Tag Archive for: Writing

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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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.

Reading: Poetic Justice

Join us for a celebration of poetry! At this friendly session, former New Westminster poet laureate, Alan Hill will host and guest poets, Jónina Kirton and Jessica McMillan will read from their work and answer any audience questions. The event will end with an open mic time for others to share their work. The open mic list (5 minutes each) will be available for sign up at the beginning of the event.

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 Poets

A smiling older woman with grey hair looks into the camera.Jónína Kirton, a Red River Métis and Icelandic poet received the 2016 Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category. Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She just released her third book, Standing in a River of Time.

In a black and white photo, a woman with a thick headband and dark hair looks sideways into the camera with a slight smile.

 

Jessica Lee McMillan (she/her) is a poet and teacher with an English MA and creative writing certificate from SFU’s The Writer’s Studio. Her work has appeared in over 30 publications across Turtle Island including Crab Creek Review, The Humber Literary Review, Funicular, Pinhole Poetry, and Rose Garden Press. Jessica was a finalist for The Fiddlehead’s 2023 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest. She won the 2022 Royal City Literary Arts Society Write On! Contest for Poetry and has received poetry nominations for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. She lives on the land of the Halkomelem-speaking Peoples with her little family and large dog

In front of some trees, a smiling older man in a bright blue shirt and glasses looks into the camera.

 

Alan Hill was born in the UK and immigrated to Canada in 2005. He is the former Poet Laureate of the City of New Westminster, BC (2017-2020), former president of the Royal City Literary Arts Society (RCLAS), and was the editor and curator of A Poetry of Place: Journeys Across New Westminster, published in partnership with New Westminster Arts Services. His writing has been published internationally and his poetry has appeared in Event, CV2, Canadian Literature, The Antigonish Review, subTerrain, Poetry is Dead, among others. He works in the field of community development and immigrant settlement and lives in New Westminster, BC. His book In The Blood, was published by Caitlin Press in 2022. 

About RCLAS

A purple and grey logo reading Royal City Literary Arts Society RCLAS

The Royal City Literary Arts Society’s mission is to maintain and build a welcoming community of writers and readers, to support the goals of writers at all stages of their development, and to promote an appreciation of all forms of literary arts.  We are committed to building community capacity through the literary arts, promoting literacy, social connection and cross-cultural understanding and the central importance of the written and spoken word in community life.

Book Celebration

Join us for an author reading, Q&A, and book signing with Shashi Bhat, Jen Currin and kitchen mckeown. Jen and Shashi are New Westminster-based authors and have new books are launching this spring! kitchen is an emerging poet with a unique voice. This event is hosted by Junie Desil and we will celebrate the new books and engage the authors in conversation about writing that envisions other worlds and ways of being.

Please register for this event (below) so we can accommodate numbers.

About the Books

A realistic painting of two peach halves and some plums on a branch with a wasp crawling on the table in front of them is the background for the title and author, Death By a Thousand Cuts, Shashi Bhat.From the Governor General’s Award-shortlisted author Shashi Bhat comes Death By a Thousand Cuts, a breathtaking and sharply funny collection about the everyday trials and impossible expectations that come with being a woman. What would have happened if she’d met him at a different time in her life, when she was older, more confident, less lonely, and less afraid? She wonders not whether they would have stayed together, but whether she would have known to stay away. 
A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman’s relationships with others and with herself.

On a turquoise blue map, bright pink grid of streets and waterways is behind the words, Disembark, Stories by Jen Currin.

 

Award–winning author Jen Currin presents remarkable and sometimes magical new stories of queer friendship and love, against the backdrop of city life.

The stories in Disembark feature queer characters navigating new worlds, new circumstances, and new methods of relating to the people around them. With resonant imagery and clear, lyrical prose, Currin weaves vibrant narratives showcasing queer relationships—be they platonic, romantic, or somewhere in between. A banshee shacks up with a lesbian couple in a rocky relationship, a lonely teen is gifted a knife by their mother’s boyfriend, a queer woman finds herself heartbroken when her best friend fails her at a crucial moment, and a young alcoholic hashes things out with their mother in the afterlife. In modes both realist and fantastic, the profound and eloquent stories in Disembark provide a glimpse into the unexpected, offering insight into the ways we relate in this world and in worlds beyond.

 

About the Authors

Against a grey backdrop, a south Asian woman with long dark hair smiles into the camera.

Shashi Bhat is the author of the story collection Death by a Thousand Cuts, and the novels The Most Precious Substance on Earth, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction, and The Family Took Shape, a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Her fiction has won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and appeared in such publications as The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Best Canadian Stories, and The Journey Prize Stories. Shashi holds an MFA from the Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Cornell University. She lives in New Westminster, BC, where she is the editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.

Against a dark backdrop, a white woman with short blonde hair stares intently into the camera. She wears a light pink shirt.

