Panel: On Getting Stuck and Unstuck
Join us for an author panel discussion about craft. Writers from across genres will talk about moments in their manuscripts when their writing faltered, fizzled and then…stopped. What made that section so difficult to write? What thinking, learning, imagining or reimagining was needed to move forward? Join us for a conversation about banging your head against a metaphorical wall, hard-won writing victories and all the strange and beautiful things we learn along the way.
This session is in person and will also be livestreamed via Zoom. All registered participants will receive the Zoom link a few days before the event. The event will not be recorded.
About the Panelists
Joseph Kakwinokansum is a writer, creator, and storyteller. A member of the James Smith Cree Nation, Joseph grew up in the Peace Region of northern BC. He is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio and The Writer’s Studio Graduate Workshop. He was selected by Darrel J. McLeod as one of the Writers Trust of Canada’s Rising Stars of 2022. His short story Ray Says, was a finalist for CBC’s Nonfiction Prize in 2020 and his manuscript Woodland Creetures was awarded the 2014 Canada Council for the Arts Creation Grant for Aboriginal Peoples, Writers, and Storytellers. His debut novel, My Indian Summer, loosely based on his own childhood was winner of the 2023-2024 First Nations Communities READ Award and shortlisted for the 2023 ReLit Award for fiction. His work has been published in the Humber Literary Journal, the anthology Resonance: Essays on the Craft and life of Writing, Emerge; The Writer’s Studio anthology, and Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies. Joseph was also selected as the 2024 Storyteller in Residence for Vancouver Public Library. Joseph lives and works on the unceded territory of the Sooke Nation on Vancouver Island.
Christina Myers is a writer, editor and former journalist. Her work has been widely published in magazines, a dozen anthologies, newspapers and online, garnering a number of journalism and literary awards over the years. Her novel The List of Last Chances (2021) was longlisted for the 2022 Leacock Medal, shortlisted for the 2022 Fred Kerner Book Prize, and won the fiction prize in the 2023 Canadian Book Club Awards. She was the editor of the award-winning non-fiction anthology BIG: Stories About Life in Plus-Sized Bodies (2020). Her next book, a collection of essays titled Halfway Home: Thoughts from Midlife is forthcoming this May from House of Anansi. She is the co-organizer of the reading series Words in the Burbs and an alumnus of the Writer’s Studio at SFU.
Loghan Paylor is a queer, trans author who lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Their short fiction and essays have previously appeared in Room and Prairie Fire, among others. Paylor has a Masters in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, and a day job as a professional geek. The Cure for Drowning is their first novel and was released in January 2024.
About the Moderator
JJ Lee is a former CBC broadcaster and art critic. He wrote the memoir The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit. He is the editor of the Christmas-themed anthology series Better Next Year and is the acquisitions editor for New Westminster publisher Tidewater Press. He produces the true crime podcast Stand Up Eight with Lenore Rattray. It peaked at #18 in True Crime charts. He teaches nonfiction at Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio and writing and podcasting at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts.
