OPEN TEXT

Liar editorial meeting

2012-01-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

The student publication (The Liar) is meeting this Thursday --

Thurs Jan 26th, 11:30-1 p.m.
Cedar 134.

Come on out and pick up your copy of the latest (perfect bound, perfectly lovely) issue. And, while you're here, find out how you can get involved! As an editor, a writer, in production.

See you there!

Free Creative Writing Workshop

2012-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

Thursday February 2nd, 11:30 am to 12:50 pm
Library Classroom
(with Anne Stone).

In this session, learn how to mine archive materials (newspapers, research texts, old photos) for great stories. The possibilities are endless: adopt 'found' characters or situations, recreate the textures of the past, and/or image what is missing from an official story. Come with a pen and your imagination. We'll supply the rest.

Liar Launch Party

2011-12-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

The Liar Magazine will be launching its newest issue at the ever-so-funkilicious Railway club. Readings from 6-8 p.m. Be there!

Railway club
579 Dunsmuir St (@ Seymour)
6-8 p.m.
Monday, 19 Dec 2011

Creative Writing news

2011-11-22T11:56:00.000-08:00

Among the exciting news we have in the Creative Writing Associate of Arts Degree Program, is the addition, this January, of English 296: Writing for the Stage. This course, team taught by a playwright (Hiro Kanagawa) and two directors (Dawn Moore and Desmond Price), will see the students draft a short play – which will be, at the end of the semester, performed in a public festival!

In related news, we’re pleased to welcome our new Creative Writing instructor, Hiro Kanagawa (a well known playwright, screenwriter, and actor)!

As an actor, Hiro is perhaps best known as Principal Kwan from Smallville or Cyrus Xander on Caprica (he’s also currently the voice of Mister Fantastic on Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes). Hiro’s latest play, The Patron Saint of Stanley Park, premiered in 2010 at the Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver and was a Christmas hit. In film and television, Hiro was a story editor on the acclaimed CBC dramas Da Vinci's Inquest, Da Vinci's City Hall, and Intelligence and works for the gritty rez drama Blackstone, airing on Showcase and APTN.

Surrey International Writer's Conference.

2011-10-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

Check out the 19th Annual Surrey International Writer's Conference, October 21-23, 2011.

Established in 1993 as a small, school-related event, the Surrey International Writers’ Conference has grown to attract hundreds of enthusiastic, dedicated writers annually. The conference holds a wide appeal to writers of all genres and skill levels, and offers exceptional
opportunities for professional development. We strive to encourage writers of every experiential level to interact with agents, editors, publishers and filmmakers to broaden their understanding of, and presence in, the literary marketplace.

One of the biggest draws for many conference-goers is the chance to meet one-on-one with acquiring editors and agents for brief 10-minute interviews (at no extra charge), during the entire weekend. The weekend is made up of workshops, panels and special events galore; all aimed at helping writers grow. This year more than 70 workshops cover topics as wide ranging as *Social Media Strategies for Writers and Boot Camp For Procrastinators*. A full description of all the workshops is available on our website: www.siwc.ca

Student Vision Award

2011-10-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Department of English is offering a new cash award -- and creative pieces are eligible, so polish off your pens and get to work on our current topic: Student debt.

Yeah, resonates, right?

The details are below:

One $500 award to be given annually at the end of the fall semester to a student who writes an outstanding text on a topical student issue.

Fall 2011: The issue is student debt (but isn't that always an issue? but I digress...) You can enter in any genre: Creative nonfiction, short story, poetry, essay. Length: Up to 1000 words
(but no more than 8 pages).

To qualify, you must be registered in an English course at Capilano.

You need to be nominated (but for that to happen, you need to ask your instructor to nominate you).

The English Department reserves the right not to make an award in a given year.

LSBA + CNET Punk Panel

2011-09-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Roger Farr will be hosting the LSBA/CNET Punk Panel before the Oct. 4th showing of Susanne Tabata's 2010 documentary Bloodied But Unbowed at the North Shore Credit Union Centre for the Performing Arts. The doc looks at Vancouver's vibrant punk scene in the late 70s and early 80s. The director and local musicians will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A. In keeping with the term's theme of "life", the Punk Panel -- Roger Farr, Michael Turner and Jill Bain (aka Jade Blade) -- will provide pre-screening musings on punk and the politics of "everyday life."

Open to all.

Join us in the Lower Cafeteria at 6:30 for light refreshments and conversation. The Punk Panel will begin at 6:45 and wrap at 7:15. The film begins at 7:30. Student tickets: $6.

Writing Poetry: It's a party!

2011-09-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

As part of the Writing Centre's Fall 2011 Library Workshops, we will be offering a free poetry workshop:

Thursday 29 September
Library Classroom 119
11:30 - 12:50 p.m.

A one-off poetry bootcamp with Kim Minkus.

Come on out!

The Liar meeting

2011-09-14T10:26:00.001-07:00

Come on out and get involved in The Liar (our student-run literary journal).

Monday Sept 26, 11:30-1, Fir 424.

The Liar publishes cutting edge new prose, poetry, and art. At this meeting, you can find out ways to get involved (from submitting to designing to editing, etc).

Hope to see you there.

New Creative Writing courses coming spring 2012

2011-07-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce the addition of two new second year courses -- both to be offered in Spring 2012.

Our new second year Creative Nonfiction course (Engl 293) will be part of the core of our program. This course in Creative Nonfiction, to be taught by Ryan Knighton, will explore contemporary forms of nonfiction and will delve into professional aspects of writing such as "the pitch" and the editing process.

In collaboration with the theatre department, we will also be offering a course in Writing for the Stage. This course, Engl 296, will be an intense workshop in the writing of short plays (team taught by a director and a practicing playwright) and will culminate in a performance of these works before a public audience. Exciting!

Stay tuned for new readings in the Prosetics Series, coming this fall.

Michael Turner @ Prosetics

2011-03-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

Please come on out and join us for a free, public reading by Michael Turner, award winning author of 8 x 10, The Pornographer's Poem, and American Whiskey Bar. Michael Turner is a cutting edge writer whose works both inhabit and question the genres he moves through. Whether in film, art criticism, fiction, or poetry, his thorough intelligence is always apparent. Brought to you by the Prosetics reading series, and the English and Creative Writing Department of Capilano University. Everyone is welcome.

Thursday, March 31, 2011
7:00 PM
Cafe for Contemporary Art,
140 East Esplanade, North Vancouver

Michael Turner (b. North Vancouver) is an award-winning writer of fiction, criticism and song. His books include Hard Core Logo, The Pornographer’s Poem and 8x10, and his criticism has appeared in the magazines Art Papers, Art On Paper and Modern Painters. He has written catalogue essays on Julia Feyrer, Fred Herzog and Ken Lum and has contributed to the anthologies Intertidal: Vancouver Art & Artists, Vancouver Art & Economies and Ruins In Process: Vancouver Art in the Sixties. A frequent collaborator, Turner has written scripts with Stan Douglas, poems with Geoffrey Farmer and a libretto with Andrea Young. As last year's Simon Fraser University Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence, he curated to show, to give, to make it be there: Expanded Literary Practices in Vancouver, 1954-1969 at SFU Gallery (Burnaby). A new curatorial project, focused on local film production, was included in the current We: Vancouver exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. For the past four years he has sat on the board of Presentation House Gallery.

Creative Writing Info Session

2011-03-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

Creative Writing Info Session:
(for current and future creative writing students)

Wednesday April 6th
11:30 a.m.
Library 321

Come on out on April 6th, enjoy some sweet treats and beverages, and get more information about:

 the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing
 current and upcoming offerings in Creative Writing
 new second-year Creative Writing courses in the works
 how Creative Writing students might fit into the new Liberal Studies Degree

At the information session, we’ll also be gathering your feedback:
 What courses would you like to see offered in future?
 Which readers would you like to see visit campus?
 Etc.

Renee Rodin @ Prosetics Reading Series

2011-03-10T11:47:00.001-08:00

Please join us for a free and public reading by Renee Rodin, author of Subject to Change, a collection whose stories may move with the whimsy of anecdote, but are rich with consequence. Presented by Capilano University's Creative Writing and English Department, and the Prosetics Reading Series.

Reading by Renee Rodin
Weds March 23rd, 2011.
11:30 a.m.
Capilano University, Library Building
Room LB 321
Contact: Anne Stone
Email: astone@capilanou.ca.

Renee Rodin was born and educated in Montreal and has been living in Vancouver since the late '60's. She now divides her time between Vancouver and New York and Vancouver. Her books are Bread and Salt (prose poems), Ready for Freddy (a memoir) and Subject to Change (short stories). Her work is personal, subjective and always inclusive of the outside world. It has been described by Stan Persky as "Funny, relaxed, passionately intelligent, deeply attentive to reality."

Harry Karlinsky Reading @ Prosetics

2011-03-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

Please join us for a free and public reading by Harry Karlinsky, author of the novel The Evolution of Inanimate Objects — a Darwinian romp through the genre of faux memoir. Presented by Capilano University's Creative Writing and English Department, and the Prosetics Reading Series.

Reading by Harry Karlinsky
Weds March 9th, 2011.
11:30 a.m.
Capilano University, Library Building
Room LB 321
Contact: Anne Stone
Email: astone@capilanou.ca.

Harry Karlinsky is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. He is also the Director of the award-winning Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Series and writes film reviews for the Canadian Psychiatric Association publication Canadian Psychiatry Aujourd'hui. For his work on The Evolution of Inanimate Objects, Dr Karlinsky was supported in part by a Hewton Bursary, awarded by the Friends of the Archives at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto. This is his first book length work of fiction.

Hiromi Goto Reading at the Cafe for Contemporary Art

2011-02-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Please join us for a free and public reading by Hiromi Goto, author of the novels Half World and A Chorus of Mushrooms. Introduction by Janey Lew. Presented by Capilano University's Creative Writing and English Department, the Prosetics Reading Series, and the Cafe for Contemporary Art.

Reading by Hiromi Goto
Thursday, February 24th, 2011.
Starts: 7 PM
CAFE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
140 East Esplanade, North Vancouver
Contact: Anne Stone
Email/Phone: astone@capilanou.ca.

Hiromi Goto is the award-winning author of Chorus of Mushrooms and The Kappa Child. She's also published a collection of short stories, Hopeful Monsters, and a novel for children, The Water of Possibility. Her latest YA novel, Half World, was published by Penguin Canada in 2009, and was awarded the Sunburst Award and the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. Half World was released in 2010 by Viking US and Baam! France and pending publication in Poland. She also published her first book of poetry, Wait Until Late Afternoon, co-written with David Bateman. She currently lives in Burnaby, BC.

FIFTH ANNUAL PRESENTATION OF FIVE-MINUTE PLAYS

2011-02-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

GET YOUR GOAT:
FIFTH ANNUAL PRESENTATION OF FIVE-MINUTE PLAYS

The Creative Writing and Theatre (Acting for Stage and Screen) Programs at Capilano University are pleased to bring you the Fifth Annual Presentation of Five Minute Plays, featuring 12 new works by Capilano students, written under the guidance of Vancouver playwright Tom Cone.

February 17th, 3pm
Arbutus 001 (Arbutus Studio)
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way, N. Vancouver

February 17th, 7:30 pm
CE 148 (Cedar building)
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way, N. Vancouver

February 18th, 5 pm
LB 322 (Library building)
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way, N. Vancouver

All performances are free & open to the public.

Aaron Peck Reading

2011-01-31T13:17:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 9, 2011.
11:30 AM
North Vancouver Campus of Capilano University
Library building, room 321

Please join us for a free & public reading by Aaron Peck.

Aaron Peck is an art critic, teacher, writer living in Vancouver, BC. He is the author of the novel The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and, in collaboration with artists Adam Harrison and Dominic Osterried, Letters to the Pacific. His fiction has appeared in magazines such as Matrix, The Golden Handcuffs Review, and W. His recent art criticism has appeared in 01 Magazine, akimblog, Art Papers, artforum.com, Canadian Art, C Magazine and Fillip, as well as an article in La Fábrica's Spanish-language magazine Matador. He has also contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs. He currently teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Contact: Anne Stone Email/Phone: astone@capilanou.ca / 604.986.1911 ext 2425

Prosetic Reading Series (Spring '11)

2011-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

Upcoming Prosetic Reading Series (held on and off campus):

Presented by Capilano University Creative Writing and English
All events free & open to the public

Aaron Peck
February 9th
11:30 a.m.
Capilano University
Library 321
North Vancouver

Hiromi Goto
February 24th
7 p.m.
Cafe for Contemporary Art
140 East Esplanade
North Vancouver

Harry Karlinsky
March 9th
11:30 a.m.
Capilano University
Library 321
North Vancouver

Renee Rodin
March 23rd
11:30 a.m.
Capilano University
Library 321
North Vancouver

Michael Turner
March 31st
7 p.m.
Cafe for Contemporary Art
140 East Esplanade
North Vancouver

2011 FIVE MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL

2011-01-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

"GET YOUR GOAT"
Tom Cone: Introductory Lecture

Thursday January 20th, 2011
11:30 to 1 p.m
Cedar 238

During his Writer-in-Residence stay at Capilano University, Tom Cone will form a company of student writers, directors, and actors who will write, direct and perform a series of 5-minute plays. These will be staged in the Arbutus Theatre this spring. Discussions will follow each performance.

On Thursday, January 20th, Tom Cone will present a talk titled "Get Your Goat," an introduction to the 5-minute play project. During this session, interested creative writing students can sign up to be part of this project (first preference will be given to students who haven’t before participated.) To be part of this project, you must attend this talk!

This is a unique opportunity for creative writing students to create and develop a short play with an established playwright, and see that work performed by theatre students live before an audience. Don’t miss it!

About Tom Cone:
Tom Cone is a Vancouver legend: playwright, librettist, lecturer and teacher, impresario, curator and promoter of cultural hybrids, and nurturer of the avant-garde, he is major force behind Vancouver's experimental art, music and theatre scene. Tom Cone's many plays include True Mummy, Love at Last Sight, Herringbone; his adaptations of classic plays include Moliere's The Miser and Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters; his librettos include The Architect for Vancouver Opera and The Gang for Vancouver New Music. He is founder of projects extraordinaires: Songroom -- a salon for new song collaborations, and CABINET, Interdisciplinary Collaborations -- an experimental arts collective

~

LIAR LAUNCH | DARK MATTER | NEO BENSHI

2010-12-10T14:56:00.000-08:00

The Fall 2010 "Dark Matter" issue of THE LIAR is out!

