The Grapevine - UBC Creative Writing News

MFA Alumni Rob Weston’s Zorgamazoo won the 2010 Silver Birch Award for Fiction. Congrats Rob!

XS-NRG Documentary Screening
Four ultra-marathon runners attempt to conquer the 180 km Sunshine Coast Trail, non-stop. Produced by Creative Writing MFA Shay Wilson.
 
Event Details:
Vancouver Screening: Saturday May 1, 6:00 pm to 7:00pm, with Q&A to follow and prizes to be won!
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Auditorium, 1100 Chestnut Street.
Tickets $15 in advance from www.xsnrg.tv. They will also be available at the door, but we recommend advance purchase to avoid disappointment!

For more info email shayjwilson@gmail.com

Fraser Bear tells the story of the first two years in the life of a bear cub living at the foot of Mount Robson,
the tallest of the Rockies, and the story of the chinook salmon who spawn there, in the headwaters of the Fraser
River. It is illustrated by Renne Benoit, who also illustrated Tale of a Great White Fish: a Sturgeon Story.

Come to the book launch on Thursday, May 6 at 7pm at Kidsbooks, 3083 West Broadway,
It will be mostly a mingling kind of event, with food and drink and just a few words
from the author. A celebration!

Come to the intimate living room at Historic Joy Kogawa House for a fascinating series of salon gatherings with writers who call for social change through their literature.

Anosh Irani Sunday May 2, 3:30 pm

Stephen Galloway Monday May 17, 7:30 pm

Karen Connelly Monday June 21, 7:30 pm

Nancy Lee, Monday June 28, 7:30 pm

Joy Kogawa House is located at 1450 West 64th Avenue (2 blocks east of Granville).
http://www.kogawahouse.com/

Readings by Camille T. Dungy, Marguerite Pigeon, Ray Hsu, Mary Cornish and David Zieroth.

Event Details:

May 4, 2010, 7-9 PM

W2 Storyeum, 151 W Cordova, Vancouver

The three young finalists are in the running for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, which celebrates up-and-coming authors under the age of 35. The prize alternates each year between short fiction and poetry.

Claire Tacon, a 30-year-old from Guelph, Ont., for Dumb Dog, which the jury called “a finely honed examination of a man avoiding his own emotional interior while helping others remove the toxins hidden in their houses.”

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2010/04/21/prize-bronwen-wallace-finalists.html#ixzz0lrFUFw4t

George McWhirter reads from his translation of Solar Poems

“For many years, I have admired the writing of one of Mexico’s great poets, Homero Aridjis. One evening in San Francisco, after a delightful dinner with him and his wife, Betty, Aridjis spoke briefly about his “poemas solares.” I was enticed by what he said, and asked to see them. After reading this amazing collection, I wanted at once to publish the book in English in order to make these luminous poems available to English-speaking readers. Conjoined in his work are small everyday miracles and the revelatory insight of dream and transcendent vision. Aridjis is a close observer of the world and of the human heart. I hope many readers will share my delight in these wonderful poems, beautifully translated by George McWhirter.”
—Nancy J. Peters
We hope you can join us

Thursday, April 15th, 7:00 pm
Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Robson Reading Series (UBC Robson Square Bookstore)

Please join authors Sheila James (author of In the Wake of Loss, Ronsdale Press) and Larissa Lai (author of Automaton Biographies, Arsenal Pulp Press) for the Vancouver launch of In the Wake of Loss. Itíll be at the Wired Monk (corner of 4th and Trafalgar) on April 13th from 7:30 pm. Entry is free.

Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! It’s the last Locution of the year on April 15th, and one of your hosts may have gone a bit overboard (har!) because she is INSISTING that it have a salty pirate flavour. You know this means terrible punning and doorprizery. Come one, come all to the ship of books on Main at 7 p.m. Strap on an eye patch and hobble over to a chair whilst Adam Teeling keelhauls you with his wit, Anna Maxymiw splits your skull with the beauty of her words, Gabrielle Pope makes you walk the plank of her awesomeness, and Bill Radford dances a fiendish literary jig on your very SOUL.
Our featured readers will be your hosts, the buccaneers Michelle Wright and Margret Bollerup. They’re howling into the wind about how you could wear an eye patch but no one will judge you if you don’t.
 
Event Details:
April 15 @ 7PM
Pulpfiction Books, 2422 Main Street, Vancouver
 
Hope to see you there!

UBC Creative Writing Opt Res Instructor Karen Solie’s Pigeon (House of Anansi Press) has been nominated for the Griffin Poetry prize, worth 100,000.
 
The shortlist was also a pleasant surprise for House of Anansi Press, which published last year’s winning book, A.F. Moritz’s The Sentinel. Ken Babstock, Anansi’s poetry editor who was shortlisted in 2007, says he’s very happy for Solie, a Saskatchewan native whose third book of poetry the judges described as “powerful, philosophical, intelligent, especially adept at pulling great wisdom from the ordinary.” Says Babstock: “Being a poet myself, I just know it’s a great thing for the book, the poet, and the reading public.”
 
Congrats Karen!