One of the pleasures of teaching my annual workshop on Denman Island is the surprise of new roadside installations. The one pictured here is at the “golf course” which doubles as a sheep pasture. Wildlife abounded. I particularly enjoyed visiting a stare of Barred Owls on my evening walks. (Look carefully at the picture and you’ll see three owls.) Thanks as always to the organizing committee of this charming festival and to my hard-working participants.
On May 6th, 2019, I received a Heritage Award of Honour from the City of Vancouver. From the citation: “This award recognizes her leadership in illustrating, informing, influencing, and educating the public of issues around the loss of neighbourhood heritage character and community cohesiveness as it contributes to advocacy.” While I am gratified to be recognized for this work, I would have preferred effective policy. Nonetheless, I thank my co-contributors on the book: Kerry Gold, John Atkin, Elise & Stephen Partridge, John Mackie, Eve Lazarus, Evelyn Lau, Bren Simmers, Michael Kluckner and Tracey Ayton.
Click here to see the full list of award recipients.
Click here to read more about Vancouver Vanishes, the book.
Click here for the Facebook page.
I’m so pleased to be hosting some of the Shoe Project writers at Growing Room 2019. Come and hear women from Syria, Kurdistan, Bangladesh, Tibet and Eritrea speak about their experiences that brought them to Canada. Thursday 14 March at 7:30 pm. Click here for details.
A quarter century after it was first published, Bad Imaginings is back. A huge thanks for Biblioasis for republishing it, my first book. Click here for more information.
It is an honour to be included in this nearly 700-page love letter to the short story by the venerable author and critic, John Metcalf. More than half the book is dedicated to his “century list”— the collections of Canadian short stories he deems worthy to be read into the next century. Read more about The Canadian Short Story here.
I’m thrilled to announce the 2019 faculty of the Writing Studio at the Banff Centre: Kevin Chong, Eden Robinson, Michelle de Kretser, Bill Gaston, Aisha Sasha John and Eduardo C. Corral join me and Associate Directors Shyam Selvadurai and Karen Solie. APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN!
So fun to take part in CBC Books’ Q&A where I answer 8 probing questions from 8 Canadian authors. Read it here.
The Vancouver cohort of the Shoe Project will be performing their at the Museum of Vancouver. It was an honour to be the writing coach for this amazing group of women from Syria, Tibet, Eritrea, Colombia, Somalia, Indonesia, Iraq, Bangladesh, and El Salvador.
Date: Friday, June 22
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Admission: $14 Early Bird, $19 General Admission, Free to MOV Members & individuals who self-identify as Indigenous
**Early Bird ticket sales end June 21st at 5pm.
Click here for tickets and more information.
A huge thanks to the amazing faculty — Karen Solie, Shyam Selvadurai, Kathy Page, Pasha Malla, Yasuko Thanh, Hoa Nguen, David O’Meara and Romesh Gunesekera — and the wonderful participants of the 2018 Writing Studio at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Planning has already started for the 2019 Studio. Stay tuned!
I feel incredibly fortunate to have been involved in The Shoe Project, a writing and performance program for immigrant and refugee women. Over the last ten-weeks I’ve been guiding this group of women from Eritrea, Somalia, Columbia, Peru, Bangladesh, Tibet, Syria, Indonesia and Kurdistan to write the stories of their journey here. They move on now to work with voice coaches and will perform their stories on Friday June 22 at the Museum of Vancouver. Details are here.
