Tag Archive for: Writer

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Joy At the End of the World: A Writing Workshop

The climate crisis is becoming more urgent every year, but it’s so big and scary that we often struggle with where to start. In this hands-on writing session, we’ll make space for our feelings and work toward achievable individual and collective ideas for healing ourselves and our planet. With a mix of small group discussion, journalling, meditation, and resources from the Climate Wayfinding program, come discover that joy is possible as we engage our imaginations to create a better, fairer, sustainable world for everyone to live in.

 

Please bring a notebook and pen.

 

Julianne Harvey is an author, innovator, and nurturer in South Surrey, BC, the traditional unceded territories of the Semiahmoo First Nation and the Coast Salish Peoples. She’s the author of six books and wrote film reviews for a weekly newspaper for four years. Her work has appeared in pulp Magazine, WestWord, Freelance, and UPPERCASE Magazine.

Julianne holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, a BA in Creative Writing from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and a certificate in Counselling Skills from Vancouver Community College.

Julianne runs Ruby Finch Books and speaks at large conferences to thousands of writers and teachers on writing, resilience, risk, and creative practices. Her newest book, a post-apocalyptic climate novel called Post Civ, is available now. She loves to wrestle through the messy areas of life with those who long to dive below the surface chatter.

 

This event is part of BC Library Association’s Climate Action Week, a province-wide initiative to highlight the ways communities and libraries are taking action in the climate crisis. Check out all the climate action events at the New Westminster Public Library from November 1-7! nwpl.ca/climate

Virtual Author Event: Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow: Enshittification

In November 2022, Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe the decay of digital platforms as the owners prioritize profit over the experience of their users. Cory’s argument clearly resonated and helped people realize that enshittification is everywhere, creeping into many of the services that we now rely on—so much so that the American Dialect Society named it its 2023 Word of the Year, and it was cited as an inspiration for the popular dystopic TV series 2025 season of Black Mirror.

Cory Doctorow will discuss his highly anticipated new book Enshittification with public policy expert Vass Bednar, to help us understand why Big Tech is the way it is, and how we can disenshittify the internet.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, including The Lost Cause, a solarpunk science-fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His nonfiction book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation is a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Vass Bednar is the Managing Director of the Canadian SHIELD Institute and the co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians. Vas was the host of the Globe & Mail podcast Lately, about navigating life in the new economy. She was also the Executive Director of the Master of Public Policy program at McMaster University.

**Please note, this event is online only and will not take place at the library**

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For the third year in a row, BC’s public libraries are hosting a virtual author series to bring new insights and voices to library users in every corner of British Columbia: BC Libraries Present. Public libraries are known as centres of dialogue on many important ideas in their communities. To build upon that role, Public Library InterLINK has brought together many libraries, both big and small, to host these events and provide access to award-winning authors to library users across the province.

For the third season of this series, the topic is upheaval. This year has been marked by tariffs, trade wars, and international conflicts that are destabilizing economies and political systems worldwide. The advent of artificial intelligence is adding to a wave of technological changes that are disrupting the way we work, how we communicate, and our ability to discern truth from propaganda and disinformation.

All events are hosted on the BC Libraries Present Crowdcast channel: crowdcast.io/@bclibraries-present

BC Libraries Present is a project of BC’s public library federations with the generous financial support of the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

Virtual Author Event: Carol Off

Carol Off: At a Loss for Words

As co-host of CBC Radio’s As It Happens for a decade and a half, Carol Off interviewed over 25,000 people, giving her a unique vantage point on this era of increasing polarization. In her bestselling book At a Loss for Words, she explores how language has been distorted and weaponized, and what happens when we lose our shared meaning for words like democracy, freedom and truth.

For our first event of this season, Carol Off will appear in conversation with former Vancouver City Councillor, Andrea Reimer.