Join editors and contributors from Capilano's student-run writing journal for an evening of poetry, fiction and live film narration. Readings at 6:30. Neo-benshi performances at 7:30.

Monday Dec 13th, 6:30 pm
The Railway Club
579 Dunsmuir Street (upstairs)

Info: theliarcollective AT gmail DOT com
--

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: MERCEDES ENG & CECILY NICHOLSON

2010-11-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the English Dept. and the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The 2010 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday November 25^th, with readings by Press Release Poetry Collective members Mercedes Eng and Cecily Nicholson.

11:30 am, Library 188
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

MERCEDES ENG is a graduate student at SFU, a member of the Press Release poetry collective, and a member of the Rocit Press poetry and publishing collective. Her first chapbook, February 2010, is a poem set in the context of the Vancouver Olympics and is a thinking through and responding to the media, advertising, censorship, art, nationalism, diversity of tactics, and issues of First Nations land rights. Her second chapbook, knuckle sandwich, uses documentary poetics to explore the language and discourse attending state violence against racialized women. Her current creative project considers sex-work in the Downtown Eastside, using non-standard English to explicate and to resist the ways in which victimhood is constructed.

CECILY NICHOLSON has worked with women of the downtown eastside community of Vancouver for the past ten years and is currently the Coordinator of Funds with the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre. She has collaborated most recently as a member of the VIVO Media Arts collective, the Press Release poetry collective and the No One is Illegal, Vancouver collective. Triage, a book of poetry, is forthcoming from Talonbooks in Spring 2011.

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capilanou.ca

Creative Writing Courses – Fall 2010

2010-07-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

English 100-01, 02 - Academic Writing Strategies - Roger Farr
These sections of English 100 are required for those in the first-year of the Creative Writing Program. Our main concern will be to experiment with the “artistic proofs” of classical rhetoric: ethos (credibility), logos (reason), and pathos (feeling). This we will do by working with a range of persuasive modes and genres, including the manifesto, the personal essay, and the research essay. MLA style and documentation will be taught. Grammar and other mechanical issues will be tackled individually and in revising workshops. From time to time we will also pause to consider those other, more philosophical issues with which writers in universities often struggle, issues such as language and power, rules and rule-breaking, time and space (i.e. “deadlines”), photocopiers, Translink, and, of course, gratuitous use of gerundive modifying phrases. By December, you will have accumulated a generous portfolio of writing of which you will feel proud, and which may or may not impress your family and friends.

Required Texts:
• Hacker, Diana. The Canadian Writer’s Reference Guide. Any edition.
• Pakasaar, Helga, and Jenny Penberthy, eds., “Moodyville,” spec. iss. of The Capilano Review. 3.8 (2009).
• Other readings available in-class and/or on-line.

English 190-01 - Creative Writing I - Reg Johanson
This course introduces students to fiction and poetry through reading and writing in both forms. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.

Required Text:
• Jerome Stern, ed. Microfictions. (1996)

English 190-02 - Creative Writing I - Kim Minkus
In this course we will experiment with writing forms in order to push and extend our relationship with language. There will be in-class writing experiments, impromptu story generating, readings, performances and discussions. We will look at a variety of genres with a focus on the experimental including young adult fiction, fiction, poetry and criticism. Reading is a must for this course. The best writers are the best readers. Be prepared to do both. A variety of workshop methods will also be employed so that we can, as a group, engage effectively with each other’s writing.

English 191-01 - Creative Writing II - Crystal Hurdle
When is a poem really a story? When should you leave a draft alone? Through in-class writing, weekly homework assignments, and personal projects, you will write up a storm in a number of genres. You’ll be introduced to professional writers, from Lorna Crozier to bp Nichol, from Thomas King to Gabriel Garcia Márquez, to visiting writers at the Open Text and Kinder Text Reading Series, as well as to the work of your colleagues, in aid of developing your style, articulating your voice.

Required Texts:
• Gary Geddes, ed. 20th-Century Poetry & Poetics
• Gary Geddes, ed. The Art of Short Fiction
• And assorted recommended texts to kick-start your imagination

English 225-01 - Directed Internship – English - Roger Farr
Open to students who are formally registered in Creative Writing, CultureNet or the English Concentration, ENGLISH 225 provides 75 hours of directed study experience in the “creative industries” – especially those fields associated with the production, promotion, delivery and/or study of print and literary culture. Students put existing critical, editorial, and writing skills into practice while interning with local publishers, magazines, journals, cultural organizations, and media outlets. Limited to 10 students per term. Information about the application procedure is available on the English Department website, or by contacting the instructor.

Required Texts:
• Readings available from the instructor.

English 291-01 - Creative Writing: Narrative Fiction - Roger Farr
English 291 is an intensive course in the writing of narrative prose and scripts. We begin with a series of experiments revolving around the so-called “elements of fiction”: dialogue, character, plot, setting, style, etc. We then reconsider these elements in the light of a number of contemporary practices, including appropriation, ekphrasis, minimalism, and "docu-fiction". In all cases, risk will be encouraged, possibly at the expense of greatness. Several guest writers will join us to talk about their work. We will also attend some readings and performances, including a festival of “neo-benshi” (google it), which will draw on work produced in our class. By December, you will have accumulated a generous portfolio of writing of which you will feel proud, and which may or may not impress your family and friends.

Required Texts:
• Brown, Andy. I Can See You Being Invisible. Montreal, DC, 2003.
• Burnham, Clint. Smoke Show. Vancouver: Arsenal, 2007.
• Turner, Michael. 8 x 10. Toronto: Doubleday, 2009.
• West Coast Line. Special issue on fiction.
• Other material available from the instructor.

~

Bok | Feldmar | Leclerc | Leggatt | Stewart | Strang | Robertson

2010-05-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

OPEN TEXT | CUE | TCR LAUNCH: MAY 11

Capilano University Editions launches Soma Feldmar’s Other

+

TCR launches 3.11 the "Poet’s Theatre" issue, guest edited by Brook Houglum, with performances by Christine Leclerc and The Institute for Domestic Research (Catriona Strang, Christine Stewart, Jacqueline Leggatt)

+

Readings by Christian Bok and Lisa Robertson

Tickets: $9 + s/c
Available online at http://www.thecultch.com/
or by phone at 604.251.1363.

For info: contact@thecapilanoreview.ca

~

Liar Launch Party: April 22nd

2010-04-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

The Spring 2010 Liar Magazine Launch Party will take place on Thursday, April 22 from 6:30 - 8:30 at the Railway Club in downtown Vancouver. Hosted by Memewar Arts and Publishing Society, the evening will include readings by contributors to the new issue, members of The Liar Collective, and special guest poet George Stanley.

This new issue of the Liar includes poetry, prose, and micro-fiction by current Cap students. We hope you will join us and show your support for Capilano's student writers!

~

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: CAMILLE MARTIN

2010-03-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2010 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, March 25^th with a reading by Toronto poet and collage artist Camille Martin:

CE 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Camille Martin is the author of Sonnets (Shearsman, 2010) and Codes of Public Sleep (Toronto: BookThug, 2007), in addition to several earlier chapbooks. Her work has been widely published in journals in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. She has received numerous grants to further her writing, most recently from the Ontario Arts Council for work on a long poem based on her Acadian/Cajun heritage. She earned an MFA in Poetry at the University of New Orleans and a Ph.D. in English at Louisiana State University. Currently she teaches writing and literature at Ryerson University.

plotting unawares the direction of impulse

(which is to say, not plotting at all).

on the verge of pronouncing a shabby

but proud apostrophe. exploiting

bogus entropy to veer off the path wholly

engaged in blended lies and woven

tales. freebasing fiction, hard up

as a blindfolded gambler. desiring

against all the evidence to be duped again

by blinkering syllables as plain as

a bunch of sunflowers peering

through village fog. declaiming a reckless

arabesque to patch up severed

nerve endings with dumb surds.

-- from Sonnets

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

http://www.capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: GEORGE STANLEY

2010-03-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts, The Capilano Review, and the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2010 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University begins on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 with a reading by Vancouver poet -- and current TCR Writer in Residence -- George Stanley:

Cedar 148 @ 11:30

Capilano University

2055 Purcell Way

North Vancouver

George Stanley was born in San Francisco and moved to Vancouver in the 1970s. He is a former faculty member of the English Department at Capilano University. His books include Gentle Northern Summer (New Star 1995), At Andy's (New Star 2000), his selected poems, A Tall, Serious Girl (Qua Books 2003), and Vancouver: A Poem (New Star 2008). In 2006 Stanley won the Poetry Society of America’s annual Shelley Award.

Upcoming Readings:

Christian Bok
Camile Martin
Garry Morse
Lisa Robertson

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

--

http://www.capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

TCR Writer in Residence - George Stanley, March 8th - 19th, 2010

2010-03-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

George Stanley will be TCR Writer in Residence at Capilano from March 8th-19th.

Writers of any level of experience are invited to make an appointment to discuss their work. Geroge will be available for 45 min sessions. Manuscripts should be submitted in advance.

Please contact the TCR office, FIR 456, at 604.984.1712 or tcr@capilanou.ca

===========

Hear George Stanley reading:

March 18th at 11:30 am

Cedar 148

George Stanley was born in San Francisco and moved to Vancouver in the 1970s. He is a former faculty member in the English Department at Capilano University. His books include Gentle Northern Summer (New Star 1995), At Andy's (New Star 2000), his selected poems, A Tall, Serious Girl (Qua Books 2003), and Vancouver: A Poem (New Star 2008). In 2006 Stanley won the Poetry Society of America’s annual Shelley Award.

TWELVE SECRETS: FOURTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF FIVE-MINUTE PLAYS

2010-02-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

The Creative Writing and Theatre (Acting for Stage and Screen) Programs at Capilano University are pleased to bring you the Fourth Annual Festival of Five Minute Plays, featuring 11 new works by Capilano students, written under the guidance of Vancouver playwright Tom Cone, and a classic by Harold Pinter.

February 8th - 11th, 7pm
Arbutus 001 (Arbutus Studio)
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way, N. Vancouver
Free (reservations recommended)

To make a reservation, please call 604-990-7979 before noon on the day you wish to attend.

~

Open Text Vol. 2

2009-12-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

Open Text: Canadian Poetry and Poetics in the 21st Century (Vol.2).
edited by Roger Farr
6 x 8, 124pp
ISBN: 978-0-9810122-6-1
$16

Poems by Shirley Bear, Ken Belford, Clint Burnham, Ted Byrne, Angela Carr, Steve Collis, Wayde Compton, Kim Duff, Phinder Dulai, Emily Fedoruk, Reg Johanson, Christine Leclerc, Daphne Marlatt, Roy Miki, Jordan Scott, and Fred Wah.

Introduction

The most interesting poetry being written today makes no secret of its desire to recalibrate the spatial and temporal instruments we use to navigate the world – this is the “opening” promised by the open text. In the cramped discursive space of twentieth century poetics, the poem has been productively imagined as a “place” (Olson), a “field” (Duncan), a “room” (Webb), a “baseball diamond” (Spicer), a “zone” (Watten), a “body” (Brossard), a “scale” (Derksen), and a “border” (Toscano), to name just a few of the more compelling formulations.

And such a truncated list, with its narrative illusion, by no means exhausts what are better understood as the coterminous spatial and temporal categories of contemporary poetry and poetics; indeed, as this second volume of Open Text shows, poetic space is also being understood as “land” (Belford), as “square footage” (Duff), or, as Wayde Compton puts it, with impressive historical and social precision, “Clichy-sous-Bois.” At the same time, on the temporal axis, the poem is “the math of multiple history”(Wah), calculated without “calendrical retrievals” (Miki), into a “weekly / daily / feudal / moment” (Dulai). In this line of poetic thinking, the text “begins and ends arbitrarily…not because there is a necessary point of origin or terminus, a first or last moment…[O]ne has simply stopped because one has run out of units or minutes, and not because a conclusion has been reached nor ‘everything’ said” (Hejinian).

Not surprisingly, many of the writers here work in extended, book-length and serial forms that provide the optimal formal conditions in which to pursue “multiple histories” synchronically, and in so doing they avoid that literary trap in which the poet starts and stops the historical clock, an authoritarian and colonizing gesture to be avoided at all costs. Similarly, the intent with this collection is not to announce that something has arrived or that something has passed, or worse, to put on display a number of “finely wrought” or “best of” curiosities; rather the aim is only to pause the hyper-accelerated production of Canadian literary culture just for a second, so we might get a better look at it, and then to move on. Like the serial poem, then, the Open Text anthology, in the words of Jack Spicer, is a “book, which is a unit like a poem.” It is “an ongoing process of accumulation” (Conte), a “narrative which refuses to adopt an imposed story line, and completes itself only in the sequence of poems, if, in fact, a reader insists upon a definition of completion which is separate from the activity of the poems themselves” (Blaser).

Between September 2008 and October 2009, the time measured by this volume of the Open Text series, the 15 writers assembled here read from their work at Capilano University as part of our ongoing reading series, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Creative Writing program at Capilano, and the Writer’s Union of Canada. This is a record of what transpired.

– Roger Farr, October 2009

Order

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TWELVE SECRETS: The Fourth Annual Five-Minute Play Festival at Capilano University

2009-11-24T18:11:00.000-08:00

TWELVE SECRETS

Twelve five minute plays Three characters The tension of secrets The triangle

A Lecture by Tom Cone

Thursday, Dec 3rd

11:30 am

Capilano Performing Arts Theatre

The Creative Writing and Theatre Programs at Capilano University invite you to a special presentation by Vancouver playwright, librettist, lecturer and teacher Tom Cone. Tom will introduce some of the concepts and models that will inform this Spring’s Fourth Annual Five Minute Play Festival, which brings Creative Writing and Theatre students together to develop, under Cone’s guidance, a series of five-minute, three character plays. Open to all. Students interested in participating in the project must attend this lecture.

About Tom Cone

Playwright, librettist, lecturer and teacher, impresario, curator and promoter of cultural hybrids, and nurturer of the avant-garde, Tom Cone is major force behind Vancouver's experimental art, music and theatre scene. His many plays include True Mummy, Love at Last Sight, and Herringbone; adaptations of classic plays include Moliere's The Miser and Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters; and his Librettos include The Architect for Vancouver Opera and The Gang for Vancouver New Music. Cone is also the founder of Songroom -- a salon for new song collaborations--, and CABINET: Interdisciplinary Collaborations -- an experimental arts collective. His latest play, Donald and Lenore, premieres this Spring as part of the 2010 Chutzpah! Festival.

