Readings & Events

Novel Idea

With Ashley-Elizabeth Best and musician Erika Lamon, a wonderful Kingston singer/songwriter whose EP will launch later this year.

Ashley-Elizabeth Best lives in Kingston and is from Cobourg, Ontario. She has been published in a number of anthologies including ‘That Not Forgotten’, ‘529’, ‘Lake Effect 5’, and ‘The Changing Image’. Her work has appeared in a number of publications including Fjords, CV2, Berfrois, Grist, and Ambit Magazine. She has received an honourable mention in the Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Awards. Her poetry was shortlisted for the 2011 Matrix Litpop Awards, Prism’s Poetry Prize 2012, and the 2015 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her chapbook ‘Now You Have Many Legs to Stand On’ (above/ground press) was published in 2015. Slow States of Collapse (ECW Press, 2016) is her first collection of poetry.

Elizabeth Greene will be reading from ‘The Dowager Empress: Selected Poems of Adele Wiseman’ which she is currently editing as well as some new poems of her own. Elizabeth is the author of three books of poetry. She edited and contributed to ‘We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman’ (Cormorant, 1997) which won the Betty and Morris Aaron Prize in 1998.

Erika Lamon is a bilingual singer-songwriter-interpreter from Kingston. Her genre ranges from folk, acoustic pop to indie tunes. She performed at the FrancoFolies de Montréal, Skeleton Parks Arts Festival and the Kingston Artfest. She’s a member of the French band, Les Soliloques, and her solo English debut EP will be released in September 2016. A single, ‘Strangers Know’ is set to launch in April 2016.

Reading with Mike Caesar & Jeff Blackman

MIKE CAESAR was born in Little Current, Ontario, and lives in Ottawa. His poems have been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Malahat Review and The Fiddlehead. He opened for Peter Richardson at the Tree Reading Series and his work was chosen by judge Phil Hall as a past winner of the Sawdust Reading Series’ monthly poetry contest.

JEFF BLACKMAN’s poetry has appeared in periodicals such as Blacklock’s Reporter, In/Words, and the Steel Chisel, the anthology Five (Apt. 9 Press), and Best Canadian Poetry in English 2015 (Tightrope Books). He lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with his growing family. Visit https://jeffblackman2001.wordpress.com/ for poems, videos, and chapbooks.

PLUS THE REGULAR RAILROAD OPEN MIC!

RailRoad’s conductor and engineer are, in no order, Rona Shaffran and Rod Pederson.

In the Soil Festival

Reading with Margaret Christakos, Adrienne Gruber, Shannon Maguire, John Nyman, Mark Laliberte, Eric Schmaltz & Kasia Smug.

There are two sets of readers (see names above) and I’m reading second to last. Books will be for sale, but CASH ONLY!

http://www.nac.org/contact/

Art Bar Open Mic

Reading with the last ArtBar regular event. They are closing after two decades. Madhur Anand and Jennifer Zilm!

Madhur Anand’s debut collection of poems is A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada, April 2015). Newer poems appear in The Rusty Toque (Fall 2015) and The Walrus (Spring 2016). She is a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph.

Jennifer Zilm is a Vancouver-based author who received a B.A. and an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of British. A graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio and the Humber College School for Writers, Zilm’s writing has been published in numerous journals, including Prism International, Prairie Fire, Grain, CV2, The Antigonish Review, Vallum, and Women in Judaism and Poetry. Zilm is the author of two chapbooks: The whole and broken yellows (2013) and October Notebook (2015). A draft of Waiting Room was shortlisted for the 2014 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Waiting Room is her debut book of poetry. Learn more at www.jenniferzilm.com

Plus 10 people on the open mic – please share one poem under 3 minutes.

Poetry Scramble

Multi-stop one-day poetry scramble with Kevin Spenst. Details forthcoming! Locations for Kevin’s 50 stop poetry tour are here.

serpentine loop launch

Launch of Kevin Spenst’s second book of poems, Ignite (Anvil Press) and my book serpentine loop. The venue is wheelchair accessible. Bathrooms are gender neutral and accessible.

Launch Party

Supporting the launch of Jennifer Manuel’s The Heaviness of Things That Float and Tricia Dower’s Becoming Lin.

Kevin Spenst’s 3rd Annual Poetry Crawl

Kevin has organized a blitz of readings in the downtown of Vancouver. Run from one to the next or drop in!

10:30 GRUNT GALLERY– JORDAN ABEL and Shazia Hafiz Ramji
11:15 WINSOR GALLERY –Ray Hsu and Matea Kulić
1:00 Hogan’s Alley – Timothy Shay and Elena Johnson
1:40 221 E Georgia St: “Vancouver Especially” – Bren Simmers and Jeff Steudel
2:10 EL KARTEL – Jennifer Zilm
2:30 Untitled Gallery – Geoffrey Nilson and Shannon Rayne
3:05 Gallery Gachet – Leah Horlik and Elee Kralji Gardiner
3:40 Artspeak – Cecily Nicholson and Mariner Janes

4:10 Skwachàys Lodge – Jónína Kirton and Joanne Arnott
4:40 OR GALLERY Ben Rawluk and Margret Bollerup
7:00 THE PAPER HOUND Kevin Spenst and Raoul Fernandes

Dagoretti Corner Launch

Reading at 5pm with Raoul Fernandes in celebration of the launch of Ngwatilo Mawiyoo’s Dagoretti Corner! A Callaloo Fellow from Nairobi, Kenya, Ngwatilo’s recent poems have been published or are forthcoming in “Kwani?”, “Obsidian”, and “One Throne Magazine”. Ngwatilo is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and was shortlisted for the 2015 and 2016 Brunel University African Poetry Prize. She is the author of two chapbooks, “Blue Mothertongue” and the forthcoming “Dagoretti Corner”. She received her MFA from the University of British Columbia. Special congratulations to Raoul who was just nominated for the Gerald Lampert award!

AWP Conference

AWP Conference attendance and book signing.

Book signing at the Anvil Press table
Friday April 1, 2016 at 3pm.

Guest on Wax Poetic

Listen to the archive here.

First Annual Writers Conference

First Annual Writers Conference