And we’re back.
Real Vancouver Writers’ Series returns to the scene with a great line-up of writers and a new venue.
Join us on Tuesday May 14th at Project Space as we celebrate great writing with 6 great poets.
The line-up:
Location:
Project Space
222 East Georgia Street
Vancouver
Time:
Doors at 7PM
Hosts:
Sean Cranbury & Dina Del Bucchia
Real Vancouver Writers’ Series is happy to be collaborating with our friends at Broken Pencil during Canzine West 2012.
The event will be happening on the 2nd floor at the W2 Media Cafe on Saturday and we have an amazing line-up of writers rocking the craft
Dina Del Bucchia will be hosting this edition of the RVWS. Yay, Dina!
REAL VANCOUVER CANZINE 2012 AUTHOR ROSTER:
Teresa McWhirter grew up in Kimberley, in the east Kootenays of interior BC. Her first novel Some Girls Do was published by Raincoast/Polestar books (2002). Following an assortment of jobs including teaching English in Korea, driving an ice cream truck, and scaring children at a haunted house, she published Dirtbags (Anvil Press, 2007) and YA Skank(Lorimer, 2011). During the past few years Teresa has toured Europe and North America with punk rock bands, gathering material for her new novel Five Little Bitches (Anvil, 2012). She lives in east Vancouver.
Sarah Leavitt is a writer and cartoonist. She has published comics, fiction and non-fiction in magazines, newspapers and a number of anthologies, including Nobody’s Mother (Heritage 2006) and Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press 2009).Her graphic memoir about her mother dying of Alzheimer’s,Tangles, was published by Freehand Books (Canada) in September 2010, Jonathan Cape (UK/Commonwealth) in November 2011 and Skyhorse Publishing (US) in May 2012.
Jean Smith, vocalist/lyrcist in the acclaimed literary rock duo Mecca Normal, is the author of two novels I Can Hear Me Fine (Get To The Point Editions, 1993) and The Ghost of Understanding (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1998).
Smith was named one of the “Top 50 Writers in Vancouver” (Vancouver Magazine), one of the “Top Ten People Who Matter” (San Francisco Weekly) and “one of Canada’s best-kept secrets in the arts” by the Globe & Mail. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries across North America. Her “Self-Portrait” watercolour series was shown at Ladyfests in Olympia, Seattle and Los Angeles.
Hal Niedzviecki is a writer, speaker, culture commentator and editor. He’s the current fiction editor and the founder of Broken Pencil, the magazine of zine culture and the independent arts. He is the author of eight books, including the collection of short stories Look Down, This is Where it Must Have Happened(City Lights, April 2011) and the non-fiction book The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors (City Lights, 2009).
AG Pasquella was born in Dallas, Texas and now lives in Toronto, Ontario. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Black Book, Wholphin, The Utne Readerand The Future Dictionary of America. His latest novel NewTown (AGP Books, 2012) is about a con man and his crew taking over an alien spacecraft and was recently excerpted in the Toronto Standard.
Dear Vancouver friends,
Hello, this is Evan Munday from Coach House Books. On October 12, two of Canada’s most original writers, Spencer Gordon (Cosmo) and Nathaniel G. Moore (Wrongbar), will join forces with Vancouver writers Elizabeth Bachinsky and Dina Del Bucchia for one of the raddest, most rollicking nights of live literature to hit Vancouver in 2012. More details follow. We hope you can join us!
October 12 – The Invasion Angle takes Vancouver’s Literary Scene
Toronto authors join forces with Vancouver authors for literary super card!
The Invasion Angle is a promotional subtext for professional publishing storyline in Canadian Publishing that begins shortly after the release of Cosmo (Coach House Books, 2012) a collection of short stories by Spencer Gordon. This literary super card on Friday, October 12, is considered by many to be a dream reading with two authors from Toronto (Spencer Gordon andNathaniel G. Moore) and two from Vancouver (Dina Del Bucchia and Elizabeth Bachinsky).
The event will be hosted by Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio fame, who, in a statement on the upcoming reading said, ‘Real Vancouver Writers’ Series is designed to facilitate and encourage literary invasions of all kinds and we are thrilled to welcome two great Toronto-area writers to our stage in Nathaniel G. Moore and Spencer Gordon. Those boys better recognize that Vancouver will be bringing a little noise of its own that night, too, with poets Elizabeth Bachinsky and Dina Del Bucchia doing the west coast poetic representation. Thanks to Tightrope Books, Coach House Books and Evan Munday for being so supportive and amazing.’