For info:

Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener

English Dept,

Capilano University

Creative Writing Courses: Spring 2010

2009-11-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

Here’s what’s on deck for Spring 2010:

English 103-06 - Studies in Contemporary Literature - Roger Farr
(Mixed Mode-North Vancouver)
The aim of these mixed-mode sections of ENGL 103, which meet on-line every other week, is to put students into contact with some of the writers, texts, practices, and movements that compose “the contemporary.” We will read a novel, some very short stories (“micro fictions”), some poetry, and a graphic novel. You will develop your critical awareness of language and contemporary culture through a number of writing projects, and through participation in discussion forums and in-class activities. You will also have the option of completing one assignment as a "ficto-critical" project; that is, a project which involves combining "creative" with "critical" writing, if you are so inclined.

Required Text:

• Farr, Roger (Ed.) Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century. Vol. II. North Vancouver, BC: CUE, 2009.
• Fiorentino, Jon Paul. Stripmalling. Toronto, ON: ECW, 2009.
• Stern, Jerome, ed. Microfictions. New York, NY: Norton, 1996.
• Stone, Anne. Delible. London, ON: Insomniac, 2007.
• other readings available in class and on-line.

English 190-01 - Creative Writing I - Reg Johanson
This course introduces students to fiction and poetry through reading and writing. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.

Required Text:

• Six Cities. The Capilano Review. Series 2 No. 47, Fall 2005.

English 191-01 - Creative Writing II - Crystal Hurdle
When is a poem really a story? When should you leave a draft alone? Through in-class writing, weekly homework assignments, and personal projects, you will write up a storm in a number of genres. You’ll be introduced to professional writers, from Lorna Crozier to bp Nichol, from Thomas King to Gabriel Garcia Márquez, to visiting writers at the Open Text and Kinder Text Reading Series, as well as to the work of your colleagues, in aid of developing your style, articulating your voice.

Required Texts:

• Gary Geddes, ed. 20th-Century Poetry & Poetics
• Gary Geddes, ed. The Art of Short Fiction

English 191-02 - Creative Writing II - Ryan Knighton
In English 191 we will continue to develop our skills as writers by asking how writing can be made, not what it might mean. Specifically, we will further engage with questions of poetry, microfiction, and so-called creative non-fiction, as directed by their form and history. Our workshops are neither roundtable editing sessions, nor, worse, copyediting boot camps. Rather, we will share draft examples of our own work in order to further our discussions, to expose new questions, and to seek the effects of craft. Some case examples from published works will be provided in class, but our own writing will serve as the primary texts. So will Stephen king’s memoir, On Writing, which is pretty damned fine. By the final class, students should have at least one reworked submission of writing ready for a magazine or periodical. To that end we will survey some of the nuts-and-bolts of pitching and publishing, too.

Required Text:

• King, S. On Writing (most recent edition)

English 203-01 - Canadian Literature - Sheila Ross
This course examines a selection of engaging contemporary Canadian narratives, introducing students to important critical and cultural issues about the Canadian colonialist past and multicultural present. Especially important is the related problem of literary representation, and each of these works in its own way compels us to ask, “What kind of story-telling is going on here?” We first examine two unusual biographies that draw us into the Canadian colonialist past: Chester Brown’s comic strip Louis Riel, and Rudy Wiebe’s provocative, “co-authored” Stolen life. This paves the way for a look at Thomas King’s short story collection One Good Story, That One, which invokes First Nations oral traditions and whose humour is entirely subversive. Similarly, Alice Munro’s Open Secrets seems intent on reminding us of a number of assumptions we have about how stories should behave and the kinds of truth they ought to disclose. The course considers two novels about immigrant experiences, very different except for this: each central character commits an act of audacious story-telling in order to dispel the silences that surround loss and longing (Yan Martel’s Life of Pi and Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For). Secondary material on authors, works and critical issues will be provided as the course proceeds.

Required Texts:

• Chester Brown, Louis Riel (1999)
• Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson, Stolen Life (1998)
• Thomas King, One Good Story, That One (1999)
• Alice Munro, Open Secrets (1995)
• Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)
• Dionne Brand, What We All Long For (2005)

English 207-01 - Literary Theory and Criticism - Ian Cresswell
This course is intended to introduce students to a variety of critical thinkers and literary schools within the western tradition. Starting with Classical notions of the nature and function of poetry, we move on (through an examination of Kantian aesthetics) to examine Aestheticism, with particular reference to Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" will take us into the world of psychoanalytical criticism, and specifically the work of Freud and Lacan. We will go on to explore Structuralism, Russian Formalism, Deconstruction and Marxism, with particular reference to Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Finally, we will read Shakespeare's King Lear, having regard to the aforementioned theories.

Required Texts:

• Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Edition in bookstore.
• Kundera. Milan. The Unbearable lightness of Being. Edition in bookstore.
• Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Edition in bookstore.
• Dictionary of Critical Theory. Edition in bookstore.

English 217-01 - Literature on the Edge - Reg Johanson
The Graphic Novel: Comix and History
This course explores how the comix genre brings its traditional emphasis on satire, parody, and political commentary to bear on history and autobiography. Our reading list offers examples of the genre that highlight its subversive, anti-authoritarian posture, as well as its neurotic, paranoid darkness. We also watch several films for context and reference.

Required Texts:

• Mccloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Perennial: New York, 1994.
• Herge. TinTin and the Blue Lotus. Little, Brown and Co.: Boston, 1984.
• Speigelman, Art. The Complete Maus: A Survivors Tale. Pantheon: New York, 1997.
• Sacco, Joe. Palestine. Fantagraphics: Seattle, 2006.
• Satrapi, Marjan. Persepolis. Pantheon: New York, 2003.
• Satrapi, Marjan. Embroideries. Pantheon: New York, 2006.
• Brown, Chester. Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography. Drawn and Quarterly: Montreal 2006.
• Moore, Allen and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. DC Comics: New York, 1989.

English 218-01 - The Art of Children's Literature – Roger Farr
This course examines writing for, about, and by children. From Robin Hood and Runaway Bunny to the latest issue of Stone Soup -- a magazine featuring writing and art by people under thirteen years of age --, we will survey a number of classic and contemporary works, with a focus on the complex interaction between attachment, authority, and autonomy. We will also read a short text that challenges the notion of ‘childhood’ itself, by making the radical argument that it is society that must adapt to the needs of children, not the other way around. With this challenge in mind we will consider the infamous case of “The Wild Boy of Aveyron,” a feral child found living in the woods in France in 1797. The story of his capture and attempted domestication reveals much about societal attitudes toward children – and “childishness -- in the West.

Required Texts:

• Children in Society: A Libertarian Critique
• The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature
• The Wild Boy
• Songs of Innocence and Experience
• Runaway Bunny
• Stone Soup

English 290-01 - Creative Writing: Letter and Line - Reg Johanson
This course focuses on “documentary” poetry and poetics. Our starting point is Kaia Sand’s challenge, “why leave journalism to journalists, news to news services?”. We study the various ways in which poets can use, co-opt, subvert, and challenge the media, the ways in which we can “document” contemporary issues and struggles, and how our work can respond to a “social command”. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 290 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies—Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for Degree program students.

Required Text:

• Six Cities. The Capilano Review. Series 2 No. 47, Fall 2005.

English 292-01 - Creative Writing: Children's Literature - Crystal Hurdle
Experience an intensive workshop in writing literature for children of various ages. Examine and practice the art of writing for children by exploring a range of different strategies and techniques: identify narrative structure, myth, character development, levels of diction, voice, etc. Discover voices and forms for your writing and express your ideas in styles appropriate for children’s interests at different ages, from picture books and nonsense rhymes for children to young adult novels in verse. In developing your own projects, become a successor to J. K. Rowling!

Required Texts:

• Sarah Ellis’ From Reader to Writer
• Deborah Ellis’ The Breadwinnner
• William New’s Dream Helmet
• Pamela Porter’s The Crazy Man
• Print Pack with assorted readings

~

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: KIM MINKUS

2009-11-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University concludes on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet at CapU instructor Kim Minkus:

CE 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Kim Minkus is the author of 9 Freight (LINEbooks 2007) and Thresh (Snare Books 2009). Other work appears in FRONT Magazine, Interim, West Coast Line, The Poetic Front, LOCUSPOINT, ottawater, Memewar and Jacket. Her academic research focuses on contemporary poetry, feminist poetry and the archive. In the spring of 2006 she was a fellow at King’s College in London, England and the archival research she completed while there lead to the publication of her book 9 Freight. Currently she is a writing instructor at Capilano University.

stripped down. crawl and stick. folds flutter. stress random stress cathexis stress stumble. bare seizure. entrails near the surface. bodily movements ratchet each emotion. they all exhaust me. tremble while you tell me it matters. glean meanings where there are none.

-- from "Station"

For info:

Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

--

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: KEN BELFORD

2009-10-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts

& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 with a reading by Prince George poet Ken Belford:

CE 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

In addition to 18 chapbooks, Ken Belford has published five books of poetry: Fireweed, The Post Electric Caveman, Pathways Into the Mountains, ecologue and lan(d)guage. Difficult to categorize, Belford’s poetics blend borders. He is a self-educated land(d)guage poet who mixes a learned and lived pre-industrial knowledge with the push and pull of present-day questions, conversations, and what he sees as new linguistic possibilities.

“The surface particulars – rivers, mountains, forest, lakes and all that live there – act not as backdrop but as the literal and imaginative source for the poem and the necessary syntax Belford generates and inhabits. His poems are ongoing, large and politically dimensional, brave in their opposition to any traditional practice that would diminish what the new poem must reveal.” – Barry McKinnon

I trust, not in men or their systems,

but in women, and I don’t care about

saving time, or covering more space.

Writing of cities is about power

and class, and poems about place

are towns that look alike. The only

thing that differentiates them is

the memories in the buildings of authority,

where memory is manufactured,

and time is not money, but space.

When we remember together, other

memories are silenced and called heritage

in the space of a few hours, broadcast

into every room until the storage capacity

is full. Clock time is something signaling

the total, but the way I remember, what

I heard was about the succession

of forms and temporal complexity.

Anyway, I was distracted and inattentive,

and looking for some breathing space,

an opening or break, something I could

say in the company of strangers.

– from lan(d)guage: a sequence of poetics

Upcoming Readings:

Nov 12: Kim Minkus

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: TED BYRNE & EMILY FEDORUK

2009-10-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 with readings by Vancouver poets Ted Byrne and Emily Fedoruk:

LIB 188 @ 11:30 (note new room)
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

TED BYRNE. Born Hamilton, Ontario, 1947. Lived in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, late 60s. Worked as welder, fitter, typist, dishwasher, laundry worker, truck driver, cab driver. Re-educated early 70s: Basil Bunting (Victoria), Robin Blaser and other SFU teachers, especially Jerry Zaslove, Anthony Wilden, Michael Lebowitz and Jane Harris. Avoided the English Department as much as possible. Worked in libraries late 70s early 80s. Shop steward. Union rep in feminist union (AUCE Local 1). MA (Comparative Literature) UBC. Late 80s to present, Trade Union Research Bureau. Member of Kootenay School of Writing collective. Author of Aporia (Fissure/Point Blank) and Beautiful Lies (CUE, 2008; published serially, Raddle Moon, Sprang Texts, W, Thuja). Current project: Sonnets: Louise Labé (West Coast Line, W, Onsets, The Gig).

EMILY FEDORUK is a poet and dancer living in New Westminster, BC. An MA candidate at Simon Fraser University, she is currently conducting research into the social space of malls and their representation in contemporary art and literature. Her first book, All Still, was published in Fall 2008 by Linebooks.

Upcoming Readings:

Oct 29: Ken Belford
Nov 12: Kim Minkus

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: KIM DUFF & CHRISTINE LECLERC

2009-10-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by The Writer’s Union of Canada
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 with readings by Vancouver poets Kim Duff and Christine Leclerc:

Cedar 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

KIM DUFF is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, where she is studying contemporary British literature, Thatcherism, privitization and urban spatial theory. Her previous research has included avant-garde poetry and urban spatial logic. Her book of poetryTube Sock Army was published by LINEbooks in 2008.

Christine Leclerc, originally from Montreal, now lives in Vancouver. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her work has appeared in 42opus, Dig, FRONT, FU, Memewar, OCHO, Pistola, subTerrain, terry, the Worksound gallery, and is forthcoming in Interim. Leclerc is the author of Counterfeit, a book of poetry published by Capilano University Editions (CUE Books) in 2008. She teaches creative writing at Langara College, Continuing Studies.

Upcoming Readings:

Oct 22: Ted Byrne and Emily Fedoruk
Oct 29: Ken Belford
Nov 12: Kim Minkus

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca

604.986.1911 (2291)

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ANGELA CARR

2009-09-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday October 8th, 2009 with a reading by Montreal poet and translator, Angela Carr.

CE 148 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Angela Carr is the author of Ropewalk (2006) and, more recently, the Rose Concordance (2009), which masquerades as a translation of the keyword index to a medieval French allegory. She has published in Canada and internationally, and her poetry has been translated into French and Slovene. Angela Carr is based in Montreal, where she makes her living as a translator of history.

“The anarchy of the fountain is an absence of water Instead buffeting violet light on the downward arc from a splendidly perched upper basin

The upper basin is important, not unlike colour, to any notion of the authentic The upper basin is intrinsic yet supplemental, a bird’s perch, an unattainable accessory both toweringly majestic and superfluous like a figure head whose style is a belated container a raised basin for grey areas”

-- from “Sleep Water”

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: FRED WAH

2009-09-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University commences on Thursday, Sept. 17th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet, critic, and editor Fred Wah:

Arbutus 314 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Fred Wah studied music and English literature at the University of British Columbia in the early 1960's where he was one of the founding editors of the poetry newsletter TISH. After many years of teaching in the West Kootenays and at the University of Calgary, he now lives in Vancouver. He has been editorially involved with a number of literary magazines over the years, such as Open Letter and West Coast Line. Recent books are Diamond Grill, a biofiction (1996), Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity, a collection of essays (2000), and two collections of poetry, Sentenced to Light (2008) and is a door (2009).

5. (that cottonwood)

Orifice foreignicity
some “it” at stake
unrecognizable in the distance
or “if” is dying
beyond meaning
truth or rust
just one call gets through
in fact they started singing
the ospreys flew off
and then a raven landed
in that cottonwood office
door thresh
holding “that”

-- from “Articualtions”

For info:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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Capilano Faculty featured in Canadian Literature

2009-08-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

Check out Canadian Literature's feature on our very own Crystal Hurdle.

