Paper Shell  (Volume 5) The annual anthology of Creative Writing at UBCO,  Paper Shell  (Volume 5), will have its launch party and reading on Thursday, March 18th. It’ll be 7 pm in the Fipke Theatre.  Paper Shell will be for sale for $10—the authors (first year to graduate students) will be reading.  It’ll be a fun evening. All welcome.

Laisha Rosnau Thursday, March 4 - 7 PM Downtown Kelowna Branch, Okanagan Regional Library (1380 ellis St.)

Laisha Rosnau is an award-winning poet and novelist. Her second collection of poetry, Lousy Explorers was just released and her first, Notes on Leaving won the Acorn-Plantos Poetry Award in 2005. Her novel, The Sudden Weight of Snow, was an honourable mention for the Amazon/Books in Canada FirstNovel Award.  Born in Montreal, Laisha moved to Vernon as a girl. Laisha has recently moved back to Vernon with her family.  The winners of the Okanagan Short Story Contest will be announced at this reading.

Freedom To Read Week Reading! Lee Henderson Thursday, February 25 - 4 PM UBC O Arts 106 Lee Henderson is the author of two award-winning books, The Broken Record Technique, a collection of stories, and The Man Game, a novel, both published by Penguin Canada. He is a contributing editor to Border Crossings magazine, and has published fiction in numerous periodicals including The Walrus, Vancouver Review, Hobart, Pyramid Power, and The Journey Prize Anthology.

Michael MacLennan Wednesday, February 10

Panel: UBCO Arts 106 - 12 noon

Ends Meet: earning your living as an artist, w/ Michael MacLennan, Dave Deveau & Cameron Mackenzie, Playwright and screenwriter Michael MacLennan joins writer/actor Dave Deveau and director/performer Cameron Mackenzie to discuss tips, perils and triumphs of earning a living as an artist. Free!

Public Reading: UBCO Arts 218 - 7 PM

Michael MacLennan divides his time between Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles.  His plays have been produced throughout Canada, Europe, and the US.  His books include Beat The Sunset, Grace, The Shooting Stage, Last Romantics, Life After God and The Good Egg.  He has won a Jessie, two Voaden Prizes, Theatrum National Playwriting Award and was twice nominated for the Governor General’s.  He has been nominated for five WGC Screenwriting Awards.  He was co-executive producer of Queer As Folk, creator/executive producer of Godiva’s and Jpod, and consulting producer on Being Erica.

Matt Rader

Gillian Wigmore

Thursday, January 14 - 6 pm,  UBC Okanagan Arts 106 -  Matt Rader and Gillian Wigmore

Gillian Wigmore grew up in Vanderhoof, BC, and currently lives in Prince George. Her first book soft geography was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry prize and won the Relit Poetry Award in 2008. Recently, she has been shortlisted for both the Malahat long poem prize and the Great BC Novella contest.  

Matt Rader is the author of two collections of poetry, Miraculous Hours (Nightwood 2005) and Living Things (Nightwood 2008). Published in magazines, journals, and anthologies around the globe, Rader's poems and stories have been nominated for numerous awards including The National Magazine Award, The Pushcart Prize, The Gerald Lampert Award, and The Journey Prize. He teaches creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, in British Columbia's Lower Mainland.

Barry McKinnon Thursday, October 29, 4:30pm ART 103 Free admission.

Barry McKinnon grew up in Calgary, Alberta, and studied at Sir George Williams University in Montreal, taking poetry courses with Irving Layton. In 1969, he graduated with an M.A. From University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and was hired that same year to teach English at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George where he has lived and worked ever since. Barry McKinnon’s The the was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1980. Pulp Log was winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award for the B.C. Book Prizes in 1991 and Arrhythmia was the winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award for the best chapbook published in Canada in English in 1994.

We thank our sponsors for their generous support:   Writers Union of Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, UBC Okanagan Bookstore, The Department of Creative Studies, and The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

STAN PERSKY: “THE CONDITIONS OF WRITING IN 2010” A READING AND TALK MONDAY OCTOBER 19TH 2:00 – 3:30 PM ARTS 103 FREE ADMISSION

Stan Persky will give a talk on the conditions of writing in 2010.  He asks what we should write in an era in which books have become a form of “Secret Knowledge,” a secret unknown to general readerships already inundated by too much information.  If what we want is knowledge and understanding rather than mere information and trivia, and if the best repository of knowledge and understanding is in books and the activity of book-reading (irrespective of the form of books, whether printed codex or e-versions), why is it that book reading is declining, especially among young people?  As prospective writers, how should we respond, both individually and in terms of possible readers, to the prospect of increasingly isolated readerships?

