Readings & Events

Tree Reading Series

Join us for the next event of Tree Reading Series for 2022-2023 season.

20:30 EST On Tuesday,November 29th, Tree is excited to welcome featured readers  Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Dilruba Ahmed.

Elee Kraljii Gardiner is an author, editor, and creative mentor whose award-winning books of poetry include Trauma Head, which investigates the experience of vertebral artery dissection and stroke through textual interventions, and serpentine loop, which considers gender and physicality through the idea of ice. She is the editor of the anthologies Against Death: 35 Essays on Living and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A frequent collaborator with choreographers, musicians, and visual artists, Elee is currently collaborating with nature via a series of durational installations that investigate the law of thermodynamics and cultural ideas regarding the passing of time. Originally from Boston, Elee lives in Canada where she directs Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, a program pairing authors with mentors. eleekg.com

Dilruba Ahmed  is the author of Bring Now the Angels (Pitt Poetry), with poems featured in New York Times Magazine, The Slowdown, and  Poetry Unbound. Her debut book, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf), won the Bakeless Prize.Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, & Virginia Quarterly Review. She has taught with Chatham University, Hugo House, and workshops across the U.S. In January 2021, Ahmed joined the faculty at Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. Classes & consultations: https://www.dilrubaahmed.com/writing-lab

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19:00 workshop by Dilruba Ahmed

20:00 EST open mic.

20:30 and Elee Kraljii Gardiner & Dilruba Ahmed.

This event will be hosted on Zoom. We recommend you install the latest version to ensure the best security and experience.

Confirmation of registration and online meeting details will be emailed on the day of the event. Registrations received after the workshop starts at 7PM may not be answered. For questions or concerns about your registration, please email treeliterary@gmail.com

Best Canadian Poetry: Celebrating the 2023 Edition

Join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books and Biblioasis to celebrate the 2023 edition of Best Canadian Poetry. Selected by guest editor John Barton, this collection showcases the best poetry writing published in 2021.

The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver. Register here.

Registration is free, open to all and required for entrance. Masks are mandatory. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.

Covid Protocols: Attendees must wear a mask (N95 masks are encouraged and recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly

POETS, WRITERS, MENTORS & MENTEES, IT’S COMPLICATED!

It’s never been easy to be a poet or a writer and in these quickly changing times, writers need to create a hub of support with their peers. Today’s conversation questions: how to make connections, how to support Downtown Eastside writers more, how to get known outside of the DTES? In these times, how do you take care of yourself? How do you keep moving forward? How do you find support? Where are we now and where are we going? As the scene changes, established writers spend more time with emerging writers, and that needs a formal structure – and then how does that affect the environment again? It’s complicated!

Guests: Fiona Tinwei Lam, author, poet, mentor, collaborator and Vancouver’s Poet Laureate – “the people’s poet” – for 2022-2024; Henry Doyle, DTES warrior-poet-janitor and winner of the 2022 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Prizes) for his poetry collection No Shelter; and Elee Kraljii Gardiner, author, poet, editor and founding director of Thursdays Writing Collective.

Moderated by Betsy Warland, a leading writer, teacher, and manuscript mentor/editor. Throughout her career, Warland has been dedicated to emerging writers; from initiating the Toronto Women’s Writing Collective in 1975 to the design and direction of SFU’s The Writer’s Studio in 2001, leading to Thursdays Writing Collective in the Downtown Eastside.

SOME Journal Launch

Reading from a collaboration with Chris Turnbull with Hamish Ballantyne, Jeff Derksen, Clint Burnham

Where From Here: Canadian Literary Culture Conference, Poetic Transformations Panel

Klara du Plessis (Concordia) – Interlacing Texts Towards the Relational Poetry Reading: Deep Curation’s We’ve Weave

Kiera Obbard (Guelph) and Dani Spinosa (Gap Riot) – Reflections on Future Horizons research in the pandemic

Gary Barwin and Elee Kraljii Gardiner – 1 Solitude + 1 Solitude ≠ 2 Solitudes

Conference schedule here.

MUSE at Medical Museion

A one hour reading from Trauma Head and discussion about medical/textual tactics in the poem.

Write on Bowen

12:30pm Luncheon Panel: Seeking Truth in Story—a panel discussion exploring how we write and perceive truth in poetry and prose

2pm Workshop: Silencing Your Inner Critic. This event has limited enrolment so register quickly!

if on a clear day

if on a clear day, a reading with Shin Yu Pai and Ken White, whose respective poetry books Virga and Middlemost Constantine debuted in the early pandemic, hosted by Elee Kraljii Gardiner. This reading is both launch and reunion, and though their poems travel on their own, interplay on the themes of power, gender, magic, and time may occur. RSVP and details here.

21st Virtual Gathering #COVID-19

A recorded program and a LIVE Watch Party on YouTube where it is later added to Surrey Muse channel

Author Hannah Macready, Poet Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Poet/Performer RC Weslowski, Open Mic Opener J.G.Chayko, Featured Art by L.Roche

Host Jovian Radheshwar, and Open Mic.

Live Watch Party on Surrey Muse Channel on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZbc4p_Z7H0powudI18ePhg

Panel: Thunderbird Series

A Pop-Up of Indigenous-led Literary Space-Making, AWP

Speaking with Chandre Szafran, Jay Mercado, Sasha LaPointe about our digital reading series.

Writers Read Solstice Howl

Concordia Univ

Watch Your Head Anthology Launch

Readings by contributors to this climate crisis anthology, with: Hari Alluri, Joanne Arnott, Yvonne Blomer & Jenna Butler, Allison Cobb, Jen Currin, Mercedes Eng, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Jonina Kirton, Natalie Lim, and Isabella Wang. Hosted by Stephen Collis. Link will be available at https://www.facebook.com/events/1437018910021661