Del Bucchia and Moore have teased on their podcast that there will be wardrobe changes during their portions of the show, as well as music, possible YouTube clips and improvised awkwardness. Moore says he will try to read from every book he’s written and plans on writing that evening. Spencer Gordon will read from his debut collection of incendiary malaise- and pop-culture-infused short stories, in which you’ll join Matthew McConaughey as he drives naked across the desert in a surreal dark night of the soul. You’ll meet a young wrestling fan half-nelsoned by circumstances and a sister’s best intentions. You’ll hear a Miley Cyrus admirer defend his passion in a 3,000-word sentence. And you’ll watch an aging porn star don a grotesque dinosaur costume to film the sex scene of his life.
Leading up to the event, photos of the four authors posing as the Beatles on the album cover MEET THE BEATLES were released to promote the event. The reading brings together authors representing Talonbooks, Nightwood Editions, Pedlar Press, Ferno House, Tightrope Books, Coach House Books, and will be sponsored in part by Geist Magazine.
The Invasion Angle
a book launch and reading featuring Spencer Gordon, Nathaniel G. Moore, Elizabeth Bachinsky and Dina Del Bucchia
hosted by Sean Cranbury
Friday, October 12, 2012
W2 Media Cafe, #250-111 W Hastings Street
7 p.m., free
[Other famous invasion angles include: Battle of Crete (Operation Thursday), Beatlemania (1964), WCW/WWF (2001), Operation Desert Storm (1991) and Justin Beiber (2010).]
For more information or a review copy of Cosmo, please contact Evan Munday at 416.979.2217 or evan@chbooks.com.
The golden light of September is upon us and it’s time to proceed with the autumn lingo.
The Real Vancouver Writers’ Series is proud to announce our first event of the 2012 fall season: Real Vancouver BookThug.
In the first of a series of collaborations with independent publishers we’re happy to showcase 5 amazing local writers who have published with one of the finest publishing houses in Canada.
We’re talking here, of course, about Toronto’s BookThug.
Not only does BookThug produce beautifully designed books of the highest quality writing but they’ve got one of the best websites of any publisher anywhere.
You want to buy books, or check out some audio or video of the authors reading/discussing their work? Hit up the site. You need some sweet new threads? Hit up the site. Down with Danish literature? Hit up the site.
Here’s how they put it:
“BookThug seeks to publish innovative books of poetry, prose and creative criticism that extend the tradition of experimental literature.”
We’re pushing all of our chips to the centre of the table on that!
So, without further delay, here’s the Real Vancouver BookThug line-up:
GEORGE BOWERING
JAKE KENNEDY
ANDREW MCEWAN
JOHN FRANCIS HUGHES
MEREDITH QUARTERMAINTHURSDAY SEPTEMBER 27 AT 7PM
W2 MEDIA CAFE
111 WEST HASTINGS STREET, DTES
$5 AT THE DOOR (nobody turned away for lack of funds)
Hope to see you there!
In the meantime, please check out the amazing poster designed by Jay MillAr.
We are very excited to announce the line-up for the next Real Vancouver event at W2.
Some amazing writers from Delta (BC), Vancouver (BC), Saskatoon (SK), and Montreal (QC).
Hope to see you there!
Real Vancouver Writers’ Series
Tuesday May 29, 2012. 7PM to 930PM
W2 Media Cafe 111 West Hastings Street (at Abbott), Vancouver, DTES.
$5 donation at the door (nobody turned away for lack of funds).
Gurjinder Basran’s debut novel, Everything Was Good-bye, was the winner of the Search for the Great BC Novel Contest in 2010 and the winner of the BC Book Award, The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for most outstanding work of fiction in 2011.
In 2012 Chatelaine Magazine named Everything Was Good-bye as their book club pick and CBC listed Gurjinder as one of “The ten Canadian women writers you need to read now.”
Gurjinder studied creative writing at SFU and lives in Delta, B.C.
Peter Dubé is a freelance writer, translator, art critic, and cultural journalist.
