK.
He has published fiction and art criticism in numerous periodicals and co-organizes Father Zosima Presents, a monthly night of sound performances where he lives in Vancouver, B.C.
Lee’s most recent novel, The Man Game, won the 2009 Vancouver Book Award.
I cut this bio from the Penguin Books website and can not at this time confirm its veracity.
However, let’s assume that it’s basically correct.
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AND, LET’S NOT FORGET THE MC FOR THE EVENING
Elizabeth Bachinsky
Elizabeth Bachinsky.
Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of three collections of poetry, Curio (BookThug, 2005), Home of Sudden Service (Nightwood, 2006), and God of Missed Connections (Nightwood, 2009).
Her work was nominated for the Kobzar Literary Award in 2009, the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2006 and the Bronwen Wallace Award in 2004, and has appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and on film in Canada, the United States, France, Ireland, England, and China.
She is an instructor of creative writing at Douglas College in New Westminster where she is Poetry Editor for Event magazine.
Calling All Agents!! Poets & other Writers at the W2 Culture + Media House. Photo by Dan Fairchild.
Poets & other writers invade the W2 Culture + Media House this Wednesday night!
Get there early if you want a seat cuz it was Standing Room Only last week.
Doors open at 7pm & there’s a $5 cover charge. Great prizes again this week and an amazing line-up.
Check it:
Hosted by Elizabeth Bachinsky
Teresa McWhirter, Lee Henderson, Heather Susan Haley, Nikki Reimer, Chris Hutchinson, Dina Del Bucchia, Amber Dawn, Donato Mancini, Sonnet L’Abbe, Jonathon Wilcke, Catherine Owen, Meredith Quartermain.
Shane Koyczan opening for the Rheostatics at Richards on Richards! Photo by Michelle Mayne.
That was completely outstanding!
Shane Koyczan, a poet, provided a truly galvanizing, inspiring moment during the Opening Ceremonies for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
I was utterly blown away. I could not believe what I was seeing.
But there he was, kicking rhymes on the biggest stage in the world.
I’ve seen Shane knock crowds dead in a bunch of different venues. I have watched him blow the doors off people’s expectations a tonne of times.
But what happened last night… that was some next level shit!
Congratulations to Shane! What an amazing performance.
The video has been posted on YouTube. Check it out below.
Full text for the poem We Are More is printed below.
The View from the Mezzanine During the First Break. Photo by kc dyer.
If week one of the RVWS was a loud knock at the door then week two kicked the door clear off its hinges.
I’m going to write a more detailed recap of the event in the next day or so but for now you can check out the archived LiveStream of the entire night and/or check out Real Vancouver Writer kc dyer’s blog about the night.
Some stats:
Levels of Technology. Photo: kc dyer.
12 Writers.
120 fans at the peak of the night and 73 at the end of it all. At one point they filled every chair and stood along the walls.
4 stationary cameras live streamed the event.
1 mobile camera roamed the room.
1 audio/video tech mixed the entire thing from the mezzanine.
Many books were sold.
Wine and beer were served.
Several raucous ovations could be heard four floors above us.
All of this… and only 1 story about horse semen.
Go figure.
My peeps at Raincoast totally rule (even if Dan Wagstaff is printing Fuck You, Cranbury! T-Shirts) and they’ve donated lots of books and goodies to give away tonight.
This is just a sampling.
AND… for everyone who wants to study Writing and Publishing at SFU…
And there’s more…
With all of our mullet fluffing finally completed after a very successful Week One at the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series it’s time to turn our attention to the amazingness of Week Two.
Here is the roster of writers for Wednesday, February 10th. 7pm start time at the W2 Culture + Media House at 112 West Hastings Street.
$5 at the door.
Charlie Appeals for Calm.
Charles Demers (with Emmanuel Buenviaje)
Charles Demers was born and raised in Vancouver.
He is an activist and comedian, a regular performer on CBC Radio One’s The Debaters, and was, co-host of Citytv’s comedic panel show The Citynews List in Vancouver.
