Available for select readings, panel discussions, workshops, lectures, and writing festivals.
Queries: ZG Stories, Anvil Press.
Readings & Events
Vancouver Writers Fest
2026/10/24Saturday October 24, 2026
Vancouver Writers Fest
Reading poems and also hosting the Blending Genres panel! Stay tuned!
WORD Vancouver
In this interdisciplinary and imaginative reading, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Derek Gladwin, and Kedrick James explore ecology as language, practice, and lived relation. From lyric meditations on forest and fragmentation in sometimes forest, to the speculative storytelling of Bramah’s Discovery, to the critical and creative approaches of Becoming Ecological, these writers consider how we read, imagine, and inhabit the natural world. Together, they invite us to think through more reciprocal and attentive ways of being with the environments around us.
Location: HSBC Hall, UBC Robson Square
Type: Panel, Reading
Moderator: Taslim Jaffer (editor), Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home (co-edited with Omar Mouallem; Book*hug Press)
Readers: Elee Kraljii Gardiner, sometimes forest (Talonbooks) | Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Bramah’s Discovery: Book Three (Harbour Publishing) | Derek Gladwin & Kedrick James, Becoming Ecological (University of Toronto Press)
About The Moderator
Taslim Jaffer
Taslim Jaffer is a writer, editor and writing instructor from Surrey, B.C. with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from University of King’s College. Her bylines appear in Macleans, CBC, WestCoast Families, Peace Arch News & more. She is the winner of the 2022 Creative Nonfiction Collective/Humber Literary Review contest and recipient of a 2021 Silver Canadian Online Publishing Award. Taslim has been teaching memoir and expressive writing in community and rehabilitative settings since 2015 and is a panelist, moderator, and instructor at literary arts festivals. She is co-editor of the award-winning anthology, Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity and Home (Bookhug*Press, 2024) and was the 2025 City of Richmond Writer-in-Residence. Her work-in-progress is an essay collection exploring cultural inheritance, liminality and parenting as a first-generation Canadian.
About The Readers
Elee Kraljii Gardiner
Elee Kraljii Gardiner is the author of three poetry collections, serpentine loop, Trauma Head and, most recently, sometimes, forest from Talonbooks, as well as editor of two anthologies (V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Against Death: 35 Essays on Living). A frequent collaborator, she works across disciplines and administers the Warland Award for hybrid literature. She is the seventh poet laureate of Vancouver.
Renee Sarojini Saklikar
Renee Sarojini Saklikar is the author of six books, including the award-winning Children of Air India and Listening to the Bees. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, including Exile Editions, Chatelaine, The Capilano Review, and Pulp Literature. She was Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey (2015-2018), co-founded Lunch Poems at SFU, and teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College. Bramah’s Discovery is the third volume of her epic fantasy in verse series, THOTJBAP. She lives in East Vancouver.
Derek Gladwin
Derek Gladwin, author and editor of several books including Ecological Exile and Rewriting Our Stories, is an environmental education professor at the University of British Columbia (Musqueam Territory). He also co-leads the Systems Beings Lab, exploring relational approaches to navigate complex societal transitions.
Kedrick James
Kedrick James is a Professor of Language and Literacy Education and the Director of the UBC Okanagan School of Education.
Sunshine Coast Festival of the Arts: Elee Kraljii Gardiner and bronwyn preece with Megan Cole
2026/08/15Saturday, August 15, 2026 11:30am
Event 9, Sunshine Coast Festival of the Arts, August 13-16, 2026, Rockwood Centre, Sechelt, BC, Canada
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Sunshine Coast Festival of the Arts: Elee Kraljii Gardiner and bronwyn preece with Megan Cole
Two poets attuned to nature and language examine the forest, its role in our lives and our impact on it. In sometimes, forest, Elee Kraljii Gardiner explores the woods as mirror, companion and adversary, while in hiking beyond, bronwyn preece charts a personal and courageous journey through external and internal landscapes shaped by movement and attention. This event is moderated by Megan Cole. Info here.