A former president of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, his previously published works include Hovering World (2002), At the Bottom of the Sky (2007), and Subtle Bodies (2010).
His most recent novel is The City’s Gates, published by Cormorant Books.
Dubé resides in Montreal.
Dr. Jerry Haigh is a Kenya-born, Glasgow graduate veterinarian whose career-long experience with wildlife has spanned four decades and four continents. He has worked on species ranging from elephants to wild dogs and polar bears to pelicans.
He has written three books about wildlife. They are Wrestling With Rhinos: The Adventures of a Glasgow Vet in Kenya(2002); The Trouble With Lions: A Glasgow Vet in Africa (2008) and Of Moose and Men: A Wildlife Vet’s Pursuit of the World’s Largest Deer (2012).
Before coming to Saskatoon’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine in 1975 he spent ten years in Kenya working with wildlife and then joined the faculty and taught there for 33 years. For eight years he took final-year students to Uganda for a one-month externship.
He is a member of Storytellers of Canada – Conteurs du Canada and lives near Saskatoon with Joanne, his wife of 43 years and an old Labrador named Caesar.
Leah Horlick is a writer, poet, and spoken word artist from Saskatoon, SK. She is the recipient of a 2008 Short Grain Award for prose poetry, and a finalist in the Saskatoon and Vancouver Poetry Slams.
Leah is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC, where she works as the Poetry Editor for PRISM international.
She’ll be attending the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Emerging LGBTQ Writers Retreat in LA this summer; her first collection of poetry, Riot Lung, is forthcoming from Thistledown Press in the fall. Visit her online at http://leahdaniel.wordpress.
Timothy Taylor published his first novel Stanley Park in 2001. It was an immediate bestseller and a critical success. He’s since published a prize-winning collection of short fiction, Silent Cruise, and two further bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, Story House and The Blue Light Project, which was award the CBC Bookie Prize in the literary fiction category. He is also the winner of the Journey Prize, and has been finalist or runner-up for six other major national fiction prizes in Canada, including the prestigious Giller Prize. His work has also been chosen as the ‘One Book One City’ selection for Vancouver and named a finalist for Canada Reads.
Taylor has also been widely published and recognized for his non-fiction magazine and newspaper work. He was the Big Ideas columnist for the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine for several years and has been winner or finalist in over twenty separate magazine awards, including six nominations in 2012 for National and Western Magazine Awards in Canada.
Taylor is a contributing editor at Vancouver Magazine and a regular contributor at EnRoute Magazine, Walrus, and Eighteen Bridges magazines. He has also written for Institutional Investor, The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine, Western Living, The Vancouver Review, Toro Magazine, Saturday Night, Adbusters, the National Post, the Vancouver Sun and many others.
Shay Wilson holds an MFA in Creative Writing and works in the film industry.
Her work has appeared in Geist, Canada’s History and The Ink Filled Page and she has been shortlisted for the CBC literary award in fiction.
On Wednesday 29 February 2012 Spread the Word is bringing together four teams of writers and editors in London, Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Vancouver, to create a unique novel.
The project is an experiment in collaborative writing, using digital technology.
The book, which will be written by multiple authors, operating in different time zones and countries, will be launched at noon on World Book Day, Thursday 1 March 2012.
How to get involved
Facebook: ‘like’ our page: www.facebook.com/pages/24hourbook, post your inspirational ideas before the day, and pop in on the 29th to see how things are going, respond to our writing challenges, and support our writers across the globe.
Twitter: Follow us @STWevents using the hashtag #24hourbook. We’ll be asking questions throughout the day and we’d love you to tweet us your answers.
About the Vancouver Team:
Arley McNeney is the author of two widely acclaimed novels. Her first book, Post, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Novel, Canada and the Caribbean. The writing in her second novel, The Time We All Went Marching, was likened to Michael Ondaatje’s by Michelle Berry in the Globe and Mail. Arley is a former Paralympian in the sport of wheelchair basketball and won two World Championship gold medals and a Paralympic bronze at the 2004 Athens Paralympics. She lives in Vancouver.
Alyx Dellamonica is the author of Indigo Springs, which won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Sci-Fiction and Strange Horizons. Her 2005 alternate-history Joan of Arc story, “A Key to the Illuminated Heretic”, was shortlisted for the Sideways Award and the Nebula Award. Alyx live in East Vancouver.