Carol Off is a journalist who co-hosted the multi-award-winning CBC radio program, As It Happens, for almost sixteen years. Before that, she covered news and current affairs in Canada and around the world. As a radio correspondent, she reported on politics in Ottawa and Quebec. As a television journalist, she covered the break-up of Yugoslavia; the 9/11 attack on the United States; the election of Vladimir Putin; and politics, conflicts and culture throughout Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Africa. Her first bestselling book, The Lion, The Fox and the Eagle: A Story of Generals and Justice in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was published in 2000. Since then, she’s written three more award-winning works of narrative non-fiction, including, most recently, All We Leave Behind: A Reporter’s Journey into the Lives of Others, winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

Andrea Reimer is an Adjunct Professor of Practice at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. She started her public work as a community organizer and in 2002 was elected to the Vancouver School Board. In 2008, Andrea co-chaired Gregor Robertson’s successful campaign for Mayor, ran for Council herself, and went on to be elected to three terms on Vancouver City Council. After leaving municipal politics, Andrea was awarded a prestigious Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where she studied and taught about urban policy and strengthening democracy. She has been recognized with a number of awards including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award and the World Green Building Council Chairman’s Award.

**Please note, this event is online only and will not take place at the library**

_________________________________________________________

For the third year in a row, BC’s public libraries are hosting a virtual author series to bring new insights and voices to library users in every corner of British Columbia: BC Libraries Present. Public libraries are known as centres of dialogue on many important ideas in their communities. To build upon that role, Public Library InterLINK has brought together many libraries, both big and small, to host these events and provide access to award-winning authors to library users across the province.

For the third season of this series, the topic is upheaval. This year has been marked by tariffs, trade wars, and international conflicts that are destabilizing economies and political systems worldwide. The advent of artificial intelligence is adding to a wave of technological changes that are disrupting the way we work, how we communicate, and our ability to discern truth from propaganda and disinformation.

All events are hosted on the BC Libraries Present Crowdcast channel: crowdcast.io/@bclibraries-present

BC Libraries Present is a project of BC’s public library federations with the generous financial support of the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

Virtual Author Event: Alex Neve

Alex Neve: Universal

In his decades-long experience fighting for human rights, Alex Neve has seen the failures and moments of progress for universal human rights—and what humanity can do to fulfill their promise. This fall, he will deliver the 2025 Massey Lectures across Canada, exploring the importance of universal human rights in this era of immense global challenges.

Alex Neve will discuss his book and lectures Universal with journalist Andrea Crossan, executive director of the Global Reporting Centre.

Alex Neve is a Canadian-based international human rights lawyer. He is the former secretary general for Amnesty International in Canada and a former member of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. He is a commissioner with the Ottawa People’s Commission on the Convoy Occupation and an adjunct professor teaching in the area of international human rights with the law faculties at the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University.

Andrea Crossan is a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. She is an award-winning radio journalist with over 30 years of experience, reporting from over a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ukraine, South Africa, Uganda, and Brazil. She is currently the executive director of the Global Reporting Centre (GRC), an independent news organization based out of UBC.

**Please note, this event is online only and will not take place at the library**

_________________________________________________________

For the third year in a row, BC’s public libraries are hosting a virtual author series to bring new insights and voices to library users in every corner of British Columbia: BC Libraries Present. Public libraries are known as centres of dialogue on many important ideas in their communities. To build upon that role, Public Library InterLINK has brought together many libraries, both big and small, to host these events and provide access to award-winning authors to library users across the province.

For the third season of this series, the topic is upheaval. This year has been marked by tariffs, trade wars, and international conflicts that are destabilizing economies and political systems worldwide. The advent of artificial intelligence is adding to a wave of technological changes that are disrupting the way we work, how we communicate, and our ability to discern truth from propaganda and disinformation.

All events are hosted on the BC Libraries Present Crowdcast channel: crowdcast.io/@bclibraries-present

BC Libraries Present is a project of BC’s public library federations with the generous financial support of the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

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Bite-Sized Lit: A Celebration of Short Story Month

Join us to celebrate Short Story Month this May with a panel of local authors specializing in the short story form. They will chat about the joys and challenges of writing short stories and will read from recent works. 