The current issue of CanLit also includes a review of Surplus, by Roger Farr, and Courage, My Love, by Reg Johanson.

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Creative Writing Courses: Fall 2009

2009-06-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here's what's on deck for Fall 2009 – note the new program courses ENGL 100 and 103: these are required for all incoming students in the Creative Writing Program.

English 100-01 – Academic Writing Strategies (Roger Farr)

This section of English 100 is designed specifically for Creative Writing students and is a required course for those in the Creative Writing Program. It introduces the genres and strategies – or, as we will come to know them, “the moves” – used by creative writers working in academic situations and contexts, focusing on expository and argumentative forms such as book reviews, research essays, and artist statements, as well as related, literary forms like photo-essays, creative non-fiction, and manifestos. In all cases, the course will emphasize the importance of solid research skills in both critical and creative writing. As for our reading, this will include student work, and a selection of contemporary literary journals and magazines, including several on-line publications. We will also attend readings and talks by writers visiting the campus as part of the Open Text Reading Series. By the end of the course, students will more imaginative in their critical writing, and their creative work will be more critically informed.

Required Texts:

• Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. New York, NY: Norton, 2006.

• Hacker, Diana. The Canadian Writer’s Reference Guide. 5th ed. NY: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.

• Recent issues of The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, Matrix, and Geist.

• Other materials available in-class and/or on-line.

English 103-01 – Studies in Contemporary Literature (Roger Farr)

This section of English 103 is designed specifically for Creative Writing students and is a required course for those in the Creative Writing Program. The goal of the course is to put students into contact with some of the writers, texts, practices, and movements that compose “the contemporary.” What is “the contemporary,” you ask? We will only be reading work published within the last two years. Additionally, we will attend readings by writers visiting the campus as part of the Open Text Reading Series, who will present and talk about their current work. Finally, we will follow the lead of “the contemporary” by adopting an experimental, investigative attitude towards our writing assignments, which will require both critical and creative responses to the material we encounter.

Required Texts:

• Belford, Ken. lan(d)guage: a sequence of poetics. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlan, 2008.

• Boykoff, Jules, and Kaia Sand. Landscapes of Dissent: Guerilla Poetry and Public Space. Long Beach, CA: Palm, 2008.

• Carr, Amanda. A Rose Concordance. Toronto, ON: Book Thug, 2009.

• Farr, Roger (Ed.) Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century. North Vancouver, BC: CUE, 2008/09.

• Fiorentino, Jon Paul. Stripmalling. Toronto, ON: ECW, 2009.

• Stone, Anne. Delible. London, ON: Insomniac, 2007.

• other readings available in class and on-line.

Engl 190-01/02 – Creative Writing I (Reg Johanson)

This course introduces students to fiction and poetry through reading and writing. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.

ENGL 190-03 – Creative Writing I (Roger Farr)

This mixed-mode course meets in person on alternating Thursday evenings. The other weeks we meet in cyberspace. Other than that, it's business as usual: ENGL 190 is a forum where students can develop their writing, and their thinking about writing, through guided experimentation with language. You will work in a variety of modes and genres, including creative non-fiction, short stories, very very short stories, poems, serial poems, and writing for performance (radio/podcast scripts). As for reading, we will consider each other’s work, as well as work appearing in current literary journals and magazines, to see what other writers are up to. By the end of the course, you will have a generous portfolio of writing of which you will feel proud, and which may or may not impress your friends and family.

Required Texts:

• Farr, Roger (Ed.) Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century. Vol. I & II. North Vancouver, BC: CUE, 2008.

• Stern, Jerome, ed. Microfictions. New York, NY: Norton, 1996.

• Recent issues of The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, Matrix, and Geist.

• Other materials available in-class and/or on-line.

English 191-01 – Creative Writing II (Crystal Hurdle)

When is a poem really a story? When should you leave a draft alone? Through in-class writing, weekly homework assignments, and personal projects, you will write up a storm in a number of genres. You’ll be introduced to professional writers, from Lorna Crozier to bp Nichol, from Thomas King to Gabriel Garcia Márquez, to visiting writers at the Open Text and Kinder Text Reading Series, as well as to the work of your colleagues, in aid of developing your style, articulating your voice.

Texts:

* Gary Geddes, ed. 20th-Century Poetry & Poetics
* Gary Geddes, ed. The Art of Short Fiction
* And assorted recommended texts to kick-start your imagination

Engl 291 – 01/02 Narrative and Fiction (Reg Johanson)

This course will focus on “biotext”, a hybrid prose form which combines fiction, autobiography, memoir, history, found texts and prose poetry. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 291 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies—Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for Degree program students.

For more information contact:
Roger Farr, Creative Writing Convener

~

Robin Blaser: 18 May 1925 - 7 May 2009

2009-05-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

"Death is not final. Only parking lots."

-- Jack Spicer

~

POETRY AND PROVO!

2009-04-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

A READING AND PRESENTATION BY JORDAN ZINOVICH, WITH HANS PLOMP IN ATTENDANCE: MAY 5th, SPARTACUS BOOKS

Sponsored by the Writer’s Union of Canada, The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

Open Text is pleased to present poet, historian, and editor Jordan Zinovich, who will read from a new work, “Chronicle of an Unverifiable Year,” followed by a screening of documentary film footage related to Richard Kempton’s book "Provo: Amsterdam's Anarchist Revolt" (Autonomedia). Provo activist and poet Hans Plomp will also be in attendance.

Tuesday, May 5th @ 7:30
Spartacus Books
684 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

JORDAN ZINOVICH was born and raised in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. He left Canada in 1974, and since then has lived in Crete, England, France, Guinea Conakry, Holland, India, Spain, and New York City, where he now resides. He has published two historical biographies about personalities who opened the western Canadian north (“The Prospector: North of Sixty” and “Battling the Bay”); the critical anthology “Semiotext(e) CANADAs” (of which he was Project General Editor); the novel “Gabriel Dumont in Paris”; The Poetry Collections “Cobweb Walking,” “The Company I Keep,” and “Chronicle of an Unverifiable Year”; the poetic radio play “John Chapman’s Harvest”; and, most recently, “Tantric Panic,” a collection of Hans Plomp’s short stories translated from Dutch. His work has been translated into French and Dutch, with radio performances in New York and Amsterdam. At present he is a senior editor with the Autonomedia Collective, one of North America’s most notable underground publishing houses.

Born in Amsterdam in 1944, HANS PLOMP took an active part in the “Provo revolution” and in 1973 was part of the occupation of the village of Ruigoord, which for over 35 years has thrived as creative community of “spiritual anarchists” from different cultures and generations. He has published novels, stories, poems and essays, and organizes the annual Fiery Tongues festival of poetry and music at Ruigoord. He is also an avid traveler and has spent some five years in India, an account of which was published in English by Ekstasis Editions. Plomp has toured Europe and the U.S. with Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ira Cohen, Gerard Malanga, Diana di Prima, Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman. His work has also been collected in "Nine Dutch Poets" (City Lights, 1982).

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2291)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: SHIRLEY BEAR

2009-03-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University concludes on Thursday, April 2nd with a reading by Shirley Bear:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

The author of a book of poems entitled Virgin Bones (McGilligan Press, 2007), SHIRLEY BEAR is a multi-media artist, writer, activist, and native traditional herbalist. Born on the Tobique First Nation, she is an original member of the Wabnaki language group of New Brunswick, Canada. Shirley Bear was the 2002 recipient of the Excellence in the Arts Award from the New Brunswick Arts Board.

For Info:
Reg Johanson
Creative Writing Convener
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: PHINDER DULAI

2009-03-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver poet Phinder Dulai:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

PHINDER DULAI is the author of two books of poetry: Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press 1995); and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions 2000). His work has been published in various journals, including: West Coast Line, The Capilano Review, Memewar Magazine, Rungh, Ankur and Matrix, and can also be found in the anthologies Making a Difference – Canadian Multicultural Literature (OUP 2006) and Companions and Horizons – Anthology of SFU Poetry (Line Books, 2005). As a South Asian Canadian writer interested in post colonial Diaspora perspectives, Dulai works in diffusing and exploring these roots through contemporary poetics.

For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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P3: PoetryPianoPoetry

2009-03-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Please join LINEbooks for a reading by Kim Minkus and Glen Lowry.
Hank Bull will play piano between sets.

Friday March 20th, 7:30 pm
1067 Granville Street. (Alley Entrance)
BYOB

Hank Bull has been an important member of the legendary Western Front Society since 1973. He is the also the founder and executive director of Centre A (Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art) since 1999. His works have been collected by National Gallery of Canada, Netherlands Media Art Institute and many private collectors. He has a long history of playing piano in many settings.

Glen Lowry is a Vancouver-based writer, photographer, scholar, and editor. He co-edits West Coast Line and his work appears in the anthology, Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, 2005). Pacific Avenue is forthcoming from LINEbooks. He lives in Vancouver and works at ECUAD.

Kim Minkus is a poet, researcher and writing instructor. She is a PhD candidate in Simon Fraser University's English Department where her research interests are contemporary poetics, avant-garde book history, and archival experiment and risk. She has had articles published on poets Susan Howe and Stephen Cain. LINEbooks published her first book of poetry 9 Freight in the fall of 2007 and her second book Thresh is forthcoming. She has had reviews and poetry published in FRONT Magazine, Interim, West Coast Line, The Poetic Front, LOCUSPOINT, ottawater, Memewar and Jacket. She currently teaches at Capilano University.

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ROGER FARR

2009-03-06T11:13:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver writer, editor and teacher Roger Farr:

Arbutus 314 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Roger Farr is the author of SURPLUS (Line Books, 2006), a co-author (with Reg Johanson and Aaron Vidaver) of the collaborative research project N 49 19. 47 - W 123 8.11 (Recomposition, 2008), and the editor of PARSER: New Poetry and Poetics. Other work appears or is forthcoming in The Canadian Journal of Communication, Fifth Estate, The International Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Rad Dad, and XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. He works at Capilano University.

For info:
Reg Johanson, Creative Writing Convener
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ROY MIKI

2009-02-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 with a reading by Vancouver critic, editor, poet and teacher Roy Miki:

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

ROY MIKI is the author of Justice in Our Time (co-authored with Cassandra Kobayashi) (Talonbooks 1991), two books of poems, Saving Face (Turnstone 1991) and Random Access File (Red Deer College Press 1995), and a collection of critical essays, Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (Mercury Press 1998). His third book of poems, Surrender (Mercury Press 2001), received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His two most recent publications are Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice (Raincoast 2004), and There (New Star Books 2006), a book of poems. He received the Order of Canada in 2006.

For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: DAPHNE MARLATT

2009-02-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

Library 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Vancouver writer Daphne Marlatt has written over twenty books of poetry, fiction and essays, notably Steveston, Touch to my Tongue, This Tremor Love Is, the essay collection Readings from the Labyrinth, and two novels, Ana Historic and Taken. In 2006 Pangaea Arts (Vancouver) staged a bicultural, bilingual production of The Gull, her contemporary Noh play about Steveston’s Japanese-Canadian fishing community, winning the international Uchimura Theatre Prize. The Given was published in 2008, as was Between Brush Strokes, about the life and work of the B.C. painter Sveva Caetani. Also in 2008 Otter Bay released the CD Like Light Off Water, a collaboration with composer-musicians Robert Minden and Carla Hallett. Marlatt was awarded the Order of Canada in 2005.

For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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Progressive Texts: WCL/LINEbooks Launch

2009-02-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

Thursday February 19th 7:30 pm
The ANZA club 3 west 8th ave in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver

Active Geographies: Women and Struggles on the Left Coast
Edited by Rita Wong & Jo-Anne Lee

Citizenship and Cultural Belonging
Edited by Sophie McCall & David Chariandy

sybil unrest
Rita Wong & Larissa Lai

The Artist and the Moose: A Fable of Forget
Roy K. Kiyooka
edited with an afterword by Roy Miki

--

Info:
Michael Barnholden
Managing Editor, WCL
www.westcoastline.ca

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: JORDAN SCOTT

2009-02-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Spring 2009 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University begins on February 10th with a reading by Vancouver poet Jordan Scott.

LB 321 @ 11:30
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Originally from Coquitlam, British Columbia, JORDAN SCOTT now wanders between the Pacific and the Shield. His first book of poetry, Silt (New Star Books), was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In the fall of 2006, he worked on the final sections of blert while acting as a writer in residence at the International Writers' and Translators' Centre in Rhodes, Greece.

For info:
Reg Johanson
rjohanso@capilnou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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SOAP: On-Campus Five-Minute Play Festival

2009-02-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

SOAP: On-Campus Five-Minute Play Festival

This festival will première eleven brand new plays written by Creative Writing students and performed and directed by Theatre students. The unifying theme is le mystère. Writer-in-residence Tom Cone has overseen the project.

All performances take place in Arbutus 001. Both groups perform every show time. Group One before the intermission and Group Two after. Tickets $5.

The date and times of the five-minute play festival SOAP are as follows:

Wednesday February 11: Groups One & Two 4pm. Groups One & Two 7pm.
Thursday February 12: Groups One & Two 7pm
Friday February 13: Groups One & Two 7pm.

Call the reservation line to book: 604.990.7979

Call for Submissions for The Liar

2009-02-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

It's February and that means that it is one short month until deadline for the Spring 09 issue of the Liar. Don't be shy! Give us all you got!

Again, deadline for submissions is March 1st. If more time is needed then we recommend you e-mail us telling us so. For any questions about submissions, past issues or anything else, please e-mail us at liarsarebetterlovers@gmail.com.

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Open Text Reading Series: Spring 2009

2009-01-28T11:55:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Feb. 10 11:30-1 LB321
Originally from Coquitlam, British Columbia, JORDAN SCOTT now wanders between the Pacific and the Shield. Jordan’s first book of poetry, Silt (New Star Books), was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In the fall of 2006, Jordan worked on the final sections of blert while acting as a writer in residence at the International Writers’ and Translators’ Centre in Rhodes, Greece.

Thursday Feb. 26 11:30-1 LB 321
DAPHNE MARLATT After moving from Malaysia to Vancouver in 1951, Marlatt attained her BA from the University of British Columbia in 1964, MA in Comparative Literature from Indiana University in 1968, and LL.D. from the University of Western Ontario in 1996. After publishing poetry for many years, she published two novels, Ana Historic (1988) and Taken (1996), and numerous critical articles. Most recently Marlatt has edited Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka by Roy Kiyooka.