 

Jen Currin’s Hider/Seeker: Stories won a Canadian Independent Book Award, was a finalist for a ReLit Award, and was named a 2018 Globe and Mail Best Book. They have also published five collections of poetry, most recently Trinity Street (Anansi, 2023); The Inquisition Yours (Coach House, 2010), which won the 2011 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for a LAMBDA, the Dorothy Livesay Prize, and a ReLit Award; and School (Coach House, 2014), which was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award, the Dorothy Livesay Prize, and a ReLit Award. A white settler of mixed, mostly western European ancestry, Currin lives on unceded Qayqayt, Musqueam, Kwikwetlem, and Kwantlen Nation territories in New Westminster, BC and teaches creative writing and English at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

 

in a black and white photograph, a white person with short dark hair looks into the camera with a tilt to their head.

kitchen mckeown’s debut chapbook i need not be good was published in February 2022 by Rahila’s Ghost Press and shortlisted for the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award.​ Their poems are forthcoming or have appeared in SAD Mag, Poetry Magazine, Room, Peach Mag, Poetry is Dead, The Ex-Puritan, and Bad Nudes. They were awarded the George McWhirter Prize for Poetry in Winter 2020. ​

 

About the Host

Against a black background, a black woman with long hair looks sideways into the camera.Born of immigrant (Haitian) parents on the traditional territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka in the island known as Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), raised in Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg), Junie Désil brings a wealth of experience and an unwavering passion for effecting positive change. With a career spanning over two decades in the non-profit sector, Junie has consistently dedicated herself to uplifting and empowering communities made vulnerable and marginalized. Most recently, Junie worked in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) in various roles from frontline support worker to director of operations and everything in between, in support of women living and working in the DTES. Junie’s knowledge extends to critical areas such as human resources, leadership, strategic planning, organizational change, and governance. Her expertise spans various aspects of community engagement and development, encompassing workshop design, training initiatives, project management, and program implementation.

Junie also finds time to write, coach, and consult. Her first book released in 2020, Eat Salt | Gaze at the Ocean, received wide acclaim. She also serves as a mentor in The Writer’s Studio program at SFU. Currently residing on the traditional territories of the Homalco, Tla’amin and Klahoose, Junie works for Vancity as manager of diversity, equity, inclusion and reconciliation, and she is working on her second poetry collection.

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. 

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

A black & white photo of a man with a short beard and wearing a cap and glasses, smiling and looking into the camera. Some guitars hang on the wall behind him.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.

With a black background a woman with long, blonde, curly hair and glasses, wearing a blue cardigan, looks into the camera with a slight smile.

 

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.

A black and white photo of a person with short grey hair, who is looking up and to the left with slightly squinted eyes.

 

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

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.

 

Author Feedback Session

Join New West Writers to get feedback on your writing and offer feedback to others! This friendly group of local authors has been meeting since 1990 and invites you to join them in their circle of feedback. Bring 6 – 8 copies of the piece you wish to have critiqued – the group accepts any genre. The maximum length of each piece is 800 words. Participants will give the rest of the group some idea of the areas about which they’re looking for feedback (e.g. accuracy of dialogue, scene setting, description of the characters etc.) and then read out their own writing. Members of the group will then offer their feedback, in the spirit of mutual support. Of course, as author of the work, participants can take notice of as much or as little of the feedback as they wish. The group gives honest opinions and remember that critiquing is not criticism, it is constructive feedback.

Each hour of the session will have 3 participants with 20 minutes each. Participants will stay for the whole hour to receive their feedback and participate in offering feedback to others.

Please register by emailing askus@nwpl.ca, and indicate which hour you would like to participate in (11-12, 12-1, 1-2, or 2-3). There are 12 available spots and are allocated on a first come first served basis.

On a dark maroon background, two pencil icons frame the words New West Writers.

Microfiction Showcase

In this celebratory reading event, we showcase the creations from two Microfiction workshops offered in advance of the Bridges Literary Festival (April 27 and May 1). Members of the community are creating postcard-sized pieces that will be displayed in the fiction area of the library. Workshop instructor, Hannah Bel Davis will be featured and New Westminster’s Poet Laureate, Elliott Slinn will host! The event will take place in the reading lounge on the main floor of the library.

with a gold background, a smiling woman with blonde hair looks toward the left. She has gold chains around her neck and bare shoulders.

 

Hannah Bel Davis is a literary and visual artist. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Concordia University and a BFA in Film and English from Simon Fraser University. She lives with her family and animals on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Halkomelem-speaking peoples.

 

 

 

 

A light skinned black man with very short hair and wearing a black shirt looks directly into the camera.Poet Elliott Slinn was named New Westminster’s fifth (and youngest) Poet Laureate in June 2021, actively beginning his tenure that August. Slinn was born and raised in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood of New Westminster and still resides in the Royal City today. Slinn, in addition to being a poet, is also a singer-songwriter. Slinn’s poetry and lyrics focus on the existential events of our day-to-day existence. Slinn’s work has been described as immediate and accessible, as he aims to transform his personal tale into a shared experience.

 

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MicroFiction Workshop

Have a story to tell but worried about being wordy? Join artist and writer to craft a post-card sized piece that tells a compelling story in a tiny format.

Find your voice in this 2-hour creative non-fiction workshop. Collaborate with the workshop facilitator Hannah Bel Davis and your peers to tell your own story on the back of a postcard. Explore your story in a safe and supportive environment through the lens of creative micro non-fiction. Develop technical writing skills and learn about pace, tone, and narrative voice. No prior experience necessary. This workshop is accessible to all. Each participant will leave with a completed project.

The postcards you make will be showcased at our upcoming Bridges Literary Festival!

All supplies will be provided. Sign up for one session only, please!

This registration is for April 27. Please visit the other event here if you wish to attend on May 1.

If this program is full, please email askus@nwpl.ca to put put on the waitlist. Indicate the day you wish to attend and the best way to reach you.