21 October 2009

Declining America
book launch & reading
Wednesday, December 2
7:30 pm
Nancy O's
1261 3rd Ave

click here for a Declining America reading by Rob Budde

14 October 2009

The 4th Annual UNBC Aboriginal Writers and Storytellers Festival

This year's festival was the best yet. It was held September 30 - October 3rd at UNBC and other sites in Prince George. This 4th and final festival in the cycle of festivals was called "Calling All Warriors." The purpose was to call out aboriginal men to protect their communities and especially women in the context of so much recent violence against aboriginal women.

Aboriginal authors who came from out of town to the festival were (left to right):

Janet Marie Rogers, Joanne Arnott, Eden Robinson, Richard Van Camp, Cherie Demaline, Neal McLeod, (not pictured) Garry Gottfriedson, and Richard Wagamese.















Once again the festival was a fine mix of performance, storytelling, readings, song, music, and sharing.



Look for next year's festival as we reinvent and restart another cycle of words, nations, and friendship.

09 October 2009

Writers on the East Line






Saturday, October 17th, 2009
from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

A reading to introduce and appreciate the railway and sawmill communities along the Canadian National Railway line east of Prince George. The line closely follows the upper Fraser River for some 275 kilometers from Prince George to Tete Jaune Cache, British Columbia.

Through the eyes and words of those who have written about this fascinating area, attendees will appreciate the varied views of the physical, historical and cultural landscape. Featured speakers include:



Cecil Giscombe
lives in Berkeley and teaches at the University of California. His poetry books include Two Sections from Practical Geography, Prairie Style, and Giscome Road, among other titles. His memoir, Into and Out of Dislocation, is an account of his search—through central British Columbia—for traces of his “old arrivant” John Robert Giscome, for whom the Giscome Portage was named. His book-in-progress, Railroad Sense, is a poetry and prose work about train metaphors and references.

Kyle Kusch,
through his graduate thesis research and his employment with UNBC's Rural and Small Town Research Programme, has participated in numerous projects regarding the social health and well-being of the East Line communities. He has also conducted numerous oral history interviews for UNBC's Upper Fraser Historical Geography Project. His particular interest is in migration patterns in central British Columbia. An avid map collector and long-distance walker, he continues to reside in his hometown of Nakusp, British Columbia.

Barry McKinnon
lives in Prince George and Tumbler Ridge. He taught for over thirty years at CNC and is publisher of Gorse Press. His many books include I Wanted to Say Something, Sex at Thirty-One, The the, The Centre, and Pulp Log, among others. The the was short-listed for the Governor General's Award; Pulp Log won the Dorothy Livesay Prize. His writing is included in many anthologies, among which is The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. He is a life-long jazz fan.

Trelle A. Morrow
contributed postmarks to Postscript '90: commemorating 75 years of postal history in the Fraser-Fort George Region (published by the Fraser-Fort George Museum Society in 1990). His new book, Sternwheelers on the Upper Fraser (published by CNC Press) documents the era during which sternwheelers operated on the Fraser. The book is especially concerned with the social contexts of this time (1863-1921) and includes examinations of “resource exploitation, railway development and settlement.” Trelle Morrow is a retired architect; he lives in Prince George.

J. Kent Sedgwick
has researched, written, and published extensively on central British Columbia history and geography. He came to CNC in 1970 to teach geography and then worked, for many years, as a city planner for Prince George, where he continues to live. He is now an Adjunct Professor of Geography at UNBC. His new book, Giscome Chronicle, documents “the rise and demise” of the village of Giscome, one of the key East Line towns. He is one of the founders of the Upper Fraser Historical Geography Project.

Marilyn Wheeler
was born in Britain but came to Canada fifty years ago and now lives in McBride. Her book, The Robson Valley Story: A Century of Dreams, came out in 1979. The book, extensively revised and updated to include new oral histories, was re-published in 2008 and had its launch at the Beanery restaurant in McBride’s still-active railway station. She operates a sheep farm at McBride and has been a justice of the peace and a marriage commissioner and has been active in the field of public health. Marilyn Wheeler’s particular interest is the history of railroads.


Admission: $10 plus tax .Please call (250) 563-7351 to reserve a seat (seating is limited) and/or for more information.