CNC Caledonia Reading Series / UNBC Just West of Unruly Reading Series

(all the readings are free and open to the public)
(biographies below)

Fall Readings

Elizabeth Bachinsky Friday Sept. 21 7:30 CNC

Ryan Knighton Monday Oct. 1 7:30 CNC

Wayde Compton & Ken Belford Thursday Oct. 4 10:00 am UNBC
Friday Oct. 5 7:30 pm CNC

Neal McLeod & M. Jane Smith Wednesday Oct. 17 1:00 pm UNBC

Pam Galloway Thursday Oct. 18 10:30 UNBC
Friday Oct. 19 7:30 CNC

Stephen Cain Monday Oct 22 7:30 pm CNC
Tues Oct 23 10:00 am UNBC

Carellin Brooks Friday Oct. 26 7:30 CNC

a. rawlings & Jordan Scott Thurs Nov 1 10:00 am UNBC
Friday Nov 2 7:30 pm CNC

Tim Taylor Nov 9 7:30 pm CNC


Readings made possible with the financial help of the Canada Council for the Arts, The Writers’ Union of Canada, CNC, and UNBC.

**Room numbers TBA. Reading times and dates may change so watch for updates.



Biographies:

Elizabeth Bachinsky was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1976 and grew up in northern British Columbia, the Yukon, and BC’s Fraser Valley. She published her first book of poems, Curio: Grotesques and Satires from the Electronic Age (BookThug) in 2005 and her work has appeared in In Fine Form: The Book of Canadian Form Poetry (Polestar, 2005), Whitewall of Sound: Contemporary Canadian Concrete Poetry (housepress, 2003), and Pissing Ice: “New” Canadian Poets (BookThug, 2004). In 2004, she received an honourable mention for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Poetry. She lives in the suburbs of Vancouver where she is the poetry editor for Event magazine.

Ryan Knighton was born on September 19, 1972, in Langley, British Columbia. On his eighteenth birthday, Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a congenital disease marked by a progressive pathology of night-blindness, tunnel vision and eventually total blindness. Despite his rapidly failing eyesight, Knighton was hired just days shy of his twenty-sixth birthday by Capilano College’s English Department. He continues to teach literature and creative writingthere. For two years he also served as editor of The Capilano Review, even curating the magazine’s visual art spread. Good descriptions helped. In 2001, Anvil Press published his first book, Swing in the Hollow. The following year he co-authored Cars with George Bowering, Canada’s first poet laureate (Coach House Books). Since then, Knighton has written numerous satirical and comic essays for The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun, the Montreal Gazette, and for such popular magazines as The New York Times, The Utne Reader, Saturday Night and Geist. His last two books were Cars (with George Bowering) and Cockeyed: A Memoir. Now in the final stage before total blindness, only 1% of Knighton’s visual field refuses to quit. As for interests, he has many, but none involve sports or sudden movements.

Wayde Compton is a Vancouver writer and editor 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. (See HAMP's blog here.) Wayde 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 and Kwantlen University College.

Neal McLeod is a multimedia artist: a painter, poet, film director, actor, and a writer and performer in the comedy troupe, The Fair Skinned Indians. He recently travelled to Berlin where he presented his latest film, A Man Called Horst. His Aboriginal roots play a large part in his art, and he is the force behind The Crowhop Café, a regular event that highlights Aboriginal talent. He now teaches at Trent University.

Born and raised in the Gitxsan community of Gitanmaaxs in northwestern BC, M. Jane Smith is a member of the Wolf Clan from the House of Wii K'aax. The title of her book Returning the Feathers is a reference to the Gitxsan expression, Guuxs mak'am mik'aax . It is used by Smith to thank all the Gitxsan storytellers from the past. “It's not just me talking,” she explains. “When my grandmother started to tell a story, she would credit her sources and you'd know you were hearing stories from the beginning of time. You would feel honoured to be part of that.” Smith has been telling stories for many years. She shares their layered drama, humour and lessons in her role as an elementary school teacher, as a Sim'algax language instructor, and at the many social and cultural gatherings where she is invited to speak. Already holding a teaching degree from the University of Victoria and a Masters degree from the University of Northern British Columbia, Smith has completed her doctoral work for the University of British Columbia. She continues to live and work in the Gitxsan territories.