Alex Leslie’s chapbook of microfictions Twenty Objects for the New World was published by Nomados Press in 2011. Alex’s writing has been published in many Canadian literary journals and in the Best Canadian Stories anthology series from Oberon Press. She has won a Gold National Magazine Award for personal journalism and a CBC Literary Award for fiction. Alex is from Vancouver.
McKinley Hellenes can’t seem to stop writing about Vancouver. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies and magazines of questionable repute, including Broken Pencil, Kiss Machine, and the Journey Prize Stories. In 2010, her novella won second place in the 32nd International 3-Day Novel contest. She is currently working on a novel for which she received a grant from Canada Council for the Arts.
Jenn Farrell is the author of two collections of short stories: The Devil You Know (Anvil Press, 2010), and Sugar Bush & Other Stories (Anvil Press, 2006). Her stories have previously appeared in Prism, subTerrain, West Coast Line and Forget magazine. Jenn was born and raised in the “Golden Horseshoe” of Ontario. She is a graduate of the Langara College Publishing program and Douglas College Print Futures: Professional Writing program. She currently resides in Vancouver where she works as a freelance writer, editor, and teacher.
Elee Kraljii Gardiner directs Thursdays Writing Collective in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. She is a poet and the editor and publisher of five chapbooks. A frequent collaborator, she leads workshops on creativity and social writing.
Sean Cranbury is a writer, internet tinkerer, and event programmer living in East vancouver. He is the host and regulator of the radio show, Books on the Radio, the curator of the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, creator of the Advent Book Blog, and an organizer of the books/technology unconference, Bookcamp Vancouver. Sean is a member of the Board of Directors of W2 Community Media Arts Society.
We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in fine style at the Underground Performance Space below the W2 Media Cafe on the night of Tuesday, January 24th, 2012.
A full house witnessed some fine readings from some of Vancouver’s best writers. We also heard from some writers visiting the city from Fernie and Toronto.
The event was livestreamed to the web and captured for posterity.
Below is part one of the feed. This video features some opening remarks about the Real Vancouver Series, how we started, where we’ve been, where we’re going, and then launches into Garry Thomas Morse‘s brilliant opening reading (which as opening salvos goes is right up there with Richard Van Camp‘s legendary “Fluff the Mullet” story from the very first RVWS in 2010), followed by Jen Neale, the charming and hilarious Zsuzsi Gartner, and a very strong reading by Arley McNeney.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the event. The writers, the volunteers who made it happen, and the fans who came out to support!
The event starts 15 minutes into the stream.
Here’s part two of the livestream from the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series Second Anniversary Edition at W2.
This video features the book give-away extravaganza with Dina and Sean and then the final three readers of the night.
David Lester, reads from his intense graphic novel The Listener, Angie Abdou reads from The Canterbury Trail, and Ayelet Tsabari reads from her forthcoming book, The Best Place on Earth.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the event. The volunteers who made it happen and the fans who braved the weather to support the writers.
We’ll do it again soon. Promise!
The W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series turns 2 on Tuesday, January 24th with an epic showcase of writing talent.
This Second Anniversary Edition features some of Canada’s most respected and best known writers sharing the stage with emerging literary talents. It will be livestreamed to the world and archived for posterity via fabulous internet technologies.
We are continuing our trend of including writers from beyond British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, too, as we welcome Fernie’s Angie Abdou, and Toronto’s Ayelet Tsabari to the stage.
EVENT DETAILS: Tuesday January 24th, 7PM-10PM, W2 Media Cafe in Vancouver’s DTES. $5 nobody turned away.
Check the bios on the complete line-up:
ANGIE ABDOU: Angie Abdou is a fiction writer and teacher who has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Calgary. BC BookWorld called her short story collection, Anything Boys Can Do (2006), an “extraordinary literary debut.”
The Globe and Mail praised her first novel, The Bone Cage (2007), for its “beautiful writing” and The Quill & Quire called it “vivid, intense, and authentic.” It was also a finalist for CBC’s Canada Reads 2011 and the 2011-2012 MacEwan Book of the Year.