Thursday March 5 11:30-1 LB 321
ROY MIKI is a writer, poet, and editor who lives in Vancouver. He is the author of Justice in Our Time (co-authored with Cassandra Kobayashi) (Talonbooks 1991), two books of poems, Saving Face (Turnstone 1991) and Random Access File (Red Deer College Press 1995), and a collection of critical essays, Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (Mercury Press 1998). His third book of poems, Surrender (Mercury Press 2001), received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His two most recent publications are Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice (Raincoast 2004), and There (New Star Books 2006), a book of poems. He received the Order of Canada in 2006.

Thursday March 12 11:30-1 AR 314
ROGER FARR is the author of SURPLUS (LINEbooks, 2006), a co-author (with Reg Johanson and Aaron Vidaver) of N 49 19. 47 - W 123 8.11 (Recomposition Books, 2008), and the editor of PARSER: New Poetry and Poetics. Recent poetry, micro-fiction, and critical writing appears or is forthcoming in Anarchist Studies, Boog City, The Capilano Review, The Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution, Fifth Estate, Matrix, Magazine Minima, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, The Poetic Front, The Rain Review, W, West Coast Line, and XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. In 2005 he edited the “6 Cities” issue of The Capilano Review; currently he is editing a three-volume anthology of contemporary Canadian poetry and poetics, Open Text: Canadian Poetry in The 21st Century (CUE, 2008). His work has been heard on the airwaves of Anarchy Radio in Eugene, Oregon; Free Radio Olympia and KAOS FM in Washington State; and Tree Frog Radio, Denman Island, BC.

Thursday March 19 11:30-1 LB 321
PHINDER DULAI is the author of two books of poetry: Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press 1995); and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions 2000). His work has been published in various journals: West Coast Line, The Capilano Review, Memewar Magazine, Rungh, Ankur and Matrix. His work is also found in a number of anthologies: Making a Difference – Canadian Multicultural Literature (OUP 2006) and Companions and Horizons – Anthology of SFU Poetry 40th Year anniversary (2005). As a South Asian Canadian writer interested in post colonial Diaspora perspectives, Dulai works in diffusing and exploring these roots through the contemporary poetics.

Thursday April 2 11:30-1 LB 321
The author of a book of poems entitled Virgin Bones (McGilligan Press, 2007), SHIRLEY BEAR is a multi-media artist, writer, activist, and native traditional herbalist. Born on the Tobique First Nation, she is an original member of the Wabnaki language group of New Brunswick, Canada. Shirley Bear was the 2002 recipient of the Excellence in the Arts Award from the New Brunswick Arts Board.

Contact: Reg Johanson, Creative Writing Convener

The Open Text Series is brought to you by the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing, The English Department, The Humanities Division, The Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Canada Council.

For information on the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing, see www.capilanou.ca/programs/english/creative-writing.html.

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KinderText Reading: Bill New, Jan 29

2009-01-23T08:18:00.000-08:00

William New, University Killam Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2003-d., will read from and discuss his works for children, among other things, at Capilano University on Thursday Jan. 29th, in LB321, at 11:30 am. Free. His work for kids includes Vanilla Gorilla, Llamas in the Laundry, Dream Helmet, and his latest, The Year I was Grounded. Sponsored by the Writers’ union of Canada and Canada Council for the Arts, this is 2009’s first Kinder Text reading.

Contact: Crystal Hurdle
churdle@capilanou.ca
604-984-0353 local 2420

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Fall 2008 Liar Launch

2008-12-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

The new issue of The Liar, Capilano University's creative writing student magazine, will be launched this Wednesday (December 10th) at Pat's Pub, 403 E. Hastings St., from 7:30-11:30pm.

Readings by the Fall '08 Collective and the students of Cap U (past and present), as well as the musical prowess of keyboardist and human being, LASERGIANT!

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Creative Writing at Capilano University - SPRING 2009

2008-11-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

English 100-14 & 15 Academic Writing Strategies (for Creative Writing)– Reg Johanson
This section of English 100 is designed specifically for Creative Writing students and is a required course for students in the Creative Writing Degree program. It meets for 90 minutes once a week for the fall and spring semesters. This composition class will introduce the genres and strategies that are required of creative writers working in academic situations and contexts with a focus on expository and persuasive forms such as research essays, book reviews, paratext (blurbs, bios, acknowledgements), project descriptions and grant proposals. In addition to each others work, our reading will include a survey of contemporary literary journals. These journals will provide the raw data for the year's study. What can we say about the practices, values and concerns of these "discursive communities"?

Required Texts:
A variety of literary journals, TBA.
Course pack available in bookstore.

English 190-01 Creative Writing I – Reg Johanson
This course introduces students to the cunning of fiction and poetry through reading and writing. Students learn to become critical of their own work and that of others. Students write a variety of assignments intended to open up the horizon of their writing to innovation and experimentation and are encouraged to leave the past behind. Students also attend the Open Text reading series. English 190 is a required course for the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. Students who take this course may also be interested in Academic Writing Strategies- Creative Writing Seminar, also a required course for the Degree program students.

Required Texts:
TBA

English 191-01 & 02 Creative Writing II – Ryan Knighton
In English 191 we will continue to develop our skills as writers by asking how writing can be made, not what it might mean. Specifically, we will further engage with questions of poetry, microfiction, and so-called creative non-fiction, as directed by their form and history. Our workshops, however, are neither roundtable editing sessions, nor, worse, copyediting boot camps. Rather, we will share draft examples of our own work in order to further our discussions, to expose new questions, and to seek the effects of craft. Some case examples from published works may be provided in class, but our own writing will serve as the primary texts. So will Stephen king’s memoir, On Writing, which is pretty damned fine. By the final class, students should have at least one reworked submission of writing ready for a magazine or periodical. To that end, we will survey some of the nuts-and-bolts of pitching and publishing, too.

Required Texts:
King, Stephen. On Writing. S&S.

English 290-01 Creative Writing: Letter and Line – Reg Johanson
This course focuses on “documentary” poetry and poetics. Our starting point is Kaia Sand’s challenge, “why leave journalism to journalists, news to news services?”. We study the various ways in which poets can use, co-opt, subvert, and challenge the media, the ways in which we can “document” contemporary issues and struggles, and how our work can respond to a “social command”.

Required Texts:
TBA

English 292-01 Creative Writing: Children’s Literature – Crystal Hurdle
Experience an intensive workshop in writing literature for children of various ages. Examine and practice the art of writing for children by exploring a range of different strategies and techniques: identify narrative structure, myth, character development, levels of diction, voice, etc. Discover voices and forms for your writing and express your ideas in styles appropriate for children’s interests at different ages, from picture books and nonsense rhymes for children to young adult novels in verse. In developing your own projects, become a successor to J. K. Rowling!

Required Texts:
Ellis, Sarah From Reader to Writer
Ellis, Deborah. The Breadwinnner
New, William. Dream Helmet
Porter, Pamela. The Crazy Man
Print Pack with assorted readings

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: Wayde Compton

2008-10-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University concludes on Thursday, November 6th, with a reading by Vancouver poet and public historian Wayde Compton.

November 6th
2:30 – 4 p.m. LB 194
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

WAYDE COMPTON is a Vancouver writer whose books include 49th Parallel Psalm, Performance Bond and Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature. He and Jason de Couto perform turntable-based sound poetry as a duo called The Contact Zone Crew. Compton is also a co-founding member of the Hogan's Alley Memorial Project, an organization dedicated to preserving the public memory of Vancouver's original black community. He is also one of the publishers of Commodore Books. Compton teaches in Simon Fraser University's Writing and Publishing Program, where he is a creative writing instructor in The Writer's Studio; he also teaches English composition and literature at Coquitlam College. He was Writer-in-Residence at SFU in 2007-08.

For info:
Reg Johanson
Convener, Creative Writing Program
Capilano University
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: Renee Rodin

2008-10-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University continues on Thursday, October 30th, with a reading by Vancouver writer Renee Rodin.

October 30th
11:30 am, Library 321
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

RENEE RODIN, poet and visual artist, was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. She came to Vancouver in the 60s and in the 80s began R2B2 Books along with its reading series which she ran for 8 years. Rodin is the author of Bread and Salt (Talonbooks, 1996) and the chapbook Ready for Freddy (Nomados, 2005).

For info:
Reg Johanson
Convener, Creative Writing Program
Capilano University
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

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Open Text Reading Series: Steve Collis, Oct. 23rd

2008-10-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University.

The Fall 2008 Open Text series continues with a reading by poet and critic Steve Collis.

Thursday, Oct. 23
11:30 am, LIB 321
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver, BC

STEVE COLLIS is the author of three books of poetry, Mine (New Star 2001) Anarchive (New Star 2005), which was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and The Commons (Talonbooks 2008). His essays on contemporary poetry and poetics have appeared in many Canadian and American journals, and he is the author of two book-length studies, Phyllis Webb and the Common Good (Talonbooks 2007) and Through Words of Others: Susan Howe and Anarcho-Scholasticism (ELS Editions 2006). A member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective, he teaches American literature, poetry, and creative writing at Simon Fraser University.

For information contact:

Reg Johanson
Convener, Creative Writing Program
Capilano University
Email: rjohanso@capilanou.ca
Phone 604-986-1911 local 2428

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KinderText Reading Series: Kit Pearson

2008-10-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts through the Writers' Union of Canada and the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University.

The fall 2008 KinderText series begins this Tuesday with a reading by award-winning Children's Literature author Kit Pearson.

Tuesday Oct. 21
4pm, Room LIB 321/322
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver, BC

KIT PEARSON worked for ten years as a children's librarian in Ontario and B.C. and is now a full-time writer living in Victoria. Her books have been published in Canada in English and French, in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain. She has won twelve awards for her writing, including the Vicky Metcalf Award for her body of work in 1998. The Singing Basket, a retold folktale, illustrated by Anne Blades, is for young readers. Kit's acclaimed Guests of War trilogy, published by Penguin books, features a British brother and sister exiled by the Second World War to new life in Canada. As well, she has edited This Land: A Cross-Country Anthology of Canadian Fiction for Young Readers. Her most recent book is A Perfect Gentle Knight.

For information contact:

Crystal Hurdle
English and Creative Writing Instructor
Email: churdle@capilanou.ca
Phone 604-983-7570 local 2420

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CUE / Open Text Anthology Launch!

2008-10-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

CUE | Capilano University Editions
cuebooks.ca | contact@cuebooks.ca

Please join CUE in launching its inaugural season, with readings by George Bowering, Ted Byrne, Larissa Lai, Christine Leclerc, Donato Mancini, Sharon Thesen, and Lissa Wolsak.

Music by Cellosound.

Oct 17th. at 7:00 pm
Mountain View Cemetery, Celebration Hall
5455 Fraser Street (East 39th Ave. at Fraser)
Vancouver, BC

Special launch prices on all books. For more information, please contact Roger Farr (Editor).

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CultureNet + Creative Writing Performance Night

2008-09-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

CultureNet + Creative Writing at CapilanoU invite you to an evening of readings + performance by students past and present, w/ Special Guests Roger Farr, Kim Minkus, and Reg Johanson. The stage will be open to all Cap U writers, faculty, alumni and their friends.

8pm, Thurs Oct. 2
Hoko's Restaurant
362 Powell Street, Vancouver

Contact Reg Johanson or Aurelea Mahood at 604.986.1911 for more information.

--

http://capculturenet.blogspot.com/

http://www.capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

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OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: CLINT BURNHAM

2008-09-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano University

The Fall 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano University kicks off on Thursday, September 25th, with a reading by Vancouver writer Clint Burnham.

September 25th
11:30 am, Library 321
Capilano University
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

CLINT BURNHAM is a Vancouver writer and teacher. His books include Rental Van (poetry, Anvil, 2007), Smoke Show (novel, Arsenal Pulp, 2005), Buddyland (poetry, Coach House, 2000), Airborne Photo (short stories, Anvil, 1999), and Be Labour Reading (poetry, ECW, 1997). Work has also appeared in The Capilano Review, Open Letter, Queen Street Review, Pyramid Power, UE, and fhole. He teaches in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University.

8

like sixties tv
greek tragedy
was too greedy
for more than one plot
you see Racine supersized it
had the son-in-law
in love with a doomed chick
me, I just want to find a young man
like Jackie Burroughs did in A Winter Tan
he could be a Foreigner, a Trooper, a Pink Floyd, a Toto

-- from "Phedra is a Cougar" (The Capilano Review, 3:1/2)

For info:
Reg Johanson
Convener, Creative Writing Program
Capilano University
rjohanso@capilanou.ca
604.986.1911 (2428)

Fall 2008 Open Text Reading Series @ CapU

2008-09-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Open Text Reading Series is brought to you by Capilano U’s Creative Writing Program, the Canada Council, and the Department of English. In its second year, the series has featured the work of Peter Culley, Marie Annharte Baker, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Jamie Reid, Maxine Gadd, Ken Belford, George Bowering, Rob Budde, Louis Cabri, Jeff Derksen, Si Transken, Lissa Wolsak, Rita Wong, Oana Avasilichioaei, Claire Huot, Larissa Lai, Reg Johanson, Robert Majzels, Darren Wershler-Henry, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Anne Stone, Donato Mancini, and Louis Rastelli. Many Open Text writers are also featured in the forthcoming anthology Open Text: Canadian Poetry in the 21st Century, published by Capilano University Editions (CUE), a new press dedicated to documenting, supporting, and broadening innovation in contemporary Canadian arts and culture.

Fall 2008

Thurs Sept. 25 11:30 - 1 LB 321
CLINT BURNHAM is a Vancouver writer and teacher. His books include Rental Van (poetry, Anvil, 2007), Smoke Show (novel, Arsenal Pulp, 2005), Buddyland (poetry, Coach House, 2000), Airborne Photo (short stories, Anvil, 1999), and Be Labour Reading (poetry, ECW, 1997). Work has also appeared in The Capilano Review, Open Letter, Queen Street Review, Pyramid Power, UE, and fhole. He teaches in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University.

Thurs Oct 23 11:30 - 1 LB 321
Poet and critic STEVE COLLIS is the author of three books of poetry, Mine (New Star 2001) and Anarchive (New Star 2005), which was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and The Commons (Talonbooks 2008). His essays on contemporary poetry and poetics have appeared in many Canadian and American journals, and he is the author of two book-length studies, Phyllis Webb and the Common Good (Talonbooks 2007) and Through Words of Others: Susan Howe and Anarcho-Scholasticism (ELS Editions 2006). A member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective, he teaches American literature, poetry, and creative writing at Simon Fraser University.