sometimes, forest launch TORONTO
2026/06/25June 25, 2026, 6:30pm
Flying Books, 784 College St, 6:30pm
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sometimes, forest launch TORONTO
Reading with musical soundscape by Gary Barwin. Discussion and chatting, too!
sometimes, forest launch KINGSTON
2026/06/24June 24, 2026, 7pm
Novel Idea, 156 Princess St
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sometimes, forest launch KINGSTON
reading with Kingston Poet Laureate Sadiqa de Meijer!
sometimes, forest launch OTTAWA
2026/06/23June 23, 2026, 6:30pm
Perfect Books, 258 Elgin St, 6:30pm
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sometimes, forest launch OTTAWA
With David O’Meara (Ottawa Anglophone Poet Laureate) and Chris Turnbull
forest ecology/a system of weather: a double book welcome party!
2026/06/22June 22, 2026, 18-21h
Bar Milton-Parc, (Coop BMP)
3714 Ave.Parc, Montreal
18-21h
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forest ecology/a system of weather: a double book welcome party!
Join Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Astrida Neimanis and guests and friends in launching
sometimes, forest from Talonbooks by Elee
and
How to Weather Together: Feminist Practice for Climate Change from Bloomsbury by Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton
with guests Anne Bourne, Lindsay Kelley, Krusa Neimligers
Open mic! Snacks! Cavorting! All welcome!
sometimes, forest launch in CALGARY
2026/06/16June 16, 2026, 7pm
Shelf Life books, 1302 4th St., Calgary
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sometimes, forest launch in CALGARY
With fantastic readers Samantha Jones, Nikki Reimer, Tolu Oloruntoba, Ryan Fitzpatrick!
Sublime: Poems for Vanishing Ice, edited by Yvonne Blomer
2026/06/15June 15, 2026, 7pm
Erickson Centre, 640 14 Ave SE, 7pm
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Sublime: Poems for Vanishing Ice, edited by Yvonne Blomer
Join us in launching this new anthology from Caitlin Books about ice! With readers Elee Kraljii Gardiner, David Martin, Mary Vlooswyk, Tonya Lailey, Juleta Severson-Bake,Tanis MacDonald, Jared Blustein, Calgary Climate Hub, Yvonne Blomer
Poetry Night with Three Poetry Ambassadors
2026/05/12May 12, 2026 7:00 PM
Poetry Night
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts (6450 Deer Lake Ave, Burnaby, BC)
May 12, 2026
7:00 PM
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Poetry Night with Three Poetry Ambassadors
A special night–a reading with the three poetry ambassadors who have been guiding and sharing their skills with me in the poet laureateship. Not only are they wonderful, connected community members but each is a fine poet with a singular voice.
Join us for an evening of poetry!
The Readers:
Born and raised in the Manila, Marc Perez is the author of Domus (Anstruther Press, 2025) and Dayo (Brick Books, 2024), recepient of the 2025 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. He currently serves as a Poetry Ambassador with Vancouver Poet Laureate, Elee Kraljii Gardiner. He is a Deer Lake Artist in Residence from April-May 2026. In his free time, he likes to wander with his camera to take portraits of strangers and capture fleeting moments around the city.
Elee Kraljii Gardiner is a frequent collaborator with choreographers, musicians, sound and visual artists. She is the author of three poetry collections: sometimes, forest from Talonbooks, Trauma Head and serpentine loop from Anvil Press as well as the editor of two essay collections Against Death: 35 Essays on Living (Anvil Press) and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with John Asfour from Arsenal Pulp Press. She directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive and is the seventh poet laureate of Vancouver, learning in community via the sound-based legacy project Here, Hearing.
Kevin Spenst (he/him) is the author of four full-length books of poetry and 19 chapbooks. An assortment of his lyric essays, interviews with his neighbours, and personal accounts from others make up the collection Stanley Park Manor: a Collective History, out with Anvil Press in the fall of 2026. He is one of the organizers of the Dead Poets Reading Series, has a chapbook review column for subTerrain magazine, occasionally co-hosts Wax Poetic on Vancouver Co-op Radio, and is one of the poetry ambassadors for Vancouver’s 2025-2027 Poet Laureate Elee Kraljii Gardiner. He is one of the Poetry Mentors at The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory where he cohabitates with the one and only Cheryl Rossi.