Angie’s second novel, The Canterbury Trail, a black comedy about mountain culture, was published byBrindle & Glass Press (February 2011).
ZSUZSI GARTNER: Zsuzsi Gartner is the author of the best-selling short fiction collection All the Anxious Girls on Earth, the editor of B.C. Book-Prize nominee Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, and the creative director of Vancouver Review’s Blueprint BC Fiction Series.
Her stories have been widely anthologized, and broadcast on CBC and NPR’s Selected Shorts. Her latest book, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, was shortlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Zsuzsi is a long-time contributing reviewer for The Globe & Mail, and has appeared on CBC’s Canada Reads. She has received numerous nominations and awards for her magazine journalism, and a 2007 National Magazine Award for fiction. Zsuzsi lives in Vancouver.
DAVID LESTER: David Lester is a painter, graphic designer, cartoonist, and the guitarist in the rock duo Mecca Normal.
His new graphic novel, The Listener, was published by Arbeiter Ring Publishing.
His book, The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism went into a revised second printing. He has created the poster series “Inspired Agitators,” archived at The Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles, and designed the popular t-shirt “Actually, I like crap.”
Lester also does a weekly illustration, with text by Mecca Normal bandmate Jean Smith, for Magnet Magazine. His comics appeared in Drippytown #4, Warburger (Slovinia) and Broken Pencil magazine. As well, his cartoons appeared regularly for a year in the San Diego Reader. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
ARLEY MCNENEY: Arley McNeney is a Vancouver writer with two published novels to her credit. Her most recent book, The Time We All Went Marching, published byFredricton, New Brunswick’s Gooselane Editions.
Michelle Berry had this to say about Arley’s book in the Globe and Mail, “a stunning achievement. It has the feel of a Michael Ondaatje novel, the same breathtaking language and image, a dream-like quality to the scenes.”
Arley describes herself:
“I’m 28 years old and from New Westminster, BC. Last July, I moved back to British Columbia after doing my MFA at the University of Illinois, where I also played varsity wheelchair basketball.
I was on the Canadian wheelchair basketball national team for six years and won two World Championship gold medals and a Paralympic bronze, though I’ve since retired.
I work as a Communications Coordinator for various wheelchair sports organizations.
Currently, I live in Vancouver with my cat, Mika.”
GARRY THOMAS MORSE: Garry Thomas Morse has had two books of poetry published by LINEbooks, Transversals for Orpheus (2006) and Streams (2007), one collection of fiction, Death in Vancouver (2009), published by Talonbooks, and two books of poetry published by Talonbooks, After Jack (2010) and Discovery Passages (2011), finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.
Grounded in the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Robert Desnos, Ezra Pound, Jack Spicer, Rainer Maria Rilke and his Native oral traditions, his work has been featured in a variety of publications, including Branch Magazine, Canadian Literature, The Capilano Review, CV2, dANDelion, filling Station, memewar, Poetry is Dead, subTerrain, The Vancouver Review and West Coast Line. Morse is the recipient of the 2008 City of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist and has twice been selected as runner-up for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry.
Minor Episodes, his second book of fiction, concerning surrealist and speculative genres, is forthcoming from Talonbooks in 2012.
JEN NEALE: Jen Neale is currently an MFA student in the UBC Creative Writing program.
AYELET TSABARI: Ayelet‘s first book, a collection of short fiction set in Israel and titled The Best Place on Earth, is forthcoming with HarperCollins in 2013.
Ayelet was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She grew up in a suburb of Tel Aviv, travelled extensively throughout South East Asia, Europe and North America, and now lives in Toronto. Ayelet was first published at the age of ten in an Israeli children’s magazine and continued to write throughout her teenage years publishing articles, essays, short stories and poems. As a freelance journalist, Ayelet wrote feature articles for Maariv, the second largest newspaper in Israel, and several other Israeli magazines.
In 1998 Ayelet moved to Vancouver, Canada, where she had to adjust to writing in her second language. She looked into other ways to tell stories and studied film and photography in Capilano University’s Media Program. She directed two documentary films, one of which won the grand prize in the Palm Spring International Short Film Festival.
She wrote her first story in English in 2006.
W2 REAL VANCOUVER WRITERS’ SERIES IS 100% VOLUNTEER-DRIVEN.