Thurs Oct 30 11:30 - 1 LB 321
RENEE RODIN, poet and visual artist, was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. She came to Vancouver in the 60s and in the 80s began R2B2 Books along with its reading series which she ran for 8 years. Rodin is the author of Bread and Salt (Talonbooks, 1996) and the chapbook Ready for Freddy (Nomados, 2005).

Thurs Nov 6 2:30 - 4 LB 194
WAYDE COMPTON is a Vancouver writer whose books include 49th Parallel Psalm, Performance Bond and Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature. He and Jason de Couto perform turntable-based sound poetry as a duo called The Contact Zone Crew. Compton is also a co-founding member of the Hogan's Alley Memorial Project, an organization dedicated to preserving the public memory of Vancouver's original black community. He is also one of the publishers of Commodore Books. Compton teaches in Simon Fraser University's Writing and Publishing Program, where he is a creative writing instructor in The Writer's Studio; he also teaches English composition and literature at Coquitlam College. He is currently the Writer-in-Residence at SFU (2007-08).

For more information on the Associate of Arts in Creative Writing Degree Program, see our website.

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Launch of the Capilano Art-Vending Machine!

2008-08-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Please come out and show your support for locally-grown talent! There will be readings by first year Capilano creative writing students and a series of chapbooks available for a nickle a piece.

Wednesday August 20th
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Café Montmartre
4362 Main Street (at 28th)

~

Writing is a Social Act!

2008-06-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

Capilano University's New Creative Writing Program Now Accepting Applications for Fall 2008.

While creative writing classes are open to all University Transfer students, Capilano is now offering a unique Associate Arts Degree in Creative Writing. The program is designed for students interested in studying both contemporary literature and creative writing, with the aim of acquiring first and second year English and creative writing transfer credits.

View the Associate of Arts Degree - Creative Writing Program.

Beyond the classroom

Classroom instruction can be helpful for a writer, but we believe good writing is also the result of contact with a lively writing community. With this in mind, we are pleased to host the Open Text Reading Series, support a student publication (The Liar), as well as scholarships, awards, and internships with The Capilano Review.

Courses

Course desciptions for all creative writing courses are available in the online calendar.

Prerequisites

Currently there are no special entry requirements to the CRWR Program. However, all program students must take English 100 Academic Writing Skills (for Creative Writing), a course on research methods and critical thinking designed specifically for creative writers who are also writing in academic situations. In Fall 2008, this course will be offered as English 100, Section 14 or 15. Students must also take any section of English 190.

Contact

For more information about the program, contact the Creative Writing Convener, Reg Johanson

TRACING THE LINES

2008-04-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

TRACING THE LINES:
A Symposium on Contemporary Poetics
and Cultural Politics to Honour Roy Miki

May 28th to 31st, 2008
Vancouver BC

<http://tracingthelines.net>

~

Wednesday May 28: 7:30 PM
Studio 41, CBC Building, 775 Cambie Street (at West Georgia St)
Chair: Sophie McCall
Opening remarks: Michael Stevenson, President, SFU
Tom Grieve, Chair, Department of English, SFU
Reading by Roy Miki. Introduced by Daphne Marlatt
Reception: sponsored by The Department of English, SFU

Thursday May 29
DAYTIME events at the Firehall Arts Centre, 280 East Cordova (at Gore)
9:30 Welcome: Larissa Lai
9:40-11:00 REPRESENTATION AND COALITIONS(S).
Rita Wong (moderator)
Jeannette Armstrong, Scott Toguri McFarlane, Jamelie Hassan
11:00-11:30: REGISTRATION and coffee break
11:30-1:00: ASIANCY.
Christine Kim (moderator)
Monika Kin Gagnon, Phinder Dulai, David Fujino, Hiromi Goto
1:00-2:00: Lunch break
2:00-3:30: CONTEMPORARY POETICS.
Roger Farr (moderator)
Louis Cabri, the Sibyls, Mark Nowak
3:30-3:45: Break
3:45-5:15: EDITORIAL ACTIVISM.
Glen Lowry (moderator)
Michael Barnholden, Jacqueline Larson, Wayde Compton, Walter K. Lew

EVENING 8:00 PM Anza Club, 3 West 8th (between Main & Cambie)
Gala launch/reading of West Coast Line, The Roy Miki issue.
Edited by Fred Wah, featuring work by Miki's friends, compatriots, former students and colleagues: George Bowering, Jacqueline Larson, Daphne Marlatt, Garry Thomas Morse, & many many more. Cash Bar. Sponsored by West Coast Line and The Kootenay School of Writing.

Friday, May 30
DAYTIME program at Firehall Art Centre, 280 East Cordova (at Gore)
10:00-11:30: POLITICS OF THE IMAGINATION.
Ashok Mathur (moderator)
Susan Crean, Jeff Derksen, Marwan Hassan, Marie Annharte Baker
11:30-11:45: coffee break
11:45-1:15: ART OF REDRESS.
Kirsten Emiko McAllister (moderator)
Cindy Mochizuki, Baco Ohama, Grace Eiko Thomson, Mona Oikawa
1:15-2:15: Lunch
2:15-4:15-GENERATIVE GENERATIONS.
Tara Lee (moderator)
Alessandra Capperdoni, Nicole Markotic, Mark Nakada, Jerry Zaslove
4:15-4:30: Closing remarks by Jacqueline Larson
4:30-5:30: cash bar

EVENING: 8:30 PM Party at Ashok Mathur's house

Saturday, May 31
7:30 PM at St John's College, 2111 Lower Mall, UBC
KEYNOTE ADDRESS:
"'i have altered the tactics to reflect the new era':
Intellectuals, Accountability, and Politics"
by Smaro Kamboureli
Introduced by David Chariandy
Discussion, reception and book display to follow

For program details and other information, see <http://tracingthelines.net>

THE SPRING 2008 LIAR!

2008-04-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

Launch party for Capilano's creative writing magazine, with readings and live music:

April 17th, 8:00pm
HOKO Restaurant
362 Powell St., Van
free

For info:
liarsarebetterlovers@gmail.com

~

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: REG JOHANSON

2008-03-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Degree Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College concludes on April 1st, 2008 with a reading by poet and critic Reg Johanson.

Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Born in Leduc, Alberta, REG JOHANSON lives in East Vancouver, BC. Courage, My Love (Line Books, 2006) brings together a selection of works that have appeared over the last decade in W magazine, the chapbook Chips (Thuja, 2001), and in the anthologies Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury, 2005) and Companions and Horizons (WCL, 2005). Critical work on Standard English as a classist and racializing disciplinary practice and on the political economy of "cheating" and plagiarism has appeared in XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics and as "Working Papers in Critical Practice #1" (recomposition.net); other essays on liquor policy, on "the radical" in poetry, on representations of missing women, and on global urbanization appear in West Coast Line and The Rain Review. A former member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective and current co-director of the Pacific Institute for Language and Literacy Studies, Johanson teaches comp and lit at Capilano College.

"Sometimes

I want the State so bad

I can taste it.

'The world needs committed, naïve people' -- Honourable Mr. Justice Stewart, Provincial Court of BC

The Revolution will not be?

'Populist Islam and Pentecostal Christianity occupy a social space analogous to that of early twentieth century socialism and anarchism'

Could be worse. Could be The Ruckus Society.

'Canadians do not tolerate orgies or other Canadians participating in orgies.' -- Québec Judge Denis Boisvert

Bring out the pedagogue."

-- Reg Johanson, from "Variations for Jean Carle"

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

Poetry, Video, Music: The Capilano Review launches its Collaboration issue 3.4

2008-03-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Capilano Review announces the launch of the Collaborations Issue 3.4. Join us at the Western Front on March 28 at 7:30pm. Hear poets Ted Byrne, Larissa Lai and Rita Wong; see and hear an excerpt from the recording of Hadley+Maxwell and Stefan Smulovitz’s “(The Rest Is Missing)” with Turning Point Ensemble; and hear live performances of song room pieces “unselected works” by Viviane Houle, Stefan Smulovitz, Andrew Klobucar; “Occupying Army” by Vanessa Richards, John Korsrud, Chris Derksen; and more.

Tickets: $5

March 28, 7:30pm
Western Front
303 8th Avenue East
Vancouver, BC V5T 1S1
(604) 876-9343

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: LOUIS RASTELLI

2008-03-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Degree Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 with a reading by Montreal novelist and small-press organizer, Louis Rastelli:

Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

LOUIS RASTELLI is the author of A Fine Ending (Insomniac Press, 2007). His writing has appeared in Vice, Clamor, Saturday Night, The Montreal Mirror and numerous other publications, as well as in a series of miniature books of short stories and historical essays. In 2001, Rastelli created the Distroboto network of cultural vending machines, which are former cigarette machines converted to sell local art, crafts, music, film and writing in cafés and bars. In 2002, along with other small publishers, he co-founded Expozine, Montreal’s annual small press, comic and zine fair; he also co-founded Archive Montreal, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the various ephemeral creations that flow steadily out of the independent cultural scene of the city. Since 1996, he has published Fish Piss Magazine, named “Canada’s best zine” by Broken Pencil. He lives in Montreal.

“It’s like Mother Nature’s revenge,” said Stephanie.

“But I wish we could say, okay, we learned our lesson, can
you bring the power back now?”

I told Stephanie about the big building projects I worked on at my day job and described a photo I’d seen of an aluminium smelter. Huge mounds of raw materials, shipped in by rail, sat at one end of the smelter, and rows of trucks loaded up massive bars of aluminium at the other end.

“And that’s only to get the aluminium into all the factories that make stuff,” I said. “Those raw materials have to get chewed up and regurgitated a lot of times before they become a pop can.

“If the machines and factories stopped working completely, we’d have to make stuff by hand again. Or at least add some treadmills or something to run the machines with, like those old sewing machines with the foot pedals.”

“My grandmother had one of those!” Stephanie said.

“I wish I had one of those right now. It would help me stay warm too.”

While we were still on the phone, my power came back on.

-- Louis Rastelli, from “A Fine Ending” (Insomniac, 2007)

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

Creative Writing @ Cap College: Reading & Info-session

2008-03-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Tuesday March 18th
7:00 - 9:00pm
Library Room 322

Please join Capilano Creative Writing faculty and students in the Creative Writing Concentration for an evening of readings and discussion about the Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at Capilano College.

Current Creative Writing faculty and students will read from their work. Faculty will discuss the structure of the CRWR Degree, ask students what courses they might like to see offered in the future, and talk about recent developments, including new courses, a new $1000 entrance scholarship for high-school students, and internships with The Capilano Review. Representatives from two student-run publications, The Capilano Courier and The Liar, will also be present to talk about how to get involved in Capilano’s lively writing community.

Open to all!

For more information contact:
Roger Farr
Creative Writing Convener

604.986.1911 (2554)

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: ROB BUDDE

2008-03-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Degree Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 with a reading by Prince George poet Rob Budde:

Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

ROB BUDDE teaches Creative Writing and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Northern BC. His books include traffick (Turnstone, 1994), Misshapen (NeWest Press, 1997) and The Dying Poem (Coach House, 2002), and, most recently, Flicker. In 2002, Rob facilitated a collection of interviews (In Muddy Water: Conversations with 11 Poets). His most recent book of poetry is Finding Ft. George (Harbour, 2007), a collection of poems about his growing relationship with Prince George and Northern BC. Budde edits an online literary journal, stonestone, and a poetry blog writingwaynorth.

“holes filled bilaterally

landed self-serve or immigrant;

promise, missile, demise

Capital expansion and deficit re-election orders of the delay and consumer relations department making strange bedfellows in fiscal mission position, the hard headboard of directors knocking up the catch phrase, knocking down our dormant queues, ballot-boxed. The party system the morning after and fragments of memory missing.

this mission, locked

me, missing-in-action again

the prom’s dead”

-- from “3 Promises; A Renegue”

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

--

http://www.capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: DONATO MANCINI

2008-02-25T10:53:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Degree Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 with a reading by Vancouver poet Donato Mancini:

Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

DONATO MANCINI's first book of poetry Ligatures (New Star Books 2005) was shortlisted for a ReLit award. His second book, Æthel, appeared in the Fall of 2007. A graduate student at Simon Fraser University, he is now at work on a study of reviews of postmodern poetry in Canada since 1961, and recently edited the new website for the Kootenay School of Writing.

"Reports from the reality-based community
sound out: Ronald Reagan
was a really nice guy,
much nicer than Khrushchev,
Gorbachev, Nardwuar, or
which modernist shut-in was it
who threw his sculpture –
or was it his wife? – out the window,
in which period of architecture
at what stage of empire?"

-- from "Hot Peace" (West Coast Line 51)

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

The Five-Minute Buffet

2008-02-15T10:05:00.000-08:00

The 2008 festival of short, original plays written by Capilano Creative Writing Students, directed and performed by the Ensemble Project students in the Acting for Stage and Screen Program.

Artist-in-Residence, Kathleen Oliver, mentors the writers and instructors Dawn Moore and Des Price guide the Ensemble Project. Thirteen five-minute plays will be performed by this ensemble company of 60 writers, directors and actors.

Show dates: February 25-28 (Program A), and March 3-6 (Program B). 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., Arbutus Studio (AR001). Free Admission

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: LARISSA LAI

2008-02-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by The Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Degree Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 with a reading by Vancouver poet, novelist, and critic Larissa Lai:

Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

LARISSA LAI is the author of two novels When Fox Is a Thousand (Press Gang 1995, Arsenal Pulp 2004) and Salt Fish Girl (Thomas Allen Publishers 2002). She holds a PhD in English from the University of Calgary. From January to June 2006, she was a Writer-in-Residence in the English Department at Simon Fraser University. She recently held a SSHRC Post-doctoral Fellowship in the English Department at the University of British Columbia, and is currently an Assistant Professor in Canadian Literature there. She is currently working on a sequel to Salt Fish Girl, a collection of long poems called automaton biographies, and a critical book called The "I" of the Storm about strategies of subject production. Forthcoming from LINEbooks is Sybil Unrest, a long poem in collaboration with Rita Wong.

"see them drudge
your sensitive ignorance
pressures mechanical
engines steam temperature's limit
we race clocks
labour abstracts more labour
cogs flash lights
in blue boilers they
repeat your fear
in mathematics of your own making"

-- from "Maria" (West Coast Line 44)

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

--

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: CLAIRE HUOT & ROBERT MAJZELS, FEB 12th

2008-02-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by Writer's Union of Canada
& the Creative Writing Degree Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on February 12th, 2008 with a presentation by Calgary & Montreal poets, playwrights, novelists, and translators Claire Huot and Robert Majzels. Majzels and Huot will present a collaborative, multi-media talk that addresses the reception of classical Chinese poetry into English.