In 2005, he was the judges’ choice for Vancouver’s funniest new comic; since then he has been featured on national radio, in print, as well as in festivals and live venues across Canada and the Pacific Northwest and with Paul Bae as the sketch duo “Bucket”―the act Robin Williams called “the future of comedy.”
His first novel, The Prescription Errors, was published in fall 2009 by Insomniac Press.
Charlie and Emmanuel will be taking the audience through a visual tour of their book, Vancouver Special, via slides and anecdotes.
Jenn Farrell
Jenn: In Situ.
Jenn Farrell is a two-time winner of the Vancouver Courier fiction contest, recipient of the 2002 Maclean-Hunter Endowment Prize for non-fiction, and a contributor to CBC radio.
The Devil You Know by Jenn Farrell is an arresting volume of short fiction dealing with the familiar, yet ever-engrossing, territories of sex, love, work, birth, and death.
Her previous collection of stories, Sugar Bush and other Stories, was published by Anvil Press in 2006.
Her stories have previously appeared in Prism and subTerrain magazine. Also a prolific columnist, commentator, and reporter, Ms. Farrell has written for Alive, Canada’s Healthy Living Guide, Raven’s Eye, and West Coast Editor.
Born and raised in the “Golden Horseshoe” of Ontario, she now lives in Vancouver, where she works as a freelance writer and editor.
Chris Walter
Awaiting Editorial Comments.
Vancouver writer Chris Walter is one of Vancouver’s best examples of the DIY aesthetic. He has self-published each of his books with the help of editors and designers and continues to reprint many of his older books to a growing audience.
His recent book, Punch the Boss, was launched at the legendary Cobalt in Vancouver’s DTES. Some of his other books like Welfare Wednesday, East Van are classics everywhere from Winnipeg to Vancouver.
His stories range from the squeegee kids of Boozecan to his own personal history as a drug addict in I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk and I’m On the Guest List.
Walter reads excerpts at his book launches and punk rock shows. His 6′ tattooed frame is an unlikely look for someone who crafts hilarious and poignant stories through his own publishing company, Gofuckyerself Press.
I am ridiculously happy to announce Chris’ inclusion in this program.
Jen Sookfong Lee
Jen Sookfong Lee.
Jen Sookfong Lee wrote her first short story at the age of 10, a horror tale featuring a witch, a scrappy little girl and a casserole dish. She hasn’t stopped writing since.
Her first novel, The End of East (Vintage Canada and Thomas Dunne Books), explores themes of isolation, immigration, romance and sanity through the eyes of its narrator, Sammy Chan, a Chinese Canadian woman in her early 20s, and through the experiences of her parents and grandparents.
The End of East is a novel with poetry at its heart, mixing character study, history, place and sexuality for a story that is both edgy and evocative.
Jen, like more than a few of us here at the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, spent some time working for Duthie Books.
We’re proud to be able showcase some of the talented people who were a part of the powerful legacy of the recently closed Duthie Books.
Jen is currently working on her second novel.
Shay Wilson
Shay Chills Between Shots.
Shay Wilson has the attention span of a gnat who’s been on speed for two days and the boredom threshold of a four year old who ate Skittles for breakfast.
She has worked in the film biz in various capacities, which means she’s done everything from rigging a squid tentacle to a sink, to driving to sets in the middle of nowhere on two hours sleep and partying at film festivals around the world while conducting international business. Apparently.
She can often be found knitting, blogging at The Ongoing Project, producing documentaries, painting, and working on her UBC Creative Writing MFA thesis simultaneously.
She went to film school, holds a B.A. in English Literature, and when she grows up she wants to be the Coen Brothers crossed with Nathanael West.
Ian Weir
Ian Weir.
Ian Weir is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright and novelist.
He is the writer and executive producer of the acclaimed crime thriller Dragon Boys, a CBC miniseries that first aired in 2007. He was also creator and executive producer of the long-running CBC teen drama Edgemont. Other TV credits include more than 100 episodes for over 20 series, including Flashpoint, Cold Squad and Beachcombers.
Weir’s stage plays have been produced across Canada and in the U.S. and England. Other credits include nine radio plays and three young adult novels.