Stan Persky teaches philosophy at Capilano University in North Vancouver, B.C., including courses in philosophy and literature, aesthetics, and philosophy and culture. He's the author of Buddy's: Meditations on Desire (1991), Then We Take Berlin: Stories from the Other Side of Europe (1995), The Short Version: An ABC Book (2005), and Topic Sentence: A Writer's Education (2007). He's worked as a book columnist for the Globe and Mail, and the Vancouver Sun, and currently writes for http://www.dooneyscafe.com/ . His current work-in-process is Reading the 21st Century: Books of the Decade, 2000-2010 (forthcoming, 2010).

For further information contact Sharon Thesen (Sharon.thesen@ubc.ca), 250-807-9417.

Wendy Morton has published five books of poetry, most recently What Were Their Dreams: Valleys of Hope and Pain. Canada's History, a book of photo/poems based on historical photographs of the Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island.  Her other books include Undercover, Private Eye, Shadowcatcher, and Gumshoe. She lives in Victoria BC and she has been an insurance investigator for 27 years. Her memoir, 6 Impossible Things Before Breakfast was published in 2006.  She is the force behind the national phenomenon, Random Acts of Poetry. Event is sponsored by FCCS, Creative Studies and the UBCO Bookstore.

Photo by Don Hall	Photo by Don Hall

Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky as part of the Minds & Music Series.
The event is titled Polyphony: a two-voiced poetry reading and talk
Tuesday Sept 29, 12:30-1:50pm, ART 103.  Free admission.

Robert Bringhurst is a poet, typographer, translator, and cultural historian. As a translator and literary critic, he has shown that the indigenous oral literatures of North America include some of the world’s greatest literary traditions. As an art historian, he has worked for years to show that the history of letterforms is an integral part of the history of art, and that art history in turn is part and parcel of the history of nature. His poems speak with equal fluency and tenderness the languages of science and the languages of the heart.  Over the past thirty-five years, Bringhurst has written more than thirty books. His groundbreaking study of a Native American oral literature, A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World (1999) unleashed a storm of controversy and a tidal wave of praise. Reviewing his work for the London Times, Margaret Atwood writes that “Bringhurst’s achievement is gigantic, as well as heroic. It’s one of those works that rearranges the inside of your head – a profound meditation on the nature of oral poetry and myth, and on the habits of thought and feeling that inform them.” Bringhurst’s recent books of poetry include New World Suite No. 3 (2005) – a work for three simultaneous voices – and Ursa Major (2nd ed., 2009), in which six voices tell simultaneous stories in English, Latin, Greek and Cree.

Jan Zwicky is a Canadian philosopher and poet, who has taught both subjects as well as interdisciplinary humanities at a number of North American universities. She has served as a faculty member at the Banff Centre Writing Studio, has conducted numerous writing workshops, and edits regularly for Brick Books. In 1999, she won the Governor General's Award for poetry.  Zwicky is an eco-political and anti-colonial thinker, comparable to fellow Canadian poets Tim Lilburn and Don McKay, who promotes the fundamental unity of ontology and ethics by laying emphasis on the act of attention. Her poetry, which is featured in a number of anthologies, deals frequently with music, as well as the natural world and is often cited for its intense lyricism. It has been translated into Czech, French, German, Serbian, and Spanish.  Zwicky has deep roots on the Northwestern Great Plains, but now makes her home on the west coast. This fall, Gaspereau Press will release Plato as Artist, and in 2010 will publish a new edition of Lyric Philosophy.

2008 - 2009

A Special Reading to End this Year’s Series! Two local writers and one from way across the country!
Please join us for this last reading of the season!

Wed. April 8st, 7:30 PM Brian Bartlett, Catherine Mamo and Alix Hawley will read together.
At the Downtown Kelowna Branch of the Okanagan Regional Library, 1380 Ellis St.! All
welcome! Free Admission!