Tuesday, February 12th
Library 321 @ 3:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

CLAIRE HUOT has lived in and out of China for the past 20 years. Fully trilingual (French, English and Mandarin), she has written two books on contemporary Chinese culture— La Petite révolution culturelle, (Arles, France, 1994) and China's New Cultural Scene (Duke University Press, USA, 2000). The Prison Tangram is her first book of fiction. Huot is currently teaching Chinese film at the University of Calgary and has a feature column, in Chinese, in New World, a Chinese cultural magazine.

ROBERT MAJZELS is a novelist, playwright, poet and translator, born in Montréal, Québec. The Humbugs Diet is his fourth novel. In 2007, he won the Alcuin Society Prize for Excellence in Book Design for the limited edition of his book, Apikoros Sleuth. This Night the Kapo, his award winning full-length play, was produced at the Berkley Street Theatre in Toronto, in March 2004. He was attributed the Governor General's Award of Canada for his translation of France Daigle's Just Fine in 2000. With Erin Moure, Robert has also translated several books of poetry by Nicole Brossard. He is presently an Associate Professor in the English Department of the University of Calgary.

For info: Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

OPEN TEXT READING: JAMIE REID

2008-01-16T20:48:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Capilano College Creative Writing Program

The SPRING 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday January 24th, 2008 with a reading by North Vancouver poet, editor, and cultural organizer Jamie Reid.

Thursday, January 24th
Cedar 148 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

JAMIE REID was one of the founding editors of TISH, the well-known West Coast poetry magazine from the early 1960s. After publishing his first book, The Man Whose Path Was On Fire in 1969, he became a political activist for nearly twenty years, returning to the West Coast and the the practice of poetry in 1987. He has published three collections of poetry since while acting for several years as editor and publisher of DaDaBaBy, a magazine of poetry and commentary. I. Another. The Space Between, his most recent poetry collection, was published by Talonbooks in 2004.

"At this very moment the forces
calling themselves the forces of civilization,
of progress and of order are preparing
a chaotic disaster
for millions of poor people
far from their centres of power and influence,
all of this accompanied by the widespread use of
dangerous substances, death-dealing metals and chemicals. etc.
And still they have now begun to talk
of cleaning up the earth,
as if we should believe them."

-- Jamie Reid

For more info, contact:

Roger Farr, Capilano College
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

FIRST OPEN TEXT READING OF 2008: OANA AVASILICHIOAEI

2008-01-01T15:03:00.000-08:00

The 2008 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College begins on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 with a reading by Montreal poet and translator Oana Avasilichioaei.

LB 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

OANA AVASILICHIOAEI is poet and translator. She has published a collection of poems (Abandon, Wolsak & Wynn, 2005), and a translation of Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu (Occupational Sickness, BuschekBooks, 2006). Her next book, feria: a poempark will be coming out in 2009 (Wolsak & Wynn). She has given readings and talks in Canada, USA, Spain and Slovenia and frequently teaches creative writing courses at Dawson College in Montreal, where she also coordinates the Atwater Poetry Project reading series ( www.atwaterlibrary.ca/poetry). Currently, she is translating some work from French Quebecois poets, collaborating with Erín Moure on a dialogic work involving translation, and working on a new project of her own poetry that explores and entangles the language of fairytales. She lives in Montreal.

I thought I could loose language and think freely like an animal. I fought with my own tongue.

Then language allowed me other linguas and limbs and I was free once more.

I loved again.

For a time the sky was an opera and we all listened.

For one brief moment no boundary was at war.

For one brief moment no boundary was a boundary.

-- from, "Il Giardino Italiano" (feria: a poempark, forthcoming)

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

OPEN TEXT READING: RITA WONG

2007-11-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Capilano College Creative Writing Program

The FALL 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College concludes on Monday November 26th, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver poet and critic Rita Wong.

Monday, November 26th
Library 321 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

RITA WONG’s book of poems, monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), received the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop Emerging Writer Award. Currently she is Assistant Professor in Critical & Cultural studies at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. Her second book, entitled Forage, is forthcoming with Nightwood Editions in 2007.

achtung!

with crumpled deutschmarks in my pockets…

choke on gucci and starbucks as you tread towards checkpoint charlie

the fiscal year of the living dead

caveat emptor in the trauma room

lederhosen, lederhosen, let down your girth

the streets are alive with the sound of money, podcast

or ac/dc: back in black down memory lane in melbourne, berlin, calgary

skins & masks, still

don’t want to be someone's escape fantasy nor their fear of invasion

nor their model majority

pudendum, addendum, memorandum: what’s your agenda, pussycat?

-- from “forage” (Nightwood, 2007)

For more info, contact:
Roger Farr, Capilano College
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: THREE NORTHERN POETS

2007-11-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College

"The north moves north. / The song is an article of evidence."

– Ken Belford

The FALL 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on November 20th, 2007 with a reading by three Northern poets: Ken Belford, Rob Budde, and Si Transken.

Tuesday, November 20th
Library 197 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

KEN BELFORD was born to a farming family near DeBolt, Alberta, and grew up in East Vancouver. For 35 years he lived in the remote, unroaded Nass River headwaters at Damdochax Lake. His gaze is of subsistence and the other, in that he looks out at the consumptive habits of western culture from the mountains. In addition to 15 chapbooks. he has published four books of poetry; Fireweed, The Post Electric Caveman, Pathways Into the Mountains, and ecologue. His most recent chapbook, from Nomados, is When Snakes Awaken. Difficult to categorize, Belford's poetics blend borders. He is a self-educated land(d)guage poet who mixes a learned pre-industrial knowledge with the push and pull of the questions, conversations, and what he sees as new linguistic possibilities.

ROB BUDDE teaches Creative Writing at the University of Northern BC. He has published five books (two poetry - Catch as Catch and traffick - two novels - Misshapen and The Dying Poem - and, most recently, short fiction - Flicker). In 2002, Rob facilitated a collection of interviews (In Muddy Water: Conversations with 11 Poets). Finding Ft. George (Caitlin 2007) is a collection of poems about Rob's growing relationship with Prince George and Northern BC. He lives in Prince George with his partner, Debbie Keahey and four children: Robin, Erin, Quinlan, and Anya. Check out his online literary journal called stonestone <http://stonestone.unbc.ca> and his poetry blog writingwaynorth <http://writingwaynorth.blogspot.com>.

SI TRANSKEN uses her creative writing to educate, vent, stir up troubles and joys, have fun and accomplish solidarity. She reads at Gay Pride, Women's fundraisers and other social justice events. She has been an activist in these movements for more than two decades. Si works at a shelter with drug addicted/ homeless/ survival sex trade workers. In her ivory tower roles she teaches for two universities in sociology, women's studies and social work. Entirely unbelievably she gets people laughing. Her work has been published in scholarly contexts such as Cultural Studies & Critical Methodologies, Atlantis, Canadian Women's Studies and her funky stuff has been published in contexts such as This Ain¹t Your Patriarchs' Poetry Book; Groping Beyond Grief; Stress (Full) Sister (Hood); and Battle Chants.

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

OPEN TEXT READING: JEFF DERKSEN

2007-11-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College

The Fall 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on November 19th, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver poet and critic Jeff Derksen.

LIBRARY 195 @ 12:30
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

JEFF DERKSEN's first book Downtime (Talon, 1991), received the Dorothy Livesay B.C. Poetry Prize. Other works include Until (Tsunami, 1987), Dwell (Talonbooks, 1993), and Transnational Muscle Cars (Talonbooks, 2003). A founder of the Kootenay School of Writing in Vancouver, Derksen is also a highly regarded critic of globalization, culture and urbanization. He teaches writing and literature at Simon Fraser University.

"Phatic Weather"

I just want
the connection to be
inked in or intruded
on. So I can enter

an individual history
of my group.

The truck driving
beside the bus
appears not to move, mimicking
a model of one culture
viewing another.

Here the light
of heavy industry
doesn't mar the river
as much as it now
makes it.

New. Compensation's body
is a green image, arms
filled with lumber. But production's
miracle is its occurrence, oiling
a century. Our role
is the crisis. Sliding
so I can clarify
a centralized management

in this continuous present
of product, "excess," resource.

A company's head office
puts down roots: "Caring Hands
Extended out to Our Multicultural
Community." The question

of "also" is contextual.

-- from "Dwell" (Talon, 1993)

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

Creative Writing at Capilano: Spring 2008

2007-10-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

Spring 2008 Creative Writing Courses will be registering soon -- here is some course information:

English 191-01 Creative Writing II - Crystal Hurdle
When is a poem really a story? When should you leave a draft alone? Through in-class writing, weekly homework assignments, and personal projects, you will write up a storm in a number of genres. You’ll be introduced to professional writers, from Lorna Crozier to bp Nichol, from Thomas King to Gabriel Garcia Márquez, all in aid of developing your own style.

Required Texts:

Gary Geddes, ed. 20^th-Century Poetry & Poetics
Gary Geddes, ed. The Art of Short Fiction
The Capilano College issue of TCR (Winter/Spring 2007)

===============

English 191-02 Creative Writing II - Ryan Knighton
In English 191 we will continue to develop our skills by asking how writing can be made, not what it might mean. Specifically, we will further engage with questions of poetry, microfiction, and so-called creative non-fiction, as directed by their form and history. Our workshops, however, are neither roundtable editing sessions, nor, worse, copyediting boot camps. Rather, we will share draft examples of our own work in order to further our discussions, to expose new questions, and to seek the effects of craft. Some case examples from published works may be provided in class, but our own writing will serve as the primary texts. So will Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, which is pretty damned fine. By the final class, students should have at least one reworked submission of writing ready for a magazine or periodical. To that end we will survey some of the nuts-and-bolts of pitching and publishing, too.

===============

English 191-03 Creative Writing II - Reg Johanson
This course will focus on poetry and fiction. Our interests in fiction will be on the sub-genre of “biofiction.” Our interests in poetry will be very broad, including the sonnet, the “social,” documentary forms, aleatorics, and work inspired by “language” poetics. We will also be attending the OpenText reading series sponsored by the College and the Canada Council. We will read as much as we write, finding out what we can about the work and methods of the writers we read.

Required Texts:

Wah, Fred. Diamond Grill.
Farr, Roger. Surplus.
The Capilano College issue of TCR (Winter/Spring 2007)

===============

English 290-01 - Creative Writing (Poetry) – Roger Farr
Poetry and Poetics of the Small Press: The small press revolutionized poetry in the second half of the twentieth century by shifting attention away from an earlier obsession with “the well-wrought urn, or “the perfect poem,” and focusing instead on the poem as the interface between a writer’s process, the process of print production, and a literary community. In this spirit, ENGL 290 will give students practice in both the writing of poetry and in small press production, in both print and digital forms. Thus, in addition to our class discussions and practice with poetic forms and techniques, we will consider the material and visual aspects of poetry: the page, the book, fonts, layout, paper, the fold, etc., and how these aspects contribute to our sense of what a poem is, or can be. We will attend readings by poets visiting the campus as part of the Open Text Series and discuss their work with them; and, to familiarize ourselves with the printing process, we will tour a print-shop which uses the latest “print on demand” technology to produce small runs of high-quality books. Finally, if we can muster sufficient resources, we might experiment with this technology by publishing a collection of our own poems in book form.

Required Texts:

Farr, Roger ed. The Open Text Reader: Fall 2007.
Other small-press texts will be available from the instructor in-class.

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: LISSA WOLSAK

2007-10-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College

The FALL 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on October 18th, 2007 with a reading by Lissa Wolsak.

October 18th
Library 195 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

LISSA WOLSAK lives in Vancouver, British Columbia where she works as an energy/thought-field therapist and as a goldsmith. A poet and essayist, she has has authored several long poem sequences including: Pen Chants or nth or 12 spirit-like impermanences (Roof, 2000), An Heuristic Prolusion (Documents in Poetics, 2000), The Garcia Family Co-Mercy (Tsunami, 1994), A Defence of Being, and THRALL. Squeezed Light: Collected Works 1995 - 2007 is forthcoming from Station Hill Press.

from its desto, adualurescence

from its hair-space, azimuth

confessional yields

victims winched to a tortoise

spreadeaglism.. posture-sur-

faces escape into the cloth,

dress-groups inter-marry....

so throve close-woven

Come, vapour-bath, come.

-- from Pen Chants

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

http://capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES: GEORGE BOWERING

2007-09-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College

The FALL 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College kicks-off on September 20th, 2007 with a reading by former Poet Laureate of Canada, George Bowering.

Cedar 148 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

GEORGE BOWERING is one of Canada’s most celebrated writers. His many works have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and Romanian. In 2002 Canada named him its first Poet Laureate. More recently, the Vancouver Sun recognized him as one of the most influential people in British Columbia. His most recent book is US Sonnets (Pooka Press, 2007).

1.

“When I have fears that I
may cease to be
open to pain that shines
wet on the side of a gold
fish in my own, I thought,
pond

I ought to forget
comfort, forget family
history, drive a black sedan
over thin prairie roads
looking for a town even
my mother does not believe
was ever there

knowing
pain is not colour, not value
but condition, the cost
of starting a damned life
in the first place, where no
thinking man ever was.”

-- from “Do Sink”

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

http://capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

Capilano Creative Writing Program Kick-Off!

2007-09-03T18:52:00.000-07:00

Pat's Pub, 403 E. Hastings
Tuesday Sept. 18th
8:00 pm

Please join past, present, and future students of Capilano College for an open-mic reading to celebrate the new Associate of Arts Degree in Creative Writing. All past and present Capilano creative writing students and faculty are invited to sign up to read.

To sign up, or for more information, contact Reg Johanson:

E: <rjohanso@capcollege.bc.ca>
T: 604. 986. 1911 (2428)

~

The Associate of Arts degree with a Creative Writing Concentration combines instruction and practice in both creative and critical writing, hosts the Open Text Reading Series, supports a student magazine (The Liar), and provides internships, scholarships, bursaries, and awards. Students who complete the program obtain first and second-year transfer credit in both English and Creative Writing, allowing them to major or minor in either subject should they decide to transfer to university.

Check out: <http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/programs/english/creative-writing.html>

~

The Capilano Review Celebrates its 100th Issue

2007-08-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

Celebrate TCR's 100th issue and 30th series with readings by past and present Capilano College writers Daphne Marlatt, Lisa Robertson, Clint Burnham, Sharon Thesen, Ryan Knighton, George Stanley, Crystal Hurdle, Roger Farr, Reg Johanson, Meredith Quartermain, and others.

Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Thurs Sept 13 at 7:30pm
tickets at the door $8, students $5

604.984.1712
contact@thecapilanoreview.ca

New Creative Writing Class for Fall 2007: ENGL 291 (Advanced Fiction)

2007-07-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce that a new section of ENGL 291: FICTION has just been opened for the Fall 2007 term at Capilano. The class will taught by Roger Farr on Thursday afternoons from 1:30 - 5:30, and will focus on contemporary forms of narrative, and on editing and preparing prose manuscripts for publication. Pre-requisites are ENGL 190 & 191, or premission of the instructor.

For more information email the Instructor or phone Humanties: 604.984.4957 .

Launch of Peter Dubé's "At the Bottom of the Sky"

2007-05-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

DC Books and the Canada Council present the launch of

At the Bottom of the Sky

Peter Dubé's new fiction collection

SPARTACUS books

Sunday, May 27th, 5 p.m.
Reading & signing

319 West Hastings (2nd floor).

Peter Dubé is the author of the novel Hovering World (DC Books 2002), the short fiction collection At the Bottom of the Sky (DC Books, 2007) and the Vortex Faction Manifesto (Vortex Editions, 2001) In addition, his essays and critical writings have been widely published in journals such as CV Photo and Esse, and in exhibition publications for various galleries, among them SKOL, Occurrence and The Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery of Concordia University. He is the President of the Quebec Writers' Federation and a member of the editorial board of the art magazine Espace Sculpture. Peter lives and works in Montreal.

From, At the Bottom of the Sky:

"A riot. That's what the media call it, anyway. A tumult of bodies: some uniformed and bearing truncheons, others in shorts made from second-hand fatigues, a handful with balaclavas pulled over their faces - all of them pushing and pulling, slamming into each other. In some places blood streaks across flesh. Dust clouds climb above the scene and overhead helicopters lend someone a view through them. To my left, a few women dressed in billowing print skirts remain seated, arms linked as a cop leans in, fury in his eyes and one arm outstretched towards them. I can hear the terrifying skirl of the sirens.

Zack's hand is shaking, and all he's doing is handing me the photograph. He remembers the afternoon as clearly as I do, I guess. His eyes are moist."

for more information:

http://www.peterdube.com/

--

Delible: A New Novel by Anne Stone

2007-05-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

Insomniac Press and the Kootenay School of Writing are pleased to invite you to the launch of

Delible
a new novel by Anne Stone

SPARTACUS books
Friday, May 18th, 8 p.m.
319 West Hastings (2nd floor).

Advance praise for Delible:

"Delible is a burning photograph of a girl who disappeared. Anne Stone takes us inside disappearance, its shock and suspense, into a family denuded by loss -- a dark and brilliant work in which understanding is inseparable from grief."

- Camille Roy, author of Craquer, Cheap Speech, and Swarm

"A seductive meditation on the ways young women mythologize, cling to, enrapture, and lose one another. This book is equal parts beauty and perversity, darkness and light. An affecting portrait of girls in the eighties drawn with great acuity."

- Heather O'Neill, author of Lullabies for Little Criminals

Event information: www.annestone.net/events.html
Publicist: Chris DiRaddo at (514) 842-5087 or

--
www.annestone.net

~

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #6: Jon Paul Fiorentino

2007-05-02T13:46:00.001-07:00

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #6: Jon Paul Fiorentino

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts

& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on May 17th, 2007 with a reading by Montreal poet Jon Paul Fiorentino

> Cedar 140 @ 12:30

> Capilano College
> 2055 Purcell Way

> North Vancouver

JON PAUL FIORENTINO is a writer and editor. His most recent book of poetry is The Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books, 2006). He is the author of the poetry book Hello Serotonin (Coach House Books, 2004) and the humour book Asthmatica (Insomniac Press, 2005). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologies Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (DC Books, 2003) and Post-Prairie - a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch, (Talonbooks, 2005). He lives in Montreal where he teaches writing at Concordia University and is the Editor-in-Chief of Matrix magazine.

WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN, COURTNEY?

She slides out of a launderette.
No, wait. She struts out of a café.

Check that. She stumbles out of a bus.
Or not. She steps out of a bank.

Too dull. She stirs out of a dream.
That sucks. She slips out of a clinic.

The washer is old; the smoke is thick.
The transit is slow; the credit is wrecked.
The fear is real; the doctor is sick

Her clothes are stained; her coffee is cold.
Her transfer is gone; her money is low.

Her mind is made up; her pills do not work.

For info:

Anne Stone

astone@capcollege.bc.ca

604.986.1911

'Zine Scene

2007-04-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

As part of the Wonder of Words Festival, members of Cap College's Liar collective are hosting a workshop for kids on how to make a 'zine:

Thursday April 26th
5:45-6:30
Room 163
Hastings Elementary School
2625 Franklin Street
Vancouver, BC

New Entrance Awards!

2007-04-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

The Capilano College English Department is offering several entrance scholarships for high school students interested in taking a two-year Associate of Arts Degree in English at Capilano College. Two English Department Scholarships ($500 each) and one Creative Writing Scholarship ($1,000) will be awarded.

Application Deadline: postmarked no later than May 15, 2007. Application forms are available here.

Return to:
English Department Scholarship
Humanities Department, FR 203
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver, BC V7J 3H5

The Liar Spring 2007 Launch

2007-03-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

The Liar Spring 2007 Launch

Tuesday April 3 @ 9 p.m.
Cafe Deux Soleils
2096 Commercial Drive
Recommended Donation: $2

featuring readings by the Liar collective,
& musical performances by Junior Major and Lasergiant.

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #5: MAXINE GADD

2007-03-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #5: MAXINE GADD
Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on March 29th, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver poet Maxine Gadd.

> Cedar 148 @ 12:30
> Capilano College
> 2055 Purcell Way
> North Vancouver

MAXINE GADD is the author of numerous books of poetry, among them Lost Language (Coach House, 1982), Fire in the Cove (m(O)ther Tongue, 2001), and most recently, Backup to Babylon (New Star, 2006), which is a poetry finalist in the 2007 BC Book Prizes.

"coming up powell street into the rising sun

me feeling soft and gentle as an old lady who has done no wrong

who gave birth to children like butter

and kept them alive in apple trees

who took them all swimming in the one big sea

and now has been set free

to enter her City"

-- from "Greenstone Cove," Backup to Babylon

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #4: ANNE STONE

2007-03-17T09:20:00.001-07:00

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #4: ANNE STONE
Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College

The Spring 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver author Anne Stone.

Cedar 148 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Anne Stone is an editor of Matrix Magazine. Together with Amber Dean, she is currently guest editing a special issue of West Coast Line on representations of murdered and missing women. Her novels include, jacks (DC Books 1998), Hush (Insomniac Press 1999) and Delible (forthcoming, Insomniac, 2007), which tells the story of Melora Sprague, a 15-year-old girl whose sister has gone missing. Stone teaches creative writing & literature at Capilano College in North Vancouver, and at Concordia University in Montreal.

"Everything has a beginning. My sister's disappearance has to have one. There has to be a time, a moment, in which she began to disappear.

I've looked for some sign that Mel was poised to leave. Maybe it was there in the world she saw around us, the one that was slowly dying as we pretended not to see. Or in her dreams of the a-bomb, quietly imploding in our mouths as we slept, shattering millions on millions of teeth. A city's worth of polished bone, demolished in an instant. And what could any of us do but stir in our sleep, lick at broken mouths, and feel ourselves already dead, this as the fire consumed the part of us that could dream of bombs to begin with."

-- from Delible

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

[Coming soon: Maxine Gadd, March 29th]

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #3: DOROTHY TRUJILLO LUSK

2007-03-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #3: DOROTHY TRUJILLO LUSK
Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Concentration at Capilano College

The Spring 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on March 15h, 2007 with a reading by Vancouver poet Dorothy Trujillo Lusk.

Cedar 148 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Dorothy Trujillo Lusk is the author of Oral Tragedy (Tsunami, 1988), Redactive (Talon, 1993), Ogress Oblige (Krupskaya, 2001), Sleek Vinyl Drill (Thuja, 2000) and the forthcoming collection Decorum. Lusk is a longtime member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective.

“Tooling,
around in a Chevy II, cheaper parts. Half a sack and half a tank.
This’s the accurate medical term for doughnuts.

The chassis of the mother embodying
the central contradictions
between means and relations of
production &/or sag of surplus value.”

-- from Ogress Oblige

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

http://capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

[Coming soon: Anne Stone, Maxine Gadd]

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #2: MARIE ANNHARTE BAKER

2007-03-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

OPEN TEXT READING SERIES #2: MARIE ANNHARTE BAKER
Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts
& the Creative Writing Program at Capilano College

The Spring 2007 OPEN TEXT series at Capilano College continues on Weds. March 7th, 2007 with a reading by Anishinabe poet, educator, and activist, Marie Annharte Baker.

Cedar 148 @ 12:30
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver

Co-founder of the Regina Aboriginal Writers Group, Marie Annharte Baker is the author of several books, including Being on the Moon (Polestar, 1990), Coyote Columbus Cafe (Moonprint, 1994), Blueberry Canoe (New Star, 2001), and Exercises in Lip Pointing (New Star, 2003). She divides her time between Vancouver and Manitoba.

yuppie begging bowl

passerby please note us
stuck on camera lens close up
pray our your shell out fills
latte foam bowl slow mo
cash flow scene slow pan
cut broke balance fixated
roll plastic survivance level
bank machine movie stake out

treaty bowl number one
fun filled topped up intrigue
warranty less years but ears
clear new diction air words
cotton swab stuck syndrome
block drumming manifesto

step up to bowl number two
white shiny to let us bowl
real tight ass titan squirm
condo minimum convenience
bowling down alley strikes
we're good check the gate
missing heirs women split

For info:
Roger Farr
rfarr@capcollege.bc.ca
604.986.1911 (2554)

http://capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

[Coming soon: Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Anne Stone, Maxine Gadd]

Peter Culley: March 1st | 12:30 | CE 136

2007-02-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Spring 2007 OPEN TEXT reading series begins on March 1st with a reading by Nanaimo poet Peter Culley, who will be reading from his new work, "The Age of Briggs & Stratton."

12:30
Capilano College
Cedar 136

Peter Culley, poet and art critic, has published Twenty-one (Oolican 1980), Fruit Dots (Tsunami 1985), Natural History (Fissure 1986) The Climax Forest (Leech, 1995) and Hammertown (New Star, 2003). The untitled second installment of Hammertown is due from New Star in the fall of '08. His writing on artists such as Stan Douglas, Roy Arden, Kelly Wood and Geoffrey Farmer has appeared in numerous catalogues and journals. Culley resides in South Wellington, near Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, BC.

L'Orphee

So much of L' Orphee
plays in the grim middle-aged way
poor Spicer never lived to see
that its like I know better;
ie Jean Marais is how we're
supposed to look on the inside
& those hoopleheads at the Cafe
rioting over Johnny Ray
as Mrs. Mills tinkles at 78
& the Hugo Boss bike cops drop their mitts--
what Martian could have predicted an Elvis
emerging from their thin Hugenot gruel?
Why do the youngsters blame me?
Don't their radios get the CBC?

-- from "The Age of Briggs & Stratton"

[Coming soon: Marie Annharte Baker, March 7th; Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, March 15th]

-Roger

Roger Farr & Reg Johanson at the Railway Club

2007-02-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

LINEbooks authors and Capilano College creative writing faculty Roger Farr & Reg Johanson read from their new books SURPLUS and COURAGE, MY LOVE, as part of the Short Line Reading Series.

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
6:00 pm
@ the Railway Club
579 Dunsmuir Street (2nd floor)

Info: www.memewaronline.com/shortline.html

OPEN TEXT READINGS: SPRING 2007

2007-01-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

We're pleased to announce that Marie Annharte Baker, Marie Clements, Peter Culley, Maxine Gadd, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, and Anne Stone will be visiting the campus this Spring -- dates and locations TBA.

About these important West Coast writers:

Marie Baker is the author of several books, including Being on the Moon (Polestar, 1990), Coyote Columbus Cafe (Moonprint, 1994), Blueberry Canoe (New Star, 2001), and Exercises in Lip Pointing (New Star, 2003). She also directed a spot in 'five feminist minutes' (National Film Board), in which she examined racial and sexual abuse of Aboriginal women. Baker is the co-founder of the Regina Aboriginal Writers Group.

Marie Clements’ play about Aboriginal miners, Burning Vision (Talon, 2003), received the Canada-Japan Literary Award and was nominated for six Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. She is also the author of The Girl Who Swam Forever (Miami University Press, 2000), The Suitcase Chronicles (Journey Publication, 2002), and The Unnatural and Accidental Women (Talon, 2005). Clements is the founder of urban ink productions, a Vancouver-based Aboriginal and multi-cultural production company that creates and produces Aboriginal works of theatre, music, film and video.

Peter Culley, poet and art critic, has published Twenty-one (Oolican 1980), Fruit Dots (Tsunami 1985), Natural History (Fissure 1986) The Climax Forest (Leech, 1995) and Hammertown (New Star, 2003). The untitled second installment of Hammertown is due from New Star in the fall of '08. His writing on artists such as Stan Douglas, Roy Arden, Kelly Wood and Geoffrey Farmer has appeared in numerous catalogues and journals. Culley resides in South Wellington, near Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, BC.

Maxine Gadd is the author of numerous books of poetry, among them Lost Language (Coach House, 1982), Fire in the Cove (m(O)ther Tongue, 2001), and most recently, Backup to Babylon (New Star, 2006).

Dorothy Trujillo Lusk is the author of Oral Tragedy (Tsunami, 1988), Redactive (Talon, 1993), Ogress Oblige (Krupskaya, 2001), Sleek Vinyl Drill (Thuja, 2000) and the forthcoming collection Decorum. Lusk is a longtime member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective.

Anne Stone is an editor of Matrix Magazine. Together with Amber Dean, she's guest editing an upcoming special issue of West Coast Line on representations of murdered and missing women. Her novels include, jacks (DC Books 1998), Hush (Insomniac Press 1999) and Delible (forthcoming: Insomniac, 2007), which tells the story of Melora Sprague, a 15-year-old girl whose sister has gone missing. Anne Stone has taught creative writing/literature at Capilano College in North Vancouver and at Concordia University in Montreal.

- Roger