Pam Galloway is a Vancouver poet with an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. In 1998 she contributed to Quintet: Themes and Variations (Ekstasis). It was followed by her own book, Parallel Lines (Ekstasis, 2006), a memoir that explores the immigrant experience connecting 21st century coastal British Columbia wit 19th century industrial England. Galloway is a speech and language therapist for children who has also written as a medical reporter.

Stephen Cain is the author of American Standard/ Canada Dry, a new collection of poetry from Coach House Books. Previous full-length books include Torontology (ECW, 2001) and dyslexicon (Coach House, 1999). Cain’s work has been anthologized in The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War, Career Suicide!: Contemporary Literary Humour and side/lines: a new Canadian poetics. His poems have appeared internationally, including in such journals as: Rampike, Open Letter, Jacket (Australia), Matrix, filling station, Essex (U.S.), dANDelion, eye weekly and QSQ. Since 1995 he has operated the micropress Kitsch in Ink, and has published numerous chapbooks and broadsides in the small and micro press communities. Cain’s sound poetry can be heard on the CD Carnivocal (Red Deer, 1999) and he is also recognized as a significant visual poet. He has been a literary editor at the late, lamented literary journal Queen Street Quarterly and is currently a fiction editor at Insomniac Press. Cain is an Assistant Professor in the School of Arts and Letters, at the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, York University.

Carellin Brooks is managing editor at a local publisher. She is the co-editor, with Brett Josef Grubisic, of Carnal Nation: Brave New Sex Fictions and the author of Every Inch a Woman: Phallic Possession, Femininity and the Text (UBC Press, 2005). She teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of British Columbia.

a. rawlings is a poet, editor, and multidisciplinary artist. In 2001, angela received the bpNichol Award for Distinction in Writing when she graduated from York University. Since then, she has worked with a variety of Canadian literary organizations, including The Mercury Press, The Scream Literary Festival, The Lexiconjury Reading Series, and the TV documentary series Heart of a Poet. angela is also co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, 2005) and the author of Wide slumber for lepidopterists (Coach House Books, 2006).

Jordan Scott is an MA student at the University of Calgary. Originally from Coquitlam BC, Scott draws on his grandfather’s journals for the vocabulary in his first book Silt, a suite of poems describing the arc of his family’s journey from the slave camps of WWII-era Poland to the Fraser River’s lush lower reaches. Cutting across this immigrant tale is Scott’s dialogue with his life-long stutter. Jordan has worked a variety of jobs, including five years as a general labourer at a mental institution in BC, as well as a “denim shooter” in Cooper Pedy Australia where he blasted away at designer jeans, which were then sold for hundreds of dollars in Japan. Scott is currently working on his second book, blert, which investigates the poetics of stuttering.

In 2000, Timothy Taylor became the first writer ever to have three short stories on the short list for the Journey Prize, and he won for “Doves of Townsend.” The following year, Knopf Canada published Stanley Park to outstanding reviews, as part of its Canada's New Face of Fiction program. Taylor wrapped up his consultancy business and began to write full time. Stanley Park is a memorable novel that takes the reader behind the scenes of the restaurant industry, with both the park and Vancouver playing starring roles. The book garnered nominations for several important literary prizes, establishing Taylor as a writer to watch. A year later, he followed up with Silent Cruise, a collection of short fiction. In 2006, his second novel, Story House, took on another landscape, the rarefied world of architectural design. It was published to excellent reviews and became a Canadian bestseller. Timothy Taylor continues to live and to write in Vancouver.