Panellists: Carleigh Baker, Shashi Bhat & Jen Currin

Carleigh Baker headshot  Shashi Bhat headshot  Jen Currin headshot

Panel Host: Cathy Stonehouse

Cathy Stonehouse headshot

This event will be presented in person at the New Westminster Public Library, and broadcast live via Zoom. All registered attendees will receive the Zoom link. Unfortunately the event will not be recorded.

Celebrating Poetry Month

Join us to celebrate New Westminster’s newest Poet Laureate and National Poetry Month! Janet Kvammen (new Poet Laureate), Alan Hill (former Poet Laureate) and Emily Molinari will read from their recent poetry. There will also be an open mic session at the end of the event. Registration for the 5-min open mic sessions will take place at the start of the afternoon.

 

Presented in partnership with Royal City Literary Arts Society.

art by Janet Kvammen.

Book Club: Fire Weather

Read John Vaillant’s book, Fire Weather, and join us to discuss this important deep dive into our new climate reality. Using the 2016 Fort McMurray fire as an investigative jumping off point, Vancouver author John Vaillant lays out the intertwined strands of our dependence on fossil fuels and catastrophic climate change.

 

Please register to reserve your copy of the book.

 

This class is part of BC Library Association’s Climate Action Week, a province-wide initiative to highlight the ways communities and libraries are taking action in the climate crisis. Check out all the climate action events at the New Westminster Public Library from November 2-8! nwpl.ca/climate

Bridges Panel: Queer Asian Authors on Writing Chosen & Given Family

Join us at the library for an author panel discussion about queer Asian authors writing about their family – chosen or given. Family can be a loaded term for queer folks, and our panel aims to unpick some of the thorny issues, and provide some insight into the writing process.

The event will be live in person and also livestreamed via Zoom. All registered attendees will receive the Zoom link a few days before the event. It will not be recorded.

About the Panelists

Against a graffitied background, a person with dark, somewhat shaggy hair, looks into the camera and has their hands crossed on a railing in front of themKawika Guillermo  is the award-winning author of Stamped: an anti-travel novel, All Flowers Bloom, and Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir. He has also many short stories, and a video game based on his first novel. He has lived in Portland, Las Vegas, Seattle, Gimhae South Korea, Nanjing China, Hong Kong, and currently resides in Vancouver, Canada, where he works as an Associate Professor of Social Justice at the University of British Columbia.

Against a white background, an Asian woman with long dark hair looks toward the camera with a slight smile, her head tilted to the right.

 

Chinese Canadian author Catherine Lewis (she/her/hers) is a finalist for the Bisexual Book Awards’ Bi Writer of the Year. Her debut chapbook Zipless (845 Press), currently in its third printing, is a finalist for the Bisexual Book Award for Poetry. Her writing has been longlisted for the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize, nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize, and published in The Fiddlehead, PRISM international, The Humber Literary Review, Pulp Literature, and Plenitude Magazine.

A graduate of the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, Catherine is a two-time Banff Centre Literary Arts alumna. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, she lives in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

Against a grey background, an Asian person with short spiky dark hair, wearing a grey t shirt, looks into the camera with their head on a slight angle.

 

Candie Tanaka is a trans writer challenging the binaries continually reconstructed between self and other in literary fiction. Their work explores archive and memory in a futuristic context. They are a creative writing graduate of The Writer’s Studio program at Simon Fraser University, recently completed a MLIS (Master of Library and Information Studies) at the University of Alberta, earned a Certificate of Distinction from BCIT’s New Media Design and Web Development Program and have a BFA in Intermedia from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. In 2017, they were awarded a fully funded literary residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity that helped them further push the boundaries of their writing practice.

Candie lives in Vancouver, BC and is in the final revision stages of a first novel, working on a second manuscript, as well as penning a suite of poems about working on the waterfront. They have published work with Anvil Press, Guernica Editions and Orca Book Publishers. Their latest YA novel is called Baby Drag Queen and was released on April 11, 2023.