Ian’s first novel, Daniel O’Thunder, was chosen as a 2009 Book That Matters by the Quill & Quire and an Amazon Top 100 Book of 2009.
Described as a rollicking, comic and ultimately haunting tale of fist-fighting, faith and fine madness, it was published in October by Douglas & McIntyre.
Larissa Lai
Larissa Lai.
Larissa Lai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at The University of British Columbia. She holds a PhD from the University of Calgary.
Her first novel, When Fox Is a Thousand (Press Gang 1995) was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award.
Her second novel, Salt Fish Girl (Thomas Allen Publishers 2002) was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award, the Tiptree Award and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Award.
In 2004, West Coast Line published a special issue focussed on her work. She has been the Markin-Flanagan Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary (1997-8), and Writer-in-Residence in the English Department at Simon Fraser University (2006). sybil unrest, her collaborative long poem with Rita Wong, was published by Line Books in 2009.
Eggs in the Basement, a long poem based on a vocabulary exhaustion exercise, surprised its writer by telling the story of Moses and Monotheism.
It was published by Nomados, also in 2009. Lai’s first solo full-length poetry book, Automaton Biographies, has just been released by Arsenal Pulp Press.
Anne Stone
Anne Stone.
Anne Stone is a Vancouver-based teacher, editor, and novelist.
She is senior editor at Matrix Magazine and, as of fall 2007, holds a fiction imprint at Insomniac Press.
She is the author of three novels: jacks, Hush, and, most recently, Delible. Chosen as one of thirty-five “Books of the Year” for the Globe and Mail, Delible tells the story of Melora Sprague, a 15-year-old girl whose sister is missing.
The novel offers a glimpse into a sustained experience of uncertainty and, in so doing, explores how our identities exist in those traces we leave behind.
Jane Sayers
Jane Sayers.
Jane is a recent graduate of SFU’s Writer’s Studio and a newly ex-employee of Duthie Books.
She has published mostly non-fiction, mostly in Australia, and is now trying her hand at fiction.
I met Jane at the BC Bookseller Association’s conference last summer and immediately recognized her passion and dedication to books and to making it easy for customers and booksellers to find one another.
I look forward to walking into a bookstore one day to buy Jane’s first book.
Kevin Chong
Kevin Chong + Various Meats.
Kevin Chong spent his adolescence noodling on the guitar, playing in garage bands, and listening to a lot of Neil Young.
He turned that passion into a book published by Douglas and McIntyre called Neil Young Nation.
He studied at the University of British Columbia and Columbia University, where he received an MFA in writing.
His first novel, Baroque-a-Nova, was published in Canada, the U.S., and France. He lives in
Vancouver, British Columbia where he is an avid curler. As in the Olympic sport.
He and fellow Real Vancouver Writer, Lee Henderson, just returned from a mysterious junket in Texas that apparently involved a lot of bbq chicken.
Peter Darbyshire
Peter Darbyshire
Peter a writer and media type currently living in Vancouver, B.C.
His novel Please won the K.M. Hunter Award for Best Emerging Artist and Canada’s ReLit Award for Best Novel, and was featured on CTV.
His new novel, The Warhol Gang, is forthcoming from HarperCollins in spring 2010.
It was a Full & Enthusiastic House for Week 1 of the W2 Real Vancouver Writers' Series.
Well that was a lot of fun!
Week one of the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series was a huge success. The room full of people that made it down to the W2 Culture + Media House on opening night witnessed some truly inspired readings and performances by incredible Vancouver writers.
Beverages, art, djs & great writers.
Richard Van Camp kicked the whole Series off by officially welcoming us to the Coast Salish Territory.
He told us about some techniques for summoning the Northern Lights to come down out of the sky and tickle our hair and then he told us a few tricks for sending the Northern Lights away again. Something about old dog chains and telling your mother that you love her.
Great stuff.
Richard also read from his excellent novel the Lesser Blessed and the collection of stories, Moon of Letting Go. The excerpt from the Moon of Letting Go was amazing.
The phrase “Fluff the Mullet!” pretty much embodies the spirit of the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series.
Can’t wait to get the video of his performance edited and online so that people all over the place can witness Richard’s charm and brilliance as a writer.
Next up was a showcase for the the excellent new book, Visions of British Columbia, published by our generous sponsor, Douglas and McIntyre.
The showcase took the form of a panel discussion between Vancouver Art Gallery’s Senior Curator Bruce Grenville, Assistant Curator Emmy Lee, and editor of Visions of British Columbia Scott Steedman. It was hosted by John Burns.
Emily Carr. Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky, 1935.
John Burns is a total pro and did a great job of keeping the conversation fun and informative.
It was fascinating to hear how the book was created and how some pieces were added and how others were left on the proverbial cutting room floor.
There was one great moment where John essentially asked them all, “So… what do you actually do all day?”
Cue furtive sideways glances, chin scratching and shuffling feet.
Apparently, a lot of paper work. And administrative stuff like filing and photocopying. Answering phones.
Visions of British Columbia is a great book that combines amazing visual art from the archives at the VAG with writing by some of BC’s best writers of yesterday and today.
Here’s a link to a review of the VAG exhibition from the Globe & Mail.
A perfect book for the environment we were in. Surrounded by great writers and Jer Crowle’s excellent solo exhibiton, (t)Here in Spirit.
After a break we got back to the action with one of Vancouver’s best examples of the DIY aesthetic.
Rob Chaplin writes, draws, designs, publishes and hustles his books all by himself when he’s not creating sterling silver brussel sprouts or diamond encrusted hockey pucks that look like the night sky.
Brussels Sprouts & Unicorns. Robert Chaplin.
His rhymes and drawings are hilarious. He entertained everyone with stories from his newest book Brussel Sprouts and Unicorns which contains, as Rob will no doubt inform you, testimonial evidence of brussel sprouts and proof of the existence of unicorns.
His reading of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and Their Insurance Settlement was awesome.
From there, rookie writer and itinerant horticulturalist, Buck Buchwald cut his teeth reading in front of a crowd for the first time in a long time.
He read from an unpublished novel as well as a piece from his online collaborative writing project, Eyes of Vancouver.
Both he and Kevin Spenst showed the room what amazing upcoming literary talent exists in Vancouver and how rich the future the future of poetry and storytelling is in this city.
Jennica Harper is one of the current generation of young poets in the city with a genuine, delicate and enduring voice. And she’s funny. And some of her poems are about sex and blue jeans.
OK. Most, not just some, of her poems are about these things.
She was excellent.
Cathleen With stopped the show cold in its tracks with a reading of a story from her first collection of stories, Skids. It’s my favorite story in the book
A truly passionate reading, Cathleen had the whole room in the palm of her hand.
Brendan McLeod, winner of the 2006 3-Day Novel Writing Contest in 2006 for The Convictions of Leonard McKinley, closed the show with a few great pieces in the performance poet/spoken word vein.
One hilarious piece on the sublime power of the Governor General and the Art of the Modern Prorogue and another on life when your parents are more interested in your significant other than they are with you.
He even lead the crowd in a sing-along during his finale.
A sing-along at a literary event? In Vancouver?
Are you fracking crazy?
No. No, I’m not.
See you all on Wednesday February 10th for Charles Demers, Jenn Farrell, Chris Walter, Kevin Chong, Jen Sookfong Lee and many, many more!
For those of you who wonder what the W2 Culture + Media House looks like here’s a quick video by Kris Krug.
The W2 C+MH is located at 112 West Hastings Street between Abbot and Cambie, right across the street from the recently renovated Woodwards Building.
You can recognize the W2 C+MH during the evening hours by the video installation that’s displayed on the windows of its upper 3 floors.
The installation, displayed in the video above, was created by Montreal artist Isabelle Hayeur and is titled ‘Fire with Fire‘. It’s a part of the Cultural Olympiad and it’s pretty amazing.
“Both fire and flood is memory. Its spark and breach so ordinary, we do not question it… The atom split. The little thing.”
Lynda Barry, What it is, Drawn and Quarterly, 2008.