Johnny Trinh loves making noise, making food, and feasting with people. Trinh has a long practice in spoken word poetry, theatre making, and community-engaged culinary art. Johnny’s work is focused on celebrating and unpacking the way we tell our stories and how we find identity and community through storytelling. Johnny is the artistic director for Vancouver Poetry House, interim executive director for Historic Joy Kogawa House, and founder of Stage to Page Performance Society. Trinh is also a resident artist with the City of Vancouver creating programs that bring multicultural and multigenerational communities together to share stories and celebrate cultural foods. “It takes a community to build an artist, whether we are nurtured by it… or resist against it.” johnnydavidtrinh.com
Forest Weathering: A Double Book Welcome with Astrida Neimanis and Elee Kraljii Gardiner
2026/05/07Thursday, May 7, 2026, 6pm-7:30pm
VPL Main Branch, 350 West Georgia St.
Grand Staircase, 8th floor
6pm-7:30pm
*beware the uncertain possibility of EVENT PARKING which is very expensive. Plan accordingly!
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Forest Weathering: A Double Book Welcome with Astrida Neimanis and Elee Kraljii Gardiner
You are invited to be part of a gathering-reading-experience marking the release of two books concerned with climate justice and community! How to Weather Together: Feminist Practice for Climate Change by Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton from Bloomsbury and sometimes, forest by Elee Kraljii Gardiner from Talonbooks.
Free, accessible, all welcome!
Please RVSP on the VPL Main’s eventbrite so we can plan accurately!
Please RVSP on the VPL Main’s eventbrite so we can plan accurately!
Elee Kraljii Gardiner is a frequent collaborator with choreographers, musicians, sound and visual artists. She is the author of three poetry collections: sometimes, forest from Talonbooks, Trauma Head and serpentine loop from Anvil Press as well as the editor of two essay collections Against Death: 35 Essays on Living (Anvil Press) and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with John Asfour from Arsenal Pulp Press. She directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive and is the seventh poet laureate of Vancouver.
Astrida Neimanis writes about water, weather and bodies, often in collaboration with artists, scientists, and other community members. She is author of Bodies of Water (2017), and co-editor of the essay collections Thinking with Water (2013) and Hacking the Anthropocene! (2022). She is currently Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Feminist Environmental Humanities at UBC Okanagan on unceded syilx territories in Kelowna, BC, and Director of the FEELed Lab, a community-engaged creative research hub.
Accessibility Information
VPL is committed to making our programs accessible for all. If you have an access need that we have not addressed here, please email us at programs@vpl.ca.
There will be limited seating available.
Standing room is ample.
The Grand Staircase is an open indoor area, that may be busy during the performance.
We will reserve a section of chairs for people with mobility needs. There will also be spaces for wheelchairs and mobility devices.
For more information on physical access, view the Accessibility information on the Central Library page.
Standing room is ample.
The Grand Staircase is an open indoor area, that may be busy during the performance.
We will reserve a section of chairs for people with mobility needs. There will also be spaces for wheelchairs and mobility devices.
For more information on physical access, view the Accessibility information on the Central Library page.
Poetry, Art and All the Brightness in-between: Jane’s Walk in Mount Pleasant
2026/05/02May 2, 2026, 1pm-2:30pm
Starting Place: “THIS Gallery” (back alley entrance, 108 E Broadway)
Walk leader KEVIN SPENST will be wearing a “Make Money With Poetry” t-shirt
Ending Location: Dude Chillin’ Park (where the dude rests)
Duration: 120 mins
Accessibility: Busy sidewalks, Breaks offered along the way, Family-friendly, Bicycles welcome, Pet-friendly
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Poetry, Art and All the Brightness in-between: Jane’s Walk in Mount Pleasant
About the walk: On our annual Jane’s Walk through Mount Pleasant, we’ll be looking and listening with the assistance (and insistence!) of poetry. While the bulk of the walk will take us through several art galleries, poetry will be read by some of Vancouver’s most engaging poets who will explore art on and off the page in the broadest sense possible. How much is a poem like a piece of art? What is the relationship between visual art and literary arts? How can poetry help us observe our world more closely? Join us to hear poetry and the many types of connections it fosters.