About the Moderator

Against a bright red graphic design background, an Asian woman with mid-length dark hair and wearing a pale shirt looks off to the left.Isabella Wang is the author of the chapbook, On Forgetting a Language, and her full-length debut, Pebble Swing, shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Among other recognitions, she has been shortlisted for Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest, The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Contest and Long Poem Contest, and was the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. She is in her Masters of Sociology at SFU. An editor on the Room collective, she is also a youth mentor with Vancouver Poetry House, poetry mentor with the UBC Learning Exchange, web coordinator with poetry in canada, and directs her own non-profit editing and mentorship program, 4827 Revise Revision St. 

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Bridges Workshop: Journal Comics and Zine Making

Local artist and graphic novelist, PJ Patton, will be leading a workshop on journal comics and zine making.

This hands on workshop requires registration and has limited spots. It is suitable for adults and teens. Please register below.

About the Workshop Presenter

A man with dark hair and a checked shirt looks into the camera.PJ Patten is a self-taught graphic illustrator, tattoo artist, and poet whose work is influenced by the intersection of his Japanese heritage with his American military upbringing. Patten’s parents met in Japan where his father was stationed, and the family was raised in Huntington Beach, California where he started airbrushing surfboards in the popular surfing community. 

Patten’s own lived experience of homelessness and addiction as a young adult led to the publishing of his first published book Tower25: Strung Out, Homeless, and Standing Up Again. The evocative and emotional illustrations in the book are inspired by the traditional Japanese artform of Haiga, which blends watercolour painting and haiku. Patten uses inkstone and brushes that belonged to his Oba-chan (Japanese for “grandmother”) that she herself used to create art. His preferred mediums are acrylic paints on canvas, pen, ink, watercolours on paper.

As part of his mental health journey, Patten spent ten years living at a buddhist retreat center, immediately after which he began working on his graphic novel Tower 25. He is currently the visual artist in residence for Changing the Conversation Series Around Homelessness based in Metro Vancouver. Patten has led graphic novel workshops for at-risk youth and given talks on comics and his own recovery story. He has had his paintings and drawings exhibited in and around Vancouver B.C., and is currently working on a new project – also a graphic novel – telling the stories of the children who spent time in Canada’s Japanese Internment Camps.  

Patten is a grateful resident on the unceded and stolen lands of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueum peoples who have been here since time immemorial. He operates out of his studio in Burnaby, where he also makes his home with his wife and two stepsons.

About Arts New West

With a stylized A on the left hand side, the words read Arts New West in turquoise.Founded in 1967 as the Arts Council of New Westminster, Arts New West is a not-for-profit community arts organization built by artists and arts groups with a shared interest in visual, performing, and literary arts. Our goal is to foster, support and promote the arts for all age groups, cultures and Indigenous community members.

About Wildfires Bookshop

On an orange background the text in pale pink, WildFires Bookshop.Wildfires Bookshop is a queer + south asian owned space, located on the stolen and occupied territories of the Halq’emeýlem speaking peoples. We curate books that celebrate both historically and presently excluded voices and stories, and serve as a community-building space that encourages the joy of learning, connection, and care.

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Bridges Workshop: Discovering Your Expert Appeal

Expertise is not only a requirement of self-help or instructional nonfiction. It is also an important component of narrative nonfiction. It galvanizes reader attention and makes the content proposition compelling to editors and readers. In this workshop JJ Lee (fashion writer, memoirist, dark historical fantasy/horror author) walks you through a worksheet that helps you hone your expert appeal for narrative nonfiction, Instagram Reels, YouTube, podcasts, and other forms of nonfiction content creation. A perfect way to enhance the concept and treatment of your next nonfiction project.

This is a hands on workshop with limited space. Please register to secure your spot.

About the Workshop Presenter

Against a white background, an Asian man with glasses looks toward the camera with his hand at his chin.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.

About Arts New West

With a stylized A on the left hand side, the words read Arts New West in turquoise.Founded in 1967 as the Arts Council of New Westminster, Arts New West is a not-for-profit community arts organization built by artists and arts groups with a shared interest in visual, performing, and literary arts. Our goal is to foster, support and promote the arts for all age groups, cultures and Indigenous community members.