Bartlett has published five collections of poems, most recently The Watchmaker’s Table, as well as
Wanting the Day: Selected Poems. He teaches at St. Mary’s University in Halifax. Hawley completed
a Doctor of Philosophy degree at Oxford University. She also received an M.A. in Creative Writing at
the University of East Anglia. Her first book, The Old Familiar, was published in 2008. She teaches at
Okanagan College and lives in Kelowna. Mamo is a mom, writer, and part-time librarian, living in
Peachland. She holds an MFA in creative Writing from UBC and has had poems published in numerous
literary magazines. Paperwhite, published by Thistledown, is her first book.

The reading is supported by The Department of Creative Studies at UBC Okanagan, The Canada
Council for the Arts, The UBCO Bookstore, The Okanagan Institute, The Okanagan Regional Library,
and the League of Canadian Poets.

Please contact Nancy Holmes at 250-807-9369 for more information.

Sheri-D Wilson Wed, Feb.25, 7:30pm, SSC 026 Free Admission, All Welcome! Reading sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts, The Department of Creative Studies at UBCO, and the Okanagan Institute.

Sheri-D Wilson, poet, playwright, performer, has seven collections poetry. Her most recent Autopsy
of a Turvy World was launched in 2008.  Re:Zoom (Frontenac House) her sixth collection won the 2006
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry.  She has published video poems and audio recordings (See
link below for a taste!) and performed in festivals across North America, Europe and Africa. She is Artistic
Director of The Calgary International Spoken Word Festival and Director of The Spoken Word Program at
The Banff Centre. 

Click here to watch "Spinsters Hanging in Trees" video.

Sheri Benning grew up on a small farm in central Saskatchewan. Her second book of poetry, Thin Moon Psalm (Brick Books, 2007) won the Saskatchewan Book Award’s Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award and The City of Saskatoon Book Award. Her first book of poetry, Earth After Rain (Thistledown Press, 2001) also won two Saskatchewan Book Awards – the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award and the Brenda Riches MacDonald First Book Award. Benning is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta and a Research Fellow in the University of Glasgow's creative writing programme. UBC Okanagan - Arts 103 Wednesday, September 10 - 4:30pm Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Open Mic! Calling all poets! Join UBC Okanagan poet Nancy Holmes for a night of Random Acts of Poetry. Bring poems you’ve written or poems you like. Everyone is welcome to read in support of literacy programs in our community. Book prizes for poems about reading and writing! Downtown Kelowna Branch Okanagan Regional Library 1380 Ellis Street Wednesday, October 1 - 7:30pm to 9:00pm Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Victoria READ Society and Project Literacy Kelowna Society.

Russell Thornton is a North Vancouver, B.C. poet who has won several awards, including first prize in the League of Canadian Poets National Contest (2000). His  poems have appeared in several anthologies, most recently, Rocksalt (2008) and Open Wide a Wilderness (2008). He is featured in the collection of talks between Canadian poets, Where the Words Come From (2002). His books are The Fifth Window (2000), A Tunisian Notebook (2002), House Built of Rain (2003) and The Human Shore (2006). Downtown Kelowna Branch Okanagan Regional Library 1380 Ellis Street Wednesday, October 22 - 7:30pm to 9:00pm Supported by The Canada Council for the Arts.

Jen Sookfong Lee’s first novel, The End of East (2007), spans almost the entire 20th century and delves into the underside of Chinese Canadian history through the eyes of the Chan family. An energetic and engaged stage presence, Jen has spoken at literary festivals, universities and high schools across North America and was the first debut novelist to be featured on CBC's Studio One Book Club. A founding member of the writing group SPiN, Jen edits two online magazines, Wet Ink and Schema, and is currently working on her second novel. Downtown Kelowna Branch Okanagan Regional Library 1380 Ellis Street Wednesday, November 5 - 7:30pm to 9:00pm Sponsored by the Writers Union of Canada and The Canada Council for the Arts. Jen Sookfong Lee's website.

Colleen Murphy’s play The December Man won the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, the 2008 Canadian Authors Association/Carol Bolt Award for Drama and the 2006 Enbridge playrites Award. Other plays include Beating Heart Cadaver, The Piper, Down in Adoration Falling and All Other Destinations are Cancelled. She is also an award winning filmmaker and her films have played in festivals around the world. They include Putty Worm (93), The Feeler (95), Shoemaker (96), Desire (00), War Holes (02), Girl with Dog (05) and Out In The Cold (08). She is currently Playwright in Residence for Tapestry New Opera Works in Toronto. UBC Okanagan - SSC 026 Wednesday, November 19 - 7:30pm to 9:00pm Supported by The Canada Council for the Arts. Colleen Murphy's website.