Acknowledging that Mount Pleasant is on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, it’s important to be mindful of this deeper sense of history and the ways it shapes our current world. Colonial violence that occurred in the past has a very real impact on the present and we encourage you to learn about this through articles such as Christopher Cheung’s “Snapshots of Vancouver’s Many Mount Pleasants” at the Tyee, which touches upon some of this history, or a more embodied experience can be found through “Land Acknowledgement (For Mount Pleasant)” at https://thescore.ubc.ca/ Some of this will be drawn upon for the beginning of our walk.
Poetry offers the potential for fusion and vision. Come join us for our 2-hour walk to see what you think and feel!
About the walk leaders:
Kevin Spent (organizer) is keen to connect with neighbours and strangers, a chatty way of being which often fuels his writing. He’s the author of four full-length books of poetry and 19 small books of poetry (chapbooks!) An assortment of my lyric essays, interviews with neighbours, and personal accounts from others make up Stanley Park Manor: a Collective History, out with Anvil Press in 2026. This will be his fifth year leading a poetry-themed Jane’s Walk.
Elee Kraljii Gardiner is the author of three poetry collections, most recently sometimes, forest from Talonbooks as well as editor of two anthologies. A frequent collaborator, she works across disciplines and administers the Warland Award for hybrid literature. She also directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive and is the seventh poet laureate of Vancouver.
Laura Farina is the author of two books of poetry, This Woman Alphabetical and Some Talk of Being Human, as well as the picture book This is the Path the Wolf Took. Her third poetry collection, Behold!, is forthcoming from Coach House Books. Laura is the recipient of the Archibald Lampman Award, and has been long-listed for both the Relit Award and the CBC Poetry Prize. She’s very temporarily the associate director of the Writer’s Studio at SFU.
Alyssa Sy de Jesus is an avid indoor-hiker who is very grateful to be walking with fellow lovers of art and words. A museum-worker by day, she is also a poet of in search of the worded-artefacts of her family’s five-generation settlement in the Philippines from China, and eventual migration to Canada. Her work has been featured in: Chinatown Stories, Living Hyphen, Ginger and Smoke, Liars of Orpheus, and the Jade Music Festival. She was co-editor of de-comp Journal’s “Translate Me Not” issue. She is a proud graduate of the SFU Writers Studio.
Lauren Peat is a writer, lyricist, and translator from French. Her debut poetry chapbook, Future Tense, was published by Baseline Press in 2024, and her lyric prose has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her writing appears in local city buses and international magazines, and her many collaborations with composers are featured in the repertoires of acclaimed vocal ensembles across Turtle Island. In 2025, she served as Poet-in-Residence of Enabling Arts, a multidisciplinary creative space in the Downtown Eastside. Beyond the page, she co-organizes the Dead Poets Reading Series and facilitates low-barrier creative writing workshops throughout the city. She lives in Vancouver on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Learn more at laurenpeatwrites.com.
Hope Lauterbach is a Zambian Canadian writer and poet, founder of the Unbound Reading Series and graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU. Hope’s work has been commissioned for the Fraser Valley Literary Festival, and appears in Contemporary Verse 2, emerge 21 and Pearls. Hope currently resides in that place between sleep and awake.
RC Weslowski is a spoken word poet and storyteller, a clown performer, a playwright, workshop facilitator, event MC and a professional voice over artist. RC has performed at poetry and spoken word festivals around North America and Europe doing featuring presentations and leading performance/writing workshops.
How to identify the walk leader: Walk leader will be wearing a “Make Money With Poetry” t-shirt
Travel Tips: There is some parking by THIS gallery but cycling via 10th would be best.
Free, all welcome